Funniest Story of the Year!!!! -MUST READ-

[icarus]

This was sent to me by my mother with the title "THIS COULD BE YOU!" I included my response to it if you guys are at all interested in hearing it, but if anything just read the story that they feed to middle-class america to scare them into condemning a drug based entirely on allegorical evidence and the suggestion that the worse case scenario is the inevitable one!!!!

"E" is for Empty: Daniel's Story
By Laura D'Angelo
Adapted from Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body, Scholastic, Inc., 2003. (While the following story is real, to insure anonymity the photo is of a model and is not of the article's subject).

Daniel, 17, of San Clarita Valley, California, wanted prom night to be special. So, he reached into his tuxedo pocket and took out pills stamped with images of Tweety Bird and Buddha. Ecstasy (also called E, X, XTC, Adam, hug, love drug, and beans) looked harmless enough. But Daniel found out the hard way how dangerous it can be.
"My heart was racing so fast. I thought I was having a heart attack," Daniel said. A friend helped him into the prom because his legs wouldn't stop trembling. The dance floor was located on a Hollywood movie set. Daniel tingled from head to toe. "Then I hit a peak," he said. "I felt like a movie star."
Later at a friend's house, Daniel crashed into gloom and confusion. He swallowed two more "E" pills. Taking multiple doses within a relatively short time multiplies the toxic risks of any drug. With ecstasy, "stacking," or doubling the dose, carries especially high risk. The level of ecstasy builds and the user's body can't keep up with the amount of drug in his or her blood. That's what happened to Daniel.
"I lay down and couldn't lift my head," he said. "My legs were rocking back and forth."
The following weekend, Daniel dropped "E" at a rave where some 200 kids danced on a dirt clearing. Before long Daniel was selling ecstasy. "I'd walk into raves and yell E and people would crowd around. I felt a sense of power." With the profits, he bought more ecstasy which he took often, always with other kids. "I did drugs so I didn't have to feel alone," he said.
When Daniel's father worked nights, friends flocked to his house. Adorned with glow-in-the-dark shirts and beads, they danced to trance music and chewed pacifiers to keep their teeth from grinding.
Lives Destroyed
Soon Daniel was dropping up to five "E" pills a day. Desperate to feed his habit, he started selling cocaine and Methamphetamine as well as ecstasy. "I was skinny. My skin was the color of paper. My teeth were rotting out," Daniel said. "I would steal anything I could get my hands on. I stole valuables from my dad. I didn't see anything wrong with the way I was acting."
Once, a friend's mother wanted to buy drugs from Daniel. When he delivered the bag of speed to the house, Daniel watched his friend's face crumple in sadness. "I felt really bad. I saw lives being destroyed because of what I was doing," he said.
On New Year's Eve, Daniel's girlfriend called him a "drug addict" and a "lowlife." He jumped out of her car. "Staring at the city hotels and gas stations, I thought I'm going to be living alone in the streets and that scared the daylights out of me," Daniel recalled.
The next morning, he went to his father and said, "Dad, I need help."
New Year/New Beginning
A resident of Phoenix House, a drug-treatment center in Lake View Terrace, California, Daniel has been clean for six months. He's gained weight, and he cares about himself again. But he worries about ecstasy's effects. "I feel like I've suffered brain damage," he said. "Sometimes I get stuck in conversations, because I can't find a word." Other times he walks the unit and stops in horror, forgetting where he's going.
Daniel is trying to understand his past and piece his life back together. "I got into drugs because I felt like no one liked me. Then nobody wanted to be around me because of the drugs, and I ended up completely alone," he said. "I feel like a new person now."

Here's my response:

This kid is an idiot. Of course there will be lasting effects if you ingest a drug like ecstasy five times a day, but this article made me laugh more than quiver. This is all allegorical evidence spewed to scare middle-class Americans, like yourself, into becoming zealots for a 'just' cause and to give you fodder, proving the destructive powers behind illicit drugs...right! If you want allegorical evidence, let me list a few things:

- I know one raver who has been raving and using ecstasy since 1991, sometimes every weekend sometimes once a month, and guess what? He's not brain dead! As a matter of fact, he's an amazingly kind and down to earth person now and DJs and has not noted any impairment in brain function.

