The development and mainstream integration of ecstasy over the past 45 years is best explained by a socio-cultural model rather than a purely medical or criminal one. The substance was shaped by successive groups—university students, gays, yuppies, and the New Age movement—each leaving its imprint. Ecstasy's link with techno music produced the socially integrated club scene and the initially countercultural rave movement. Over time, raves and ecstasy became absorbed into mainstream culture, inadvertently reinforcing capitalist postmodernity. The authors argue that a cultural perspective, emphasizing subculture, myths, and rituals, offers a more productive paradigm for drug research than current approaches, and propose blending academic and common knowledge for studying drug use.
Finnish psychedelics users justify their use through a wide range of moral and personal logics, drawing on almost all of Boltanski and Thévenot's justification frameworks except market-based reasoning. An additional 'world of self' was identified to capture justifications tied to personal experiences, including pleasure. Users distinguished psychedelics from other drugs and offered justifications spanning personal to societal levels and spiritual to technological themes. Their reasoning was shaped by the new wave of psychedelic research, self-experienced benefits, and individualism. Positive effects included euphoria and other positive feelings, even when use was for self-development or self-medication. The findings suggest that recreational and positive aspects are important to users and may be integral to therapeutic benefits.