How can anyone even consider Ephedra?

Ephedra, Hoodia, and most other over the counter diet pills will work somewhat well depending on the person/situation to varying degrees. The thing to AVOID is all these Phentermine knock-offs they are ALL garbage - you might as well take NO-DOZ if you are gonna buy that crap. The sellers are marketers, not nutrition or diet experts. They focus on making the pills look and sound like real Phentermine product, and could care less how effective they are. With a minimal investment any joe shmoe off the street can have a few things thrown together in a pill, get bottles and labels made and hock it online. Absolutely no science behind ANY of those products. I see these SPAM posts in this forum about success with these Phentra this and Phenter that pills and get sick to my stomach. Don't buy it.
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i used it years ago... well tried it
i couldnt keep my hand still for the life of me..

People will do anything to lose weight... any new pill, diet, or whatever it takes.. you hype it up, weather its good or bad, people want it

Why do people use it?

Simple answer: Because it works.

Ephedra should not be banned. If used in the correct doses and sensibly ( I usually order Ephedraxin online from Discountpharmacy24.biz ), it is a very helpful herbal drug.

  I don't think it has so much to do with defending the product and it's hazards, at least when it comes to me. It's more of having people telling me what i should and shouldn't do in regards to my own body.. Whether i choose to take it or not shouldn't be anyone's concern. Our weight loss goals, or reasons for taking it shouldn't be measured by a strangers half interest. In the end it's us who pays for it.

I'm sorry for your loss JG40, and I hope us talking about this does not offend you.
I do have to agree with what Cadence said-every case I've read about ephedra deaths-and the official ban was based on only 8-was a case of misuse.  Of those 8, if I remember correctly, 6 were taking up to 3 times the recommended dose, and the other two were people over 60 who had pre-existing heart conditions.
ANYTHING that we take, eat, or drink can kill us if we abuse it or if our bodies are not compatible with the mechanisms/ingredients.
Tylenol kills 450 a year in the US, aspirin more than 1000.  Statistically, ephedra is safer than our otc pain pills that we pop without a second thought.
The idea that our fda only approves or bans drugs based on "protecting us" or solely on safety or effectiveness is a  JOKE you guys.  Do you know how many BILLIONS of dollars are paid to politicians by drug companies every year?  Do you know how many drugs are available in other countries now that could be saving lives here today were it not for our fda?  The vote is swayed by cash and politics, not concern or safety.
How can I consider using it?  Because I educated myself!  There are over 3 billion servings of ephedra consumed each year, and only about 150 total deaths EVER have been linked in any way to it's use in almost 5000 years, and almost all of those deaths have been proven to be cases of misuse and pre-existing conditions.  Over 100,000 people die each year taking fda approved drugs AS PRESCRIBED-that means this number excludes doses administered in error and suicides, so quite frankly, I don't just trust something because the fda tells me it's okay.
Redux is a prescription weight loss drug that continually recieved approval from the fda after thousands of people had to have heart valve surgery to repair damage caused directly by it.  Why did it take so long for them to take notice of that?
Obesity related illness kills 300,000 people each year in the US alone.  There is not a single prescription drug out there that has been as effective for weight loss as ephedra.
This is not the first time the FDA has banned a supplement.  In 1989 they banned L-Tryptophan, claiming that it caused a flu-like disease called EMS.  L-Trytophan was fast becoming a popular OTC product used as a sleep aid and mood enhancer-it's naturally found in small amounts in things like milk and turkey, which is why you get happy and sleepy after thanksgiving dinner, or drink a glass of milk for insomnia.
That is also the first year that Prozac went onto the consumer market.  Coincidence?  4 years later it was proven that L-Tryptophan actually cures EMS, and that it has the same effect on serotonin levels in the brain cheaper, safer, and without a prescription-but the damage was done and ever since we've been having anti depressants thrown at us at every turn-no matter how many people die from their use.
The ephedra ban followed some studies in 2003 that attempted to prove that ephedra was also effective in treating ADD and ADHD, which was also the same time that we started getting bombarded with new prescriptions to treat those disorders, like Strattera. 
Any intelligent person could surmise that it's possible that because ephedra is a natural supplement, there is no pharmaceutical company behind it paying off politicians, and THAT is why it got banned.