By Paddy Clancy

SCIENTISTS at Trinity College in Dublin were under attack this week for offering $40 vouchers to entice Ecstasy users to take part in a study on the brain.

Gloria Roberts, the PhD student in charge of the project, said researchers are trying to establish how the illegal drug affects the brain processes of right-handed people. But the investigation has infuriated anti-drugs campaigners and politicians.

Grainne Kenny, who runs the international voluntary campaign, Europe Against Drugs, from offices in Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin, said, “Ecstasy is a proven killer drug. What they are doing at Trinity is not an ethical way to do research. Whether giving away cash or vouchers, it is a questionable way of doing things.”

Fine Gael Dublin Councilor Dr. Bill Tormey said he believed the tests were essentially useless and certainly not a good idea.

Trinity researchers posted flyers around the university posing the question, “Do you use Ecstasy?”

They continued, “Trinity College, Dublin, is conducting a neuropsychological study investigation into the effects of Ecstasy on the brain. We are currently recruiting right-handed users who have no history of neurological or psychological illness.”

Potential volunteers were told that for the two or three hours it would take to complete the study, users would be compensated with a $40 shopping voucher.

They were also told that they would not be supplied with Ecstasy as part of the study. Participants were required to abstain from taking the drug for at least 48 hours before taking part in the tests.

Roberts defended the project. “We’ve been doing it for the past few months. It depends on how available people are and how many there are. They come in and we do behavioral testing first. Then we do memory tests,” she said.

“I might show a volunteer a face with a name, then show the same face later without a name and see if they could remember it.”

A spokesman for Trinity said the study did not receive college funds.