> It disgusts me that the stuff is illegal while cigarettes and alcohol

Alcohol and cigarettes are not really comparable to MDMA, and I just wanted to make that point. Marijuana? Sure, in much the same category, probably safer. MDMA is a whole different class of chemical.

Of course they're not comparable because MDMA is much, much safer than either alcohol or cigarettes. We're talking millions of deaths a year for alcohol and cigarettes vs. a few isolated deaths with MDMA. Socially, there is no comparison or doubt which of the three is the worst: alcohol by far. Can you even find an instance of domestic abuse or murder facilitated by MDMA? I could find a whole bunch that happened just this past hour.

I can have a beer every night for the rest of my life and experience little to no permanent effects. Long term MDMA use on the other hand has been shown to cause "marked neurodegeneration in striatal, hippocampal, prefrontal, and occipital serotonergic axon terminals. Neurotoxic damage to serotonergic axon terminals has been shown to persist for more than two years."

There's simply no way to substantiate your claim. Plenty of people who drink daily get sick and die from the effects of alcohol, including drinking one beer a day. Also, if you're comparing one beer, you need to compare it to the equivalent MDMA dose which would not cause any psychoactive effects just like one beer typically doesn't.

> I can have a beer every night for the rest of my life and experience little to no permanent effects.

And a certain percentage of people that tried that would get addicted and die from either acute or chronic effects.

Addiction potential and usage patterns are part of the harm profile of a drug. Alcohol is measurably worse.

Safety has more than one axis. Also, if we sold MDMA in pubs, and told everyone "hey, take as much as you like, as often as you like" are you sure things would go swimmingly?