Report Finds Federal Anti-Ecstasy Bill Endangers Adolescents and
Violates Free Speech

CALIFORNIA -- A report issued on June 28, 2000, by the Center for
Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, finds that provisions in the Ecstasy
Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000 (S.2612) will endanger adolescents and
others who use MDMA (Ecstasy), and will violate the free speech rights
of a broad range of writers, scholars, reporters, and activists, whose
work departs from the government's "just say no" national drug policy.

While the Act purports to punish Ecstasy offenses the same as
methamphetamine offenses, flaws in the Act's design actually punish
Ecstasy offender's much more harshly than methamphetamine offenders --
setting forth the same punishment for selling 20 doses of Ecstasy as for
selling 500 doses of methamphetamine. This skewed punishment structure
will encourage dealers to fraudulently sell methamphetamine as Ecstasy,
thereby endangering adolescents and others who will believe they are
purchasing Ecstasy, when they will actually be receiving the much more
potent and dangerous drug, methamphetamine.

Section 6 of the Act, which seeks to criminalize certain information
about Ecstasy and other controlled substances, violates the First
Amendment, and endangers adolescents and others who will find it
increasingly difficult to obtain reliable information on how to reduce
the harms associated with using Ecstasy. The Act's information ban will
also impact parents, doctors, scholars, reporters, harm reduction
advocates,Web site operators, and other citizens whose speech will be
chilled for fear of saying or writing the wrong thing and facing ten
years in prison.

In light of the heated nature of the public debate over drug use and
drug policy, the Act's overbroad and vague ban on certain information
concerning Ecstasy and other controlled substances, invites bad faith
arrests by law enforcement agents - arrests aimed not at securing valid
convictions, but rather at chilling expression and deterring efforts by
citizens and organizations advocating for changes in national drug
policy.

The Act would attribute unsubstantiated factual findings to Congress
concerning Ecstasy. The report by the Center for Cognitive Liberty &
Ethics suggests that rather than summarily adopt such findings, Congress
should hold a full evidentiary hearing on Ecstasy's risk profile,
addiction potential, and therapeutic use potential.

The complete report is available online as an Adobe Acrobat file at:
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/reports/ecstasyact.pdf or via FAX or
postal mail from the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics.

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The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics is a nonpartisan, nonprofit,
law and policy center working in the public interest to promote
fundamental civil liberties. The Center seeks to foster cognitive
liberty: the basic human right to unrestrained independent thinking,
including the right to control one's own mental processes and to
experience the full spectrum of possible thought.
 
 

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