Research and popular commentary on Ecstasy often frames users as rebellious youth reacting against mainstream society via hedonistic rave parties and reckless intoxication. Critical consideration of the complex social and economic foundations of Ecstasy use is lacking in much of this youth-based research. Growing evidence, for example, suggests that a wide range of people take Ecstasy in a variety of contexts. Through the lens of anthro-economic approaches to consumption this article suggests that although Ecstasy is an illicit drug popular among youth, the symbolic meanings surrounding its use are also connected to the every-day. Accounts of 12 Ecstasy users from Canberra, Australia show how their experiences of Ecstasy, and the value the drug gives to their social relations, are firmly situated within the aspirations and confines of late capitalist consumer society. Participants' narratives were associated with ideologies about vitality, leisure and the importance of being social and energetic without impinging on one's other social responsibilities. Their patterns of Ecstasy consumption were not only connected to subcultural tastes and desires but changing values of leisure and consumption in wider contemporary life.
AgarM., & ReisingerH. S. (2003). Going for the global: The case of Ecstasy. Human Organization, 62(1), 1–11.
2.
AgarM., & ReisingerH. S. (2004). Ecstasy: Commodity or disease. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 36(2), 253–264.
3.
AppaduraiA. (1986). Introduction: Commodities and the politics of value. In AppaduraiA. (Ed.), In The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective (pp. 3–63). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2000). 1998 National Drug Strategy Household Survey. Canberra.
5.
BeckJ., & RosenbaumM. (1994). Pursuit of Ecstasy: The MDMA experience. Albany: State University of New York Press.
6.
BeckU., & Beck-GernsheimE. (2002). Individualization: Institutionalized individualism and its social and political consequences. London: Sage.
7.
BoysA.MarsdenJ., & StrangJ. (2001). Understanding reasons for drug use amongst young people: A functional perspective. Health, Education and Research, 16(4), 457–469.
8.
CohenR. S. (1995). Subjective reports on the effects of MDMA (‘Ecstasy’) experience in humans. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biology Psychiatry, 19, 1137–1145.
9.
DanceP., & MugfordS. (1992). The St. Oswald's day celebrations: “Carnival” versus “sobriety” in an Australian drug enthusiast group. The Journal of Drug Issues, 22(3), 591–606.
10.
DouglasM., & IsherwoodB. (1981). The world of goods. New York: Basic Books.
11.
DuffC. (2005). Party drugs and party people: Examining the “normalization” of recreational drug use in Melbourne, Australia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 16, 161–170.
12.
ElliottC. (1998, Feb. 26). What's wrong with enhancement technologies. Paper presented at the CHIPS Public Lecture, University of Minnesota.
13.
FeatherstoneM. (1991). The body in consumer culture. In TurnerB. (Ed.), The body: Social process and cultural theory. London: Sage.
14.
FitzgeraldJ. (2005). Stimulants, neuroenablement and hope. DrugInfo Newsletter, December.
15.
FitzgeraldJ. L. (2002). A political economy of “Doves.”Contemporary Drug Problems, 29, 201–239.
16.
ForsythA. J. M. (1995). Ecstasy and illegal drug design: A new concept in drug use. The International Journal of Drug Policy, 6(3), 193–209.
17.
ForsythA. J. M. (1996). Places and patterns of drug use in the Scottish dance scene. Addiction, 91(4), 511–521.
18.
FoucaultM. (1983). On the genealogy of ethics: An overview of work in progress. In DreyfusH. & RabinowP. (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19.
FoucaultM. (1988). Technologies of the self. In MartinL. H.GutmanH., & HuttonP. H. (Eds.), Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
20.
GrobC. S. (2000). Deconstructing Ecstasy: The politics of MDMA research. Addiction Research, 8(6), 549–588.
21.
HageJ., & PowersC. H. (1992). Postindustrial lives: Roles and relationships in the 21st century. Newbury Park: Sage.
22.
HansenD.MaycockB., & LowerT. (2001). “Weddings, parties, anything …,” a qualitative analysis of Ecstasy use in Perth, Western Australia. International Journal of Drug Policy, 12, 181–199.
23.
HendersonS. (1997). Ecstasy: Case unsolved. London: Harper Collins.
24.
JordanT. (1995). Collective bodies: Raving and the politics of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Body and Society, 1, 125–144.
25.
KaneR. (2005). Recreational states: Drugs and the sovereignty of consumption. Edition 7. Culture Machine, 9.
26.
KramerP. D. (1993). Listening to Prozac. New York: Penguin.
27.
LentonS.BoysA., & NorcrossK. (1997). Raves, drugs and experience: Drug use by a sample of people who attended raves in Western Australia. Addiction, 92, 1327–1337.
28.
