However, it clearly applies to methamphetamine, ecstasy, GHB, and Rohypnol, which have become widespread in the 1990s in tandem with contemporary club culture. The novelty of many club drugs is undoubtedly one reason for the recent surge in their use. Because these drugs are relatively new, some vulnerable individuals may imagine that taking them is safe-that their reported adverse effects are rare or exaggerated, and that such reactions could never affect them personally. In contrast, few can harbor such misperceptions about older drugs. Cocaine, for example, was widely used in dance clubs and elsewhere in the 1980s, but its use has receded as its health and social costs have become well known.
Scientists still have much to learn about club drugs.
However, they have already shown that these substances can cause serious and perhaps permanent impairments and sometimes death. This drug is highly addictive. Last year in San Diego and Seattle, more people came to publicly funded treatment programs for help getting off methamphetamine than for help getting off any other drug. NIDA-supported researchers using new brain imaging techniques have produced vivid and worrisome evidence of methamphetamine's ill effects. The pictures show that the drug damages brain cells that produce the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin.