null24 wrote: but would not the effects seen at large doses be reflected in smaller ones
That depends on a lot of factors. Some drugs will display a certain effect at one dose, and then a completely different effect at another (
apomorphine being one example, ketamine, which is stimulating at low doses is another), and so they can't always be sure that the effect they're seeing is one that any recreational user would ever experience.
It's also intellectually dishonest, in my opinion. All of this research on MDMA is, ostensibly, so that we can learn about how this drug interacts with humans, so we can make informed policy choices and make appropriate treatment decisions. No one is taking MDMA like this (it would be like taking multiple grams over the course of a night), but, when the time comes to make choices, this kind of thing is what will be cited as evidence in the discussions.
We've already seen the damage of this - back in the 80s and 90s, a lot of the studies that laid the groundwork for the MDMA/Neurotoxicity belief were completed in monkeys who where injected with absurdly high doses of MDMA a ridiculous number of times. It's not surprising that some toxic effects were found, at a certain dose, every drug becomes a poison. If I did the same thing with Tylenol, you'd also see terrible hepatic damage. Does that mean that we ban Tylenol because it's hepatotoxic? No, we just control the dose.
Blessings
~ND
Blessings
~ND
"There are many paths up the same mountain."