- I know a group of six, count them, six, that have been raving and using ecstasy since 1995, they now only attend massive events with like 15,000+ people, they are not physically or emotionally addicted to ecstasy and never have been. Furthermore, they are not brain dead and have not noticed any impairment in their brain function.

- I know, literally, thousands of ravers and I've never heard this phrased uttered, even once, "he isn't right in the head, he did too much X" or anything analogous to it.

- I know, literally, thousands of ravers and I've never heard of this happening to a single one of them, and none of them use every day, or even every other day, it is usually once a week, once every other week, or once in a while.

- I know, literally, thousands of ravers and I ensure you that I could get each of them to tell you how ecstasy has profoundly changed their life for the better and has made them a much better person.

I highly doubt the validity of this story, because if he were to take ecstasy every day, sometimes up to five pills, he would quite literally STOP feeling the effects of it very quickly because the bodies tolerance to it, much like cocaine or lsd or mushrooms, increases rapidly with each dosing, so after a week of ingesting ecstasy, he would probably have to take four or five pills to begin feeling even close to what he was at the beginning of the week.

You have to be much more intelligent than this! Look at all the evidence they use, they cite no medical research or studies only the testimony of an obviously emotionally and mentally handicapped individual - why else would he be taking ecstasy every day and why else would he 'feel alive' when he sold drugs. This same path can be taken when considering ANYTHING and used to justify its condemnation. Let me use an example: plastic surgery.

There are thousands of horror stories about plastic surgery gone awry. Read about the horror stories of plastic surgery:

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Plastic Surgery: Plain Truths - Brief Article
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, April, 1999 by Jane Bennett Clark
If you're looking at cosmetic surgery, here's how to protect yourself.
When Carol Smerling of Millbrook, N.Y., went into surgery for a face lift and eyelid tuck five years ago, she had every reason--she thought--to feel confident. Her doctor had come highly recommended and was board-certified in plastic surgery. But he wasn't experienced in the type of face lift he was about to perform: a complex, deep-muscle version he had observed only days earlier at a weekend seminar, Smerling claims.
The results were disastrous. The doctor allegedly severed a key nerve and destroyed Smerling's eyelids and small tear ducts, necessitating eight more surgeries. Because her corneas were affected, Smerling says, she is losing her eyesight. "I'm a totally different person who is going blind from a face lift," she says. After suing for negligence, she settled out of court for $1.4 million.
Horror story? Definitely. Far-fetched? Not necessarily. Spurred by a good economy and sagging bodies, Americans are seeking surgery at record rates. The number of liposuction procedures, for example, has tripled in the past decade, according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. And because insurers rarely cover cosmetic surgery, patients are paying out of pocket-an average of $1,700 for liposuction and $3,800 for a tummy tuck in surgeons' fees alone. Doctors are boarding the beauty bandwagon in droves, too, often to replace income lost to managed care.

And here are a few examples of people who are ADDICTED to plastic surgery which were on Opera's show recently:

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

The facts are that ecstasy and plastic surgery is not physically addictive, but like ANYTHING it can become addictive emotionally. Does this mean because a few idiots choose to abuse it that it gives you the right to completely demonize and condemn the entire practice? Of course not.

Furthermore, if he attended a rave here and yelled 'E' he'd be crowded by security, and then be quickly thrown out and his drugs confiscated - he is an idiot.

If you had any interaction with the rave community and the youth, you'd know how ridiculous this story is and you would laugh as I did when I read it. I feel horrible for the poor kid, but to use this as the justification of its illicit status, could you be serious? Out of all of the kids that I know that have used ecstasy or use it regularly, I have never ever heard of anything like this happening, ever.

