Discredited Ecstasy Expert 'Pivotal' For America's RAVE Act

George Ricuarte, the humiliated anti-ecstasy scientist who recently admitted that his E-causes-brain-damage conclusions were based on tests he carried out on the wrong drug, helped lay the ground work for the RAVE Act, rival ecstasy specialist Dr Charles Grob said this week.

"Ricaurte's work has been pivotal in getting politicians to enact draconian, ineffectual and even counterproductive legislation," Dr Grob told the Drug War Chronicle.

""You had all these senators thinking they had to save a generation of kids, so now we have the RAVE Act and these other borderline unconstitutional, draconian laws because of fears generated about the dangers of MDMA use. "

Ricaurte injected monkeys with an ultra-strong drug called D-amphetamine instead of MDMA and justified his mistake saying ""We're scientists, not politicians. . . we get hundreds of chemicals here. It is not customary to check them."

His methodology was ridiculed by leading US columnist Jon Carroll (from the San Francisco Chronicle) who laughed "read that again. We get hundreds of chemicals in here, in this scientific laboratory where we analyse the effect of chemicals on primate subjects, and we do not bother to check the chemicals. Nope, we just read the labels, get out the syringes, and hello monkey want some whatever-this-is-"

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