Altered State

When Ecstasy was first mixed with house music sometime during the 1980s, the reaction triggered a diverse youth movement. It affected music, fashion, the law, government policy and other areas of public and private life. This work trails the drug's history and culture.

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From its first publication in 1997, Altered State established itself as the definitive text on dance culture. This second edition includes accounts of the election campaign of Tony Blair which used an Ecstasy anthem as its musical theme, and the trial and acquittal of a 19-year-old for supplying the drug that killed Leah Betts, and her links to East End gangsters. Drawing on a wealth of background research and original interviews with key figures on both sides of the law, Altered State examines the causes and contexts, ideologies and myths of Ecstasy culture, dramatising its euphoric narrative from peak experience to comedown and aftermath, and shedding new light on the social history of the most spectacular youth movement of the century.