Dancing on drugs: risk, health, and hedonism in the British club scene.

Abstract

Nothing brings home the alienation of ageing better than finding a subject of considerable medical interest about which you know nothing. I mean not a thing! So let it be confessed that I found much to learn in this volume in which the research of a dedicated team of clubbers from the University of Manchester exposed themselves to the risk—though it was probably not quite like that as the book's dedication is to “all clubbers . . . who have felt that moment when music, dancing, atmosphere and experience have melted into a moment of pure pleasure”.The authors studied three clubs, confirming that the youth of the UK are the most drug experienced of Europe and that many are amphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy users. One of the most striking of their many findings is the significant morbidity in the days following drug exposure; as most of the group are in work and some in positions of seniority, the reduced performance and the well-described midweek depression are matters of concern. As the drugs taken varied from week to week, it is difficult to obtain correlation between cause and effect. This uncontrolled consumption of unidentified, uncalibrated substances remains difficult for the pharmacologically trained to swallow.