Today’s global EDM business boasts an estimated value of $6.9 billion as massive music events attract more and more attendees every year. Thirty years later, the popularity of electronic dance music has catapulted ecstasy, now known as molly, into the mainstream once again.
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Those charges were later dismissed because police had misspelled the 29-letter chemical name, but more arrests followed, including a massive raid on the Starck that left its floors littered with a collection of pills and powders. On July 9, just a year after the Starck’s opening, Dallas cops made the nation’s first ecstasy-related arrest. On July 1, 1985, the DEA classified ecstasy as a Schedule I substance, officially making it illegal. Soon, DEA agents turned away from cocaine cartels to chase a new substance they privately derided as “that kiddie drug.” Gays mingled with straights on dance floors. By 1985, rumors out of Texas trumpeted that MDMA had gone recreational in a big way. If you could tap into the core of the Starck and liquefy its mood into substance, ecstasy would flow out like sap. But it was in Dallas, at the Starck, that the drug truly turned into a phenomenon. A chemical compound originally synthesized in 1912 in the labs of the German pharmaceutical giant Merck, ecstasy was rediscovered in the 1970s and circulated through psychologist circles as MDMA (an acronym for its chemical name, methylenedioxymethamphetamine) before landing on the doorsteps of such New York clubs as the Saint and Studio 54.
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The drug Adam would go on to be rebranded as ecstasy and banned by the Drug Enforcement Administration, but in 1984 it was entirely legal. “Here,” Jaggers said, handing de Limur the bag. He met one of its owners, Christina “Sita” de Limur. When Jaggers arrived at the club, a thousand people were already lined up outside. Jaggers touched down in Dallas with his little bag of whatchamacallit three months ahead of the Republican National Convention where Ronald Reagan would accept the presidential nomination. He didn’t feel like a drug prophet on a mission to unleash a new cultural and sexual revolution.
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He had no idea that the powder he carried, as inconspicuous as cornstarch, would spread like a contagion through Texas and turn frat boys into drug dealers, sorority girls into sex fiends and the rich sons of oil barons into dance-club freaks. Jaggers stuffed the bag into his luggage. You wanted to feel hands on your body, the breath of a stranger in your ear and the thumping of bass in your rib cage. Your jaw muscles seized up and your body rapidly dehydrated, but you felt more honest, confident, powerful, compassionate, joyful and sexy. Physical sensations intensified and thoughts became crystal clear. A teaspoon of the white powder-often dissolved in a cup of coffee-was enough to flood your brain with serotonin and dopamine. The dealer produced a fist-size sandwich bag of a new designer drug called Adam. His friend dealt drugs, and Jaggers needed supplies for the road. A carefully managed diet of PCP, cocaine, LSD, Special K and quaaludes drove the night through peaks and valleys. Sex was found on the balcony, drugs in the locker rooms. The two were regulars at the Saint, a superclub in the East Village that served as the city’s mother hive of gay culture before being snuffed out by the heavy onset of AIDS. On the way, he swung by a friend’s apartment on Washington Square.
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Sure enough, Jaggers hung up the phone, packed his bags and headed for the airport. Jaggers was the one DJ she knew who happened to be from Texas and who would fly halfway across the country if she snapped her fingers. Now she was doing the owners a favor by ringing her friend in New York. Along with Stevie Nicks, Jones had headlined the opening of a flashy new club called the Starck the night before, but the house DJ never showed and the club had no one to spin the second night. And so it was not out of the ordinary when, on an otherwise unremarkable morning in May 1984, Jaggers received a phone call from Grace Jones. Over the years he has come to know everyone-a sort of omnipresent, Forrest Gump–type character in the club world. He deejayed at gay discos in San Francisco in the 1970s and did lighting and sound at clubs for New Order, the Smiths and Moby in the 1980s and 1990s. Kerry Jaggers is one of drug history’s greatest bit players. He believes MDMA could be approved for PTSD treatment by 2021 and dreams of total legalization by 2032,” says Peter Simek of Playboy. “With these kinds of results, Doblin hopes his organization can steer MDMA toward legalization the same way medical marijuana has become legal. Summary: Playboy outlines the history of MDMA use in contemporary culture before and after its criminalization, interviewing MAPS Founder Rick Doblin, Ph.D., to discuss the history of MDMA as an adjunct to psychotherapy and why he founded MAPS.