Ecstasy

Over the past 30 years ecstasy has become one of the world's most notorious drugs. No other illegal substance has had the same effect on fashion, music and how we party. This film follows two recreational ecstasy users over one night and, using computer graphics, journeys inside the body and the brain to explore how the drug creates its highs and its lows. With access to cutting edge research at the University of Chicago we find out how ecstasy creates empathy in the user and how this could one day lead to the drug being used as a life saving prescription medicine for use in therapy. Whilst ecstasy is the perfect high for some, there are those for whom ecstasy is agony - this film tells their story too: a young woman whose use of the drug ended her up in the psychiatric ward, a 17-year-old whose ecstasy use landed her in a hospital, and a mother whose son died from overheating after taking ecstasy. Killer chemical or the ultimate feel good high, this is the inside story of how ecstasy works.

Nearly 60 years after Aldous Huxley took half a gram of mescaline at home in Hollywood and recorded the effect upon him in The Doors of Perception, Channel 4 had a go with Ecstasy in a "ground-breaking study". Over two nights, they brought the full weight of neurophysiological science and televisual blather to bear on recording what happens to the human brain when we drop an E. "Half a million people use it every year," cried Jon Snow incredulously, "but nobody knows how it works!" In Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial, the 25 volunteers were invited to a hospital, given 83mg of MDMA and bunged in an MRI scanner, which measures brain activity.

In this episode of Drugs Map of Britain we meet students born in the 90s who call themselves The Children of Ecstasy. Once associated with rave culture, students like Marc are now using ecstasy and MDMA to help them socialise, and open up to their friends. But, with the pills and crystal stronger than ever, what risks are they taking in search of a great night out?

Low prices and the popularity of powdered ecstasy, or MDMA, have sparked a surge in one of the nation's favourite party drugs. Ashley, a 20-year-old labourer, has a carefully worked-out strategy of how to hit the perfect high. Julie and Heather go clubbing with ecstasy purchased online from a trusted supplier. But Kevin and Lucy offer harrowing stories of their own former heavy drug use.

Stacey Dooley follows the trail of the world's best-selling party drug, Ecstasy (aka MDMA), from the forests of Asia to inner-city drug dens in America.

Professor Bettany Hughes investigates the story of Bacchus, god of wine, revelry, theatre and excess, travelling to Georgia, Jordan, Greece and Britain to discover his origins and his presence in the modern world, and explore how 'losing oneself' plays a vital role in the development of civilisation. Bettany begins in Georgia where she discovers evidence of the world's oldest wine production, and the role it may have played in building communities. In Athens she reveals Bacchus's pivotal role in a society where his ecstatic worship was embraced by all classes, and most importantly women. On Cyprus she uncovers startling parallels between Bacchus and Christ.