Pubdate: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 Source: Daily Pennsylvanian, The (PA Edu) Copyright: 2003 The Daily Pennsylvanian Contact: http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2730 Author: Leah Colins Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy) BIOETHICS PROF TALKS ECSTASY, CHEATING Even professors are not above using drugs to get attention. Last night, Bioethics Professor Glenn McGee admitted to his audience, "I'll be blunt, I wanted to pack the house," as his reasoning for choosing Ecstasy and its medical usage as the focus of his lecture. McGee's lecture entitled "Ecstasy: A Drug That Will, Er, Won't, Er, Might Be Bad, Uh, OK For You, Maybe -- Bioethics and the Bungling of MDMA" drew a crowd of about 80 to the Bodek Lounge of Houston Hall. McGee's speech touched upon the issue of integrity as a whole, and how the term "cheating" can be placed into all aspects of people's lives. "It's puritanism versus 'I want a better me,'" he said of today's society. McGee said cheating takes on the search for a "higher being" -- and that whether it be the drugging of athletes, prep courses for the SATs or Prozac to cure depression --we as a society are looking for a leg up. Americans do their best to "de-emphasize the rational," McGee said. "People are constantly looking for signs." This connection segued into McGee's theory that Ecstasy is used as a cheating device to help create intimacy in an individual's life. Though it has not been proven that MDMA -- commonly known as Ecstasy -- can cause brain damage, the majority of Ecstasy sold on the streets is "made mostly by college students," McGee said. "Unregulated, it's clearly dangerous.... You take an Ecstasy tab, you're taking your life in your own hands." But McGee added that pure MDMA has been found to create a sense of happiness, which he compared to people's search for enlightenment through religion. "What if a pill actually made you feel that you could turn a corner in your life?" he said, then asked how taking this pill would be different from cheating. Questions such as these made for an engaged audience who peppered McGee with feedback after the lecture concluded. "Listening to him speak is like an abundance of just encyclopedic knowledge that you [are] alternatively drowned in and want to scream at," College junior Ariel Bieler said, adding, "I personally loved how he tied the drug to our understanding of happiness." The lecture served both as the first general body meeting for the Bioethics Society and as the kick-off lecture to Integrity Week, hosted by the University Honor Council. College sophomore Tristen Mosler, who helped organize the event as a member of the Honor Council, said, "It was amazing, I had no doubt McGee would bring in a good crowd because of the type of speaker he is. He's Mr. Bioethics on campus." While dealing with such a sensitive issue as drug usage, McGee still managed to keep the atmosphere light, at one point joking that "I don't actually have pills -- it's Integrity Week, isn't it?" - --- MAP posted-by: Thunder