Ecstasy; The Flavourful Bombings Of The Molly! Sweet Exchanges In The Guise Of Nightlife
Author: LawSphereX
Category: General Law
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ECSTASY; THE FLAVOURFUL BOMBINGS OF THE
MOLLY! SWEET EXCHANGES IN THE GUISE OF NIGHTLIFE
Hana PP, Government Law College Kozhikode, Calicut University
ABSTRACT
MDMA—euphemistically branded as "Ecstasy" or "Molly"—is not just a stimulant for recreation; it is the substrate of India's shadow economy, a monument to legislative hypocrisies, a disturbing neurological subversion of human cognition. The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, purportedly protects society, yet it concludes enforcement with selective prosecution, targeting the unpropertied while allowing the subsidiaries of illicit wealth to function unimpeded. 1 No place illustrates this better than Kozhikode, where MDMA has morphed into an underground currency, far exceeding the drug status. It forms the anchor of the market, condemned with rhetorical abandon by law enforcement, while it becomes an economy of prohibition and supply.
The performative crackdowns of the state—parades for visual control—do not dismantle the travel and trade of trafficking runs, they entrench them for better supplies and profits,while propagating a hydra-headed black market that occupies every time suppression is attempted. But beyond legal feeling. MDMA's neurological dominance is becoming a crisis, erasing the self into pharmacological detachment, while operating with an archaic, punitive model that prioritizes morality over harm reduction. This article examines the legal, economic, and psychological aspects of the flood of MDMA, contending that the state’s war on drugs is not effectively a war on drugs, but a war on the individuals that the state professes to protect.
Until the state removes its self-relieved delusion and finally recognizes the underlying structural forces that propel its chemical empire, its anti-drug agenda will remain a farce of governance that upholds systemic oppression under the guise of prohibition. Keywords: MDMA - Ecstasy - Molly - NDPS Act 1985 - Psychoactive Drugs - Kozhikode - Psychological Consequences - Socio-Legal Critique - Jurisprudential Hypocrisy - Drug War - India - Crisis 1 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, No. 61 of 1985, § 2, India Code (1985), available at https://www. indiacode. nic. in/bitstream/123456789/18974/1/narcotic-drugs-and-psychotropic-substances-act- 1985. pdf.
I.
INTRODUCTION
THE NEON MIRAGE OF MDMA - EUPHORIA OR ENTRAPMENT?
In the heart of India’s nocturnal underbelly, MDMA flourishes—a chemical chameleon masquerading as freedom while binding its followers in gilded chains. 2 What was once a psychedelic symbol of underground cultures now exists as an omnipresent commodity, dealt in hushed backrooms and dancefloors alive with fluorescence. Its meteoric rise in cities such as Kozhikode is not an anomaly, but rather an inevitability—a manifestation of a culture caught interminably teetering between underground indulgence and legal horror. 3 The law relating to MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), also christened “Ecstasy” or “Molly,” presents a paradox of contemporary drug law—a substance deplored as moral, degraded decay, and cherished sentimentally as a daring psychiatric solution.
4 India, with its draconian Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, wears its moral authority on drug legislation and enforcement, while practically being riddled with selective prosecutions for economic expediency. 5 The state tears through its obsessively brutal approach to MDMA while at the same time lining its coffers from its scented venture into nightlife tourism. 6 It’s a paradox of fiction—as the same young people who pump billions into a thriving party economy are sentenced to social and legal purgatory when caught with a pill or two too many. 7 Hitherto, the field is not merely legislative. Social hierarchy indicates that the criminal behavior of the elite privileged class is swept under the carpet, while the working class and those unprotected politically face the heavy hand of police enforcement.
Kozhikode, a valued historical and trading city for centuries, is now caught up with a far more profitable transaction than spices or silk. MDMA is no longer simply a drug, it is currency, a mechanism of power, a wordlessly circulated currency among those who run the city's night. MDMA is not new to India, of course; it was first introduced through underground movements in metropolises such 2 Visakh Vijayan, The Rising Menace of MDMA in Kerala: A Crisis in the Making, Medium (Mar. 28, 2025), https://vjnvisakh. medium. com/the-rising-menace-of-mdma-in-kerala-a-crisis-in-the-making-7214a20519d0.
