Using Ecstasy Heightens Sleep Apnea Risk. Medscape. December 2, 2009. An increasing number of otherwise healthy young adults are developing sleep apnea. For some, the sleep disorder may be tied to recreational drug use, report investigators.They outline how serotonin neuronal dysfunction prompted by methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy, is altering the brain and having long-term consequences.The researchers, led by Una McCann, MD, from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland, studied 71 medically healthy recreational users and 62 control subjects using all-night sleep polysomnography in a controlled inpatient research setting."Recreational users who had been drug free for at least 2 weeks had significantly increased rates of obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea compared with controls," they report in the December 8 issue of Neurology.[ See ]