Ecstasy costs

Describe how individual difference factors might affect a hypothetical cost-benefit ratio for cannabis, nicotine or Ecstasy/MDMA. 

Ecstasy most commonly comes in the form of a small pill (Figure 3.2). These pills come in a large variety of shapes and colors with various designs imprinted on them. A typical Ecstasy pill costs between 10 and 25 and contains 75-150 milligrams of MDMA. Since these pills look so much like candy, they are often concealed by mixing them into a bag of M Ms or Skittles , or even placing the pills inside a Pez dispenser. The pills are usually chewed or taken with a drink. In rarer instances, the pills are crushed into a powder and snorted or injected intravenously, or the pills are inserted into the rectum ( shafting ). 

The vast majority of ecstasy consumed domestically is produced in Europe. It costs as little as 25 to 50 cents to manufacture an ecstasy tablet in Europe, but the street value of that same ecstasy tablet can be as high as 40, with a tablet typically selling for between 20 and 30. A limited number of ecstasy laboratories operate in the United States. Law enforcement seized 17 clandestine ecstasy laboratories in the United States in 2001 compared to 7 seized in 2000. United States Customs Service statistics show a dramatic increase in seiznres of MDMA tablets. In fiscal year 1997, approximately 400,000 MDMA tablets were seized, compared to approximately 7.2 milhon tablets seized in fiscal year 2001. On Inly 22,2000, approximately 2.1 milhon tablets worth an estimated 40 million were seized in Los Angeles. To date this is the largest seiznre of MDMA tablets in the United States. ... 

The average Ecstasy dose is between 100 and 150 milligrams. One dose normally costs 10 to 30 when purchased illegally at clubs or raves. 

The problem is that the nature of the condition - what actually happened - is not a matter of just how many Mods wrecked how many deck-chairs with what cost, nor how many 14-year-old girls became ill after taking which number of ecstasy tablets in what night club. Questions of symbolism, emotion and representation cannot be translated into comparable sets of statistics. Qualitative terms like appropriateness convey the nuances of moral judgement more accurately than the (implied) quantitative measure of disproportionate - but the more they do so, the more obviously they are socially constructed. 

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