3 Drug Abuse Rampant in Kozhikode’s Beach Hospital Area, Mathrubhumi (Mar. 4, 2025),
https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/kerala-kozhikode-beach-hospital-struggles-with-drug-abuseissues-1.10394152. 4 David Nutt, Drugs Without the Hot Air: Minimizing the Harms of Legal and Illegal Drugs 78 (2d ed. 2020).
5 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, No. 61, Acts of Parliament, 1985 (India).
6 Nightlife Must Be Restricted
Kozhikode Mayor, Times of India (Apr. 3, 2025), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/nightlife-must-be-restricted-kozhikodemayor/articleshow/119718028.cms.
7 Onmanorama, Major drug haul in Kozhikode; One detained with over 260 g MDMA, Dec. 10, 2023,
https://www. onmanorama. com/news/kerala/2023/12/10/mdma-seized-in-kozhikode-one-held. html. as Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore, but only in the last couple of years has this drug arrived and settled into tier two cities, academic institutions, and semi-urban areas. Kerala, often regarded as a bastion of conservatism in cultural terms, has seen a massive increase in crime activity linked to MDMA, which contributes to the rapid transformation of the state into a previously incompatible identity as a synthetic drug abuse stigma. The swift and rampant transmission of MDMA into Kozhikode is not merely an accident or an aberration of statistical analysis; it is a systematic evolution of India’s underground economy, where demand drives the supply chain network from cartels to street dealers, operating in the dark side of the nighttime economy.
8 Yet, more nefarious than legal pretense and sociopolitical spectacle, MDMA possesses neuropsychological dominion over users. 9 It offers transcendence but delivers dependency - flooding synapses with a euphoric state, slowly stripping away natural joy. 10 Irony? Governments demonize MDMA while research institutions champion it as the therapeutic revolution. 11 This article reveals the murky underbelly of MDMA’s dominion in Indian nightlife, investigating legal challenges, social hypocrisy, and psychological impact. It is not purely an academic pursuit, it is a provocation to reckon with the uncomfortable truths that we have conveniently overlooked under moral pretenses. II.
THE
LEGAL THEATRE: REGULATION OR RITUALISTIC DEMONIZATION India’s narcotics law is a serious case study in hypocrisy: an apparently rigorous regime that chooses when it takes a stance and makes use of the powers at its disposal usually against the already voiceless. The NDPS Act, 1985 was brought forth as a moral hammer and continues to be deployed against college students and small-time dealers even while high ranking traffickers and oligarchs conceptualize their affairs to maintain the protection of the law. 12 Take, for
8 The Hindu, Synthetic drug seizure in Kozhikode
police zero in on more suspects, June 27, 2024, https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/kozhikode/synthetic-drug-seizure-in-kozhikode-police-zero-in-on-moresuspects/article68340251.ece.
9 Nat’l Inst. on Drug Abuse, MDMA (Ecstasy/Molly) DrugFacts, Nat’l Inst. on Drug Abuse,
https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/mdma-ecstasy-molly (last visited Apr. 4, 2025).
10 The Hindu, Man arrested with 300 grams of MDMA in Kozhikode, July 15, 2023,
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/kozhikode/man-arrested-with-300-grams-of-mdma-inkozhikode/article67084265.ece.
11 Onmanorama, Youth held with over 25g of MDMA in Kozhikode, Sept. 27, 2024,
https://www.onmanorama.com/content/mm/en/kerala/top-news/2024/09/27/mdma-seized-youth-arrested-inkozhikode.html.
12 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, No. 61, Acts of Parliament, 1985 (India).
example, the rave culture that thrives in enclave cosmopolitanism in cities across India. When the law decides it is going to exercise some moral authority, the media is treated to the staged demolishing of ‘drug dens’ and the arrest of ‘busts’ as morality signalling. However, this has much more to do with photo ops for paper papers than effecting material change. For example, in 2025, the scerat of Kozhikode MDMA was achieved through a massive undercover operation to arrest a number of Tanzanians nationals, heralded to be connected to an ‘international drug syndicate. ’13 Yet, the major players who have financed and controlled this burgeoning market still remain faceless unchallenged behind the immunity of their own power and privilege.
