MDMA cultural effects with earlier use

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

An interesting What If I found on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoricalWhatIf/comments/119w5e/what_if_mdma_ecstasys_recreational_and/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDMA#History
MDMA was first synthesized in 1912 by Merck chemist Anton Köllisch. At the time, Merck was interested in developing substances that stopped abnormal bleeding. Merck wanted to evade an existing patent, held by Bayer, for one such compound: hydrastinine. At the behest of his superiors Walther Beckh and Otto Wolfes, Köllisch developed a preparation of a hydrastinine analogue, methylhydrastinine. MDMA was an intermediate compound in the synthesis of methylhydrastinine, and Merck was not interested in its properties at the time.[127] On 24 December 1912, Merck filed two patent applications that described the synthesis of MDMA[128] and its subsequent conversion to methylhydrastinine.[129]

Over the following 65 years, MDMA was largely forgotten. Merck records indicate that its researchers returned to the compound sporadically. In 1927, Max Oberlin studied the pharmacology of MDMA and observed that its effects on blood sugar and smooth muscles were similar to ephedrine's. Researchers at Merck conducted experiments with MDMA in 1952 and 1959.[127] In 1953 and 1954, the United States Army commissioned a study of toxicity and behavioral effects in animals of injected mescaline and several analogues, including MDMA. These originally classified investigations were declassified and published in 1973.[130] The first scientific paper on MDMA appeared in 1958 in Yakugaku Zasshi, the Journal of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan. In this paper, Yutaka Kasuya described the synthesis of MDMA, a part of his research on antispasmodics.[131]

MDMA was discovered in 1912, but its effects on humans was not discovered until decades later. What if it had been discovered in 1912-13 and more widely used by the public? It has a number of psychological benefits for therapy, which means it easily could be used as a research drug for people with traumas. Especially with WW1 about to come up and the potential for MDMA to have therapeutic benefits for PTSD, as we have rediscovered for our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, it could very easily spread to the wider population in Germany and later the rest of the world.

What effect would that have on culture in the 1920's and on with a pure form of MDMA on the market in an era that was much more tolerant of supposed 'wonder' drugs? How would Jazz have turned out? The Harlam Renaissance? Weimar Germany?
 
What effect would that have on culture in the 1920's and on with a pure form of MDMA on the market in an era that was much more tolerant of supposed 'wonder' drugs? How would Jazz have turned out? The Harlam Renaissance? Weimar Germany?

Jazz evolves into a less syncopated style of music, with less song structure/singing and more bass instruments

the idea of the Brownshirts getting loved up intrigues me

you would need a 1920s Timothy Leary, Alexander Shulgin type figure I think
 
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