MDMA has little addiction potential- for one it isn’t really just an unhealthy escape from negative feelings, but helps people process traumatic experiences and negative emotions by temporarily lowering anxiety and fear, and may be close to being FDA approved for that therapeutic purpose.
I have only tried it once, and it permanently eliminated my crippling social anxiety, by temporarily eliminating it, and allowing me to experience and remember what that was like. I felt no desire to use it again, because the (life changing positive) effect was permanent.
Second, it seems to have rapidly diminishing effects that make it self limiting- if sometime takes MDMA too much or too frequently, it stops having the desired effect.
MDMA can be addictive, though usually on people who are dealing various issues that, like alcohol, can mask or suppress "bad" feelings. It pumps up the serotonin levels and people can definitely get addicted to that (the same way shopaholics are addicted to the temporary dopamine hits they get when they buy something new).
MDMA (and other drugs that fall under the psychedelic umbrella like magic mushrooms or LSD) has has shown some clinical success in dealing with trauma and other mental health issues, but only supervised and combined with professional help. Most people I know that have used MDMA/Ecstasy usually only stopped because the crash sucks as they didn't want to deal with it after. That's the main reason it was used for social gatherings like raves; it really helps eliminate social anxiety.
Every time there's talk of drugs people will just shuffle and repackage some random facts they know about whatever drug in question and preach it like it's something they just discovered.