14 Chiefly the supplication of the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PITNDPS) Act against habitual traffickers, as noted in an article in The Hindu, demonstrates more of a reactionary approach to the crisis rather than a proactive approach to combat the problem. 15 The law is enforced sporadically, with much fanfare against recidivist traffickers, despite not being utilized to dismantle any of the elaborate networks that characterize this illicit capital. The same cycle continues: arrests and prosecutions are presented as measures of success, while the trade continues and innovates to adapt with each new context or legal framework.
As for the phenomenon of episodic application of enforcement, there is also 'D Hunt', a carefully coordinated effort has led to the registration of 8,646 cases including the arrest of 8,931 people and confiscate narcotics valued in the lakhs, which The Hindu reported. 16 These operations create the appearance of effective policing, but they do not deter sustainable change. 17 These operations do not indicate an apparatus that is preparing to solve a long-term problem, but rather one that accepts periodic panics to demonstrate the state's monopoly on violence without ever resolving the root causes of the trade.
13 Tanzanian students running MDMA network busted by Kozhikode police, Onmanorama (Mar. 14, 2025),
https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2025/03/14/tanzanian-nationals-experts-in-mdma-synthesisarrested-by-kozhikode-police.html. 14 As Kerala steps up war on MDMA, raids, arrests and a bizarre death, Indian Express (Mar. 14, 2025), https://indianexpress.com/article/india/kerala-war-mdma-raids-arrests-bizarre-death-9875739/.
15 Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, No. 46 of 1988,
https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/9641/1/prevention_of_illicit_traffic_in_ndps_act%2C_1988. pdf. 16 The Hindu, Kerala Police’s Operation ‘D-Hunt’ Leads to 8,931 Arrests, Major Drug Seizures Across State, The Hindu (Mar. 18, 2025), https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/kerala-polices-operation-d-huntleads-to-8931-arrests-major-drug-seizures-across-state/article69347962.ece.
17 Punishment for Offences, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India,
https://dor.gov.in/punishment-offences.
The hypocrisy deepens when one sees the calculated casualness shown in cases where MDMAinfused crimes have attacked the state’s moral core. A tattoo shop in Thiruvananthapuram— grey—not only provided MDMA into the pressurized veins of local youths but also facilitated a comprehensive drug distribution chain.18 In another design of transgression, a 23-year-old in Kozhikode encased a minor in a chemical stupor before violating her—testament to how MDMA abuse has destabilized even the most hallowed institutions of social life.19 III.
KOZHIKODE’S ECONOMY OF CHEMICALS: FROM SEAFARING TRADE
TO SYNTHETIC EXCHANGE Once a site of mercantile exchange, Kozhikode has become the center of another type of exchange - the kind measured in grams of crystalline substance, rather than spices. 20 The shifting currents of its economy reveal how MDMA has entered into the cultural fabric of the city, and settled with a generation that now considers intoxication not an escape from reality, but an essential aspect of being. Kovoor, a neighborhood synonymous with old-world charm, has become the unspoken center of MDMA's underground circulation. Drug-trafficking networks operate in the margins of the private realm. A recent arrest of Mirshad alias ‘Mastan,’ caught with 58gm of MDMA along Kovoor-Iringadanpalli road illuminates this world. 21 The transportation sector is complicit, with two tourist bus drivers arrested with 31. 7 grams of MDMA showing the extent of the supply chain.
22 This is where an illicit transaction takes place—where the youth of the city exchange their innocence for synthetic bliss, and where the sounds of sirens do little to deter the rhythmic beat of an underground economy that cannot be shut down. And the saddest part?
18 MDMA Seized from Tattoo Studio, Two Held in Thiruvananthapuram, Onmanorama (Nov. 3, 2023),
https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2023/11/03/mdma-seized-from-tattoo-studio-two-held-inthiruvananthapuram.html.
