History of ecstasy

A patent for MDMA was first filed in 1912 by German pharmaceutical company Merck. It was not ingested by humans for about another half century.

During the 1970s in the United States, pharmacologist Dr Alexander Shulgin rediscovered the MDMA compound and MDMA was promoted as a therapeutic product to give patients insight into their problems and reduce their psychological defences. Some psychiatrists called ecstasy ‘penicillin for the soul’ despite the fact it had not been clinically tested or approved for human use. 

During the 1980s the use of ‘empathy’ and ‘ecstasy’ (street names that were then given to MDMA) began to increase, especially among gay and urban communities. By the 1990s ecstasy use was entrenched in the nightclub and electronic music scenes.

Ecstasy was banned in the United States in 1985 when the US Drug Enforcement Agency added it to schedule 1 of its list of controlled substances. It was deemed to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse. Other countries, including New Zealand, soon followed, and ecstasy or MDMA is illegal in most countries of the world.