How MDMA Became the Club Drug of the Century

The Starck Club’s creators had set out to make the best club in the world, and for the five years the venue was open, it just might have been. Grace Jones and Stevie Nicks performed on opening night, immediately turning the club into a destination for people flying in from out of state or even out of country. Tom Cruise, Owen Wilson, Timothy Leary, Jack Nicholson, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat—not to mention George W. Bush—all partied there, along with some thousand to fifteen hundred people every Friday and Saturday night.

The lack of inhibitions wasn’t the only notable feature of the Starck crowd. There was also a level of diversity seen nowhere else in the Bible Belt.

The social lubricant that fueled this radical temple of acceptance was not alcohol or cocaine but Ecstasy—lots and lots of Ecstasy. “You have to remember, it was legal at the time,” Monica said. “You could go to your favorite bartender and order a beer and an Ecstasy.” She estimates that on any given night, 70 to 90 percent of Starck patrons were rolling, the colloquial term for Ecstasy’s blissed-out high. “The kaleidoscope of emotions that brought on was incredible,” Monica said. “It elevated people mentally, they were always happy. And the dancing was never ending.”

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