19 Youth Held for Sexually Assaulting Minor, The Times of India (Mar. 18, 2025),
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kozhikode/youth-held-for-sexually-assaultingminor/articleshow/119129283.cms. 20 Times of India, MDMA Haul: 2 Tanzanian Nationals Arrested from Punjab, Times of India (Mar. 25, 2025), https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kozhikode/mdma-haul-2-tanzanian-nationals-arrested-frompunjab/articleshow/119020246.cms.
21 Mathrubhumi News, Drive Against Drug Mafia
Excise Team Apprehends Key Person in Drug Trafficking Network at Kovoor, Mar. 21, 2025, https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/crime/key-link-in-drug-traffickingnetwork-in-kozhikode-has-been-taken-into-custody-1.10442876.
22 DANSAF Team Arrest Two Tourist Bus Drivers with MDMA in Kozhikode, UNI INDIA (Apr. 3, 2025),
https://www.uniindia.com/dansaf-team-arrest-two-tourist-bus-drivers-with-mdma-inkozhikode/south/news/3401640.html.
A 28-year-old man in Kozhikode swallowed a packet of MDMA to avoid arrest, but his body could not escape the very chemical he was hiding from.23 IV.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
WARFARE: THE MIND UNDER MOLLY’S SURVEILLANCE MDMA is not just a drug; it is a mental insurgent; it invades the mind, beguiling its host into an artificial paradise of not-so-vulnerability called trust and artificial joy overtaking human emotional experiences. 24 The users are carried away in a storm of artificial and grounded intimacy mistaking a chemical mock-up of human warmth and kindness. 25 After the high departs, the mind is left drained and the emotional reserves depleted, relationships remade, identity ruptured, and the mind rewired into addiction. In Kerala, the drug has colonized night clubs and extended into homes, dismantling family structures. 26 The crimes driven by MDMA—from sexual abuse to violent betrayal—lay bare the horrific absurdity of its excesses.
27 A father who no longer recognizes even his own child’s face whilst in the drug’s plausible haze, a brother who betrayed his own blood under the drug’s influence, to pairs of lovers trading fidelity for euphoria. These are not anomalies, but rather tell-tale signs of an unraveling social fabric. 28 Aside from the various neurochemical considerations, the drug's hold presents itself in real, tangible horrors that are impossible to ignore. 29 In one of Kerala's most terrifying cases, a minor was drugged and trafficked over the course of four districts, her freedoms and agency stripped
23 The New Indian Express, Kerala Man Swallows MDMA While Fleeing Police, Dies Within Hours, Mar. 8,
2025, https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2025/Mar/08/kerala-man-swallows-mdma-whilefleeing-police-dies-within-hours. 24 Dumont GJH, Veltman DJ, van Wel JH, et al., ‘Ecstasy’ as a social drug: MDMA preferentially affects responses to emotional stimuli, 9 Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 1076, 1076–81 (2014), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4127030/. 25 M. L. Dunn, Subjective long-term emotional and social effects of recreational MDMA use, Sci. Rep. (2023), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-51355-6.
26 Nootan Sharma, God’s own country is high on MDMA. Kerala school, college students flood rehabs,
ThePrint (Apr. 2, 2025), https://theprint.in/ground-reports/gods-own-country-is-high-on-mdma-kerala-schoolcollege-students-flood-rehabs/2574881/.
27 Visakh Vijayan, Woman Accuses Ex-Husband of Drug Dealing, Abuse, MATHRUBHUMI (Mar. 30, 2025),
https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/crime/woman-accuses-exhusband-of-drug-dealing-abuse-kozhikode- 1.10474311. 28 Visakh Vijayan, Is Kerala turning into a ‘narco-economy’ with rising MDMA abuse?, Mathrubhumi (Mar. 31, 2025), https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/kerala-in-mdma-drug-trap-and-economic-ride-asnarcostate-1.10476576.