LowG. K., & GendaszekA. E. (2002). Illicit use of psychostimulants among college students: A preliminary study. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 7(3), 283–287.
29.
LuckmanS. (2003). Going bush and finding one's “tribe”: Raving, escape and the bush doof. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 17(3), 315–330.
30.
LyttleT., & MontagneM. (1992). Drugs, music and ideology: A social pharmacological interpretation of the acid house movement. The International Journal of the Addictions, 27(10), 1159–1177.
31.
McCabeS. E.KnightJ. R.TeterC. J., & WechslerH. (2005). Nonmedical use of prescription stimulants among US college students: Prevalence and correlates from a national survey. Addiction, 100(1), 96–106.
32.
MontagneM. (1988). The metaphorical nature of drugs and drug taking. Social Science and Medicine, 26, 417–424.
33.
MooreD. (1992). Recreational drug use, with particular reference to amphetamines, Ecstasy and LSD, amongst a social network of young people in Perth, Western Australia. Perth: National Centre for Research into the Prevention of Drug Abuse.
34.
MooreD. (1993). Speeding, ecking and tripping: Ethnographic notes from a small world of psychostimulant use. In BurrowsD.FlahertyB., & MacEvoyM. (Eds.), Illicit Psychostimulant Use in Australia (pp. 71–90). Canberra: Australian Government Printing Service.
35.
MooreD. (2004). Beyond “subculture” in the ethnography of illicit drug use. Contemporary Drug Problems, 31(2), 181–212.
36.
MugfordS. (1991). Controlled drug use among recreational users: Sociological perspectives. In HeatherN.MillerW. R. & GreeleyJ. (Eds.), Self-control and the addictive behaviours. Sydney: Maxwell MacMillan Publishing.
37.
MugfordS., & CohenP. (1989). Drug use, social relations and commodity consumption: A study of recreational cocaine users in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. Canberra: Report to the Research into Drug Abuse Advisory Committee, National Campaign Against Drug Abuse.
O'MalleyP., & ValverdeM. (2004). Pleasure, freedom and drugs: The uses of “pleasure” in liberal governance of drug and alcohol consumption. Sociology, 38(1), 25–42.
40.
ParkerH. (1997). Adolescent drugs pathways in the 1990s. In BragginsJ. (Ed.), Tackling drugs together: One year on. London: Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency.
41.
ParkerH.AldridgeJ., & MeashamF. (1998). Illegal leisure: The normalization of adolescent drug use. London: Routledge.
42.
ParkerH., & MeashamF. (1994). Pick ‘n’ mix: Changing patterns of illicit drug use amongst 1990s Adolescents. Drugs, Education, Prevention and Policy, 1(1), 5–13.
43.
ParkerH.WilliamsL., & AldridgeJ. (2002). The normalization of ‘sensible’ recreational drug use: Further evidence from the North West England Longitudinal Study. Sociology, 36(4), 941–964.
44.
PedersenW., & SkrondalA. (1999). Ecstasy and new patterns of drug use: A normal population study. Addiction, 94(11), 1695–1706.
45.
WhyteReynolds S.van der GeestS., & HardonA. (2002). Social lives of medicines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
46.
RoweD. (1995). Popular cultures: Rock music, sport and the politics of pleasure. London: Sage Publications.
47.
SchivelbuschW. (1992). Tastes of paradise: A social history of spices, stimulants, and intoxicants. New York: Pantheon Books.
48.
ShinerM., & NewburnT. (1999). Taking tea with Noel: The place and meaning of drug use in everyday life. In SouthN. (Ed.), Drugs: Cultures, controls and everyday life. London: Sage.
49.
SolowijN., & LeeN. (1991). Survey of Ecstasy [MDMA] users in Sydney. Sydney: Drug and Alcohol Directorate, New South Wales Health Department.
50.
SouthN. (2004). Managing work, hedonism and “the borderline” between legal and illegal markets: Two case studies of recreational heavy drug users. Addiction Research and Theory, 12(6), 525–538.
51.
ThorntonS. (1995). Club cultures: Music, media and subcultural capital. Cambridge: Blackwell.
52.
WeberM. (1997). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: Routledge.
53.
WeirE. (2000). Raves: A review of the culture, the drugs and the prevention of harm. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 162(13), 1843–1848.
54.
BoeriWilliams M.SterkC. E., & ElfisonK. W. (2004). Rolling beyond raves: Ecstasy use outside the rave setting. Journal of Drug Issues, 34(4), 831–859.
55.
WilliamsL., & ParkerH. (2001). Alcohol, cannabis, Ecstasy and cocaine: Drugs of reasoned choice amongst young adult recreational drug users in England. International Journal of Drug Policy, 12, 397–413).