If the plastic surgery analogy doesn't satisfy you, I could easily have used something such as food to prove how a few idiots who abuse something which is largely virtuous can give allegorical evidence to any crusader to point to its condemnation.

[~LadyMercury~]

Well put. And legs trembling? I thought Ecstasy makes your body relax. Especially your legs. They just melt. =)

[bshieh]

Taking multiple doses within a relatively short time multiplies the toxic risks of any drug. With ecstasy, "stacking," or doubling the dose, carries especially high risk. The level of ecstasy builds and the user's body can't keep up with the amount of drug in his or her blood.


what...?


it sounds like an 12 year-old who's only source of information is a wikipedia article wrote this.


correct me if im wrong, but isnt it nearly impossible to overdose on ecstasy? and your body not being about to keep up with it, would just be your body not having enough serotonin left... which i guess could cause you to become depressed and /wrists a lot...

////////-dies-.

[spoofy062]

yeah, i think bluelight studies showed that the average male needs about 56 pills to "Overdose" on mdma... :-P

who the fuck eats that many pills at once? lol

everyone always rants about how it burns holes in ur brain, or how people are always overdosing on ecstacy...

the reality is the people who die from using it are idiots that dont nkow what theyre taking, and they over / under hydrated...or overheated.

and even then they usually dont die lol..

i still hate oprah btw... shes the one that started the "ecstacy burns holes in ur brain" rumor with the stupid blood flow diagram.

[Astridddddd]

this article is retarded.


but i do def. know people who are E-TARDED.

it happens...its called a drug problem. its pretty easy to avoid it since mdma isnt a physically addictive drug. but lots of people are stupid. so yeah...

[word]

i think that article is dumb and i agree that it is propaganda used to brainwash the middle-classman.... but it wasnt that funny... it was long...

[X treme raver]

Originally Posted by icarus

Here's my response:

This kid is an idiot. Of course there will be lasting effects if you ingest a drug like ecstasy five times a day, but this article made me laugh more than quiver. This is all allegorical evidence spewed to scare middle-class Americans, like yourself, into becoming zealots for a 'just' cause and to give you fodder, proving the destructive powers behind illicit drugs...right! If you want allegorical evidence, let me list a few things:

- I know one raver who has been raving and using ecstasy since 1991, sometimes every weekend sometimes once a month, and guess what? He's not brain dead! As a matter of fact, he's an amazingly kind and down to earth person now and DJs and has not noted any impairment in brain function.

- I know a group of six, count them, six, that have been raving and using ecstasy since 1995, they now only attend massive events with like 15,000+ people, they are not physically or emotionally addicted to ecstasy and never have been. Furthermore, they are not brain dead and have not noticed any impairment in their brain function.

- I know, literally, thousands of ravers and I've never heard this phrased uttered, even once, "he isn't right in the head, he did too much X" or anything analogous to it.

- I know, literally, thousands of ravers and I've never heard of this happening to a single one of them, and none of them use every day, or even every other day, it is usually once a week, once every other week, or once in a while.

- I know, literally, thousands of ravers and I ensure you that I could get each of them to tell you how ecstasy has profoundly changed their life for the better and has made them a much better person.

ecstacy can change you in a bad way
my bf took multiple E pills for a week straight and his attitude was totally different in a bad way
and he would get really really bad headaches

Originally Posted by bshieh

Taking multiple doses within a relatively short time multiplies the toxic risks of any drug. With ecstasy, "stacking," or doubling the dose, carries especially high risk. The level of ecstasy builds and the user's body can't keep up with the amount of drug in his or her blood.


what...?


it sounds like an 12 year-old who's only source of information is a wikipedia article wrote this.


correct me if im wrong, but isnt it nearly impossible to overdose on ecstasy? and your body not being about to keep up with it, would just be your body not having enough serotonin left... which i guess could cause you to become depressed and /wrists a lot...

////////-dies-.

i doubt that its nearly impossible to die from it
i know someone who was drinking vodka then popped 7 e pills and blacked out after 2 and said he probably almost died.
but that was just stupid for him to do