29 MDMA-related deaths on the rise in Kerala, youths falling prey, Onmanorama (Sept. 13, 2022),
https://www.onmanorama.com/news/kerala/2022/09/13/kerala-mdma-related-deaths.html. away by the drug MDMA and cannabis.30 What started as a recreational experience for those within the lucky elite turned into a nightmare of exploitation—a shocking reminder that the mirage of a chemical high usually has some form of human cost tied to it, quite troubling to define or quantify. The prospect of chemical-induced pleasure has always been an indictment of individuality. MDMA gutted the essence of individual existence—fulfilling the hollowedout souls with ungenuine pretended sincerity for which they have surrendered their power of happiness.31 It is a chemical tyrant, not a liberator. V.
POLICY
HYPOCRISY: THE QUIET CONSPIRACY BETWEEN GOVERNANCE AND MARKET FORCE Under the NDPS Act, MDMA finds itself imprisoned under the list of Schedule I drug, which criminalizes possession, distribution and consumption as a serious crime. 32 This legal isolation is based on the outmoded assumption that punishment is the solution to drug problems, a notion that is so poorly supported by evidence that it is almost jurisprudential humor. The fight against MDMA is a performance done for the public. Law enforcement might appear to be actively pursuing a solution, but the systematic denial of culpability goes to prove that "crackdowns" are a theater. The true perpetrators of this chemical apparatus remain unscathed while the machinery of governance is not ignorant of the emerging MDMA trade, it abets its continuation.
Politicians, law enforcement and the economy comprise an unholy alliance to keep the drug flowing. 33 Media headlines covering arrests made against small-time vendors depict the staged justice system but the architects of control, the gyrators with more money than has true enforcement, continue to operate behind the curtain. 34 Although the state is ostensibly making efforts to eliminate the MDMA epidemic, governance itself is fueled by systems it disavows. Crackdowns can be thought of not as eradication efforts,
30 Times of India, Youth held for sexually assaulting minor,
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kozhikode/youth-held-for-sexually-assaultingminor/articleshow/119129283.cms.
31 How Does Ecstasy Affect You Socially?, Clearbrook Treatment Centers,
https://clearbrook.banyantreatmentcenter.com/news/how-does-ecstasy-affect-you-socially-pennsylvania/. 32 The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, No. 61, Acts of Parliament, 1985 (India), https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/18974/1/narcotic-drugs-and-psychotropic-substances-act- 1985.pdf.
33 Police Officer Arrested for Running Drug Cartel in Kerala, HINDUPOST (Aug. 15, 2022),
https://hindupost.in/news/police-officer-arrested-for-running-drug-cartel-in-kerala/.
34 Koraput Narayani, Kerala’s ‘War on Drugs’
Users Arrested by Police Outnumber Peddlers, THE NEWS MINUTE (Mar. 28, 2025), https://www. thenewsminute. com/kerala/kerala-is-cracking-down-on-drugs-but-thefocus-is-on-small-time-peddlers-users. but instead as timing efforts to provide a facade of governance. The dirty little secret? Many people in the legal apparatus are scattered, and their silence is purchased not because they think it is good for them not to pursue, but because it is in their best interest not to. In the past, antinarcotics policy in India has served a selective mechanism of oppression. Small-time dealers and young adults who use the drug become what the system is opposed to while the adult traffickers go unaffected.
The recent uptick in MDMA in Kerala cannot be interpreted as an isolated incident, but a result of a systemic failure - a system where police, multiple political factions, and an underground trade are bound within an asymmetric, yet mutually beneficial ecosystem. India's aversion to harm reduction lies not in ethics but in domination over its citizens. If the state was truly interested in protecting people, it would abandon its punitive theatrics in favor of medication-assisted treatment, regulation, and science. Rather, it insists on punishment policies that only serve to marginalize the trade further underground and enhance the very powers it seeks to dismantle. The state’s refusal to simply acknowledge harm reduction tactics speaks the hypocrisy.
Countries like Portugal and the Netherlands have utilized models of decriminalization in public health focused systems, not punishment;35 meanwhile, India continues to rely on a punitive, ethical platform that's not supported by any evidence-based model. 36 That brings us to the recurring question; is the government’s war on drugs ever really a concern for public health or a problem enforcement tool to maintain socio-political control? If harm was indeed a priority, then why does India spend money on punishment and not medical systems? 37 These questions remain stuck unanswered in theatrics of drug enforcement. 38 VI.
