Ecstasy is a problem child. One of the most notorious designer drugs to have risen out of the '80s rave scene, a young drug embraced by the young, the stuff of peer pressure rather than caution. An official survey estimates that in the UK 430,000 users spend a total of £300 million ($441 million) a year on ecstasy, taking between one and five pills a night, while unofficial sources have it that consumption is twice this figure. To date, there have been around 90 E-related deaths reported in the UK and around 40 in the United States, where E is no longer just a club drug but is increasingly available at schools and homes, finding new customers in ex-cocaine users.

This is Ecstasy presents the very latest information from around the world concerning the drug's culture, manufacture, and trafficking, its medical origin (it was once nicknamed 'penicillin for the soul'), its short and long-term effects on health, the legal and political ramifications of its use, and the consequent backlash from supporters of the drug.

In the words of Alexander Shulgin, the remarkable scientist who nurtured ecstasy through its infancy, 'Be informed, then choose.'