THE FUTURE OF MDMA IN INDIA: CRISIS OR COURSE CORRECTION?
MDMA is here to stay. The government's impossible and misguided war against it resembles
35 Drug Decriminalisation in Portugal
Setting the Record Straight, TRANSFORM DRUG POLICY FOUNDATION (July 25, 2019), https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-therecord-straight.
36 Reframing Dutch Drug Policies
A New Era for Harm Reduction, HARM REDUCTION JOURNAL (Sept.
2024), https://harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12954-024-01071-1.
37 Drug Policy in India
An Analysis, INTERNATIONAL ANNALS OF CRIMINOLOGY (Dec. 2019), https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-annals-of-criminology/article/drug-policy-in-india-ananalysis/D6F10D041EBC615778D4ECC067CE69EB.
38 UNAIDS, Decriminalization Works, but Too Few Countries Are Taking the Bold Step, UNAIDS (Mar. 3,
2020), https://www. unaids. org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2020/march/20200303_drugs. fighting a shadow with a sword—then (only) convincing yourself it is real. 39 The expansion of MDMA is conditioned by supply chains globally and driven by demand, and human beings’ eternal quest to become more than what they are. 40 However it all comes down to how the nation decides to respond to this crisis framing the future of MDMA in India. Will it continue to follow its immature and outmoded principle of punishment and send further youth down the rabbit hole of prisons? 41 Or will it accept a paradigm shift away from criminalization and towards medical intervention, learning instead of mandates and policies based on empirical data instead of puritanical fear? 42 It is not an ideological question, but it is a question of life or death.
A failure to adapt does not just persist to the crisis, but will inflame it. VII.
CONCLUSION
A CHEMICAL RECKONING MDMA serves as a reflection of the absurdity of contemporary society. We scorn it, while benefiting from the apparatuses it enables. We jail its users while the real beneficiaries of MDMA remain unpunished. We deplore its existence, while ignoring the cultural and psychological voids that draw us to it. 43 But at what expense? How many more shattered families, abandoned lovers, and skeletal addicts will we sacrifice at the altar of the state’s failures? 44 How long will the streets of Kozhikode remain stained by the remnants of a failure of war? MDMA is not evil;45 it is a symptom—of systemic neglect, of policy paralysis, of a society that 39 Sandeep Phukan, Udta Kerala: How state’s drug crisis could be worse than Punjab’s, India Today (Mar. 9, 2025), https://www. indiatoday.
in/sunday-special/story/kerala-drugs-narcotics-cases-mdma-violence-schoolspinarayi-vijayan-2691036-2025-03-09.
40 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2024, UNODC (2024),
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/world-drug-report-2024.html. 41 Drug policy of India, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_India (last visited Apr. 4, 2025).
42 Pratibha Sahu, Decriminalization and Legalization of Drug use in India, Jus Corpus,
https://www.juscorpus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/49.-Pratibha-Sahu.pdf (last visited Apr. 4, 2025).
43 Wardle MC, de Wit H, MDMA
a social drug in a social context, 151 Psychopharmacology 215, 215–26 (2014), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25281223/.
44 International Journal of Modern Humanities, Existentialism in Camus’s “The Stranger,”
https://www.ijmh.org/wp-content/uploads/papers/v5i2/B1139105220.pdf (last visited Apr. 4, 2025). 45 Wardle MC, Kirkpatrick MG, de Wit H, ‘Ecstasy’ as a social drug: MDMA preferentially affects responses to emotional stimuli with social content, 9 Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 1076, 1076–81 (2014), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4127030/. prefers declined judgement instead of self-reflection.46 Until we address these realities, the cycle will continue—an eternal waltz of intoxication and destruction, danced to the rhythms of the underworld. The reckoning is not coming. It is already here. 46 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Jean Baudrillard, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/ (last visited Apr. 4, 2025).