Montel: there are reports of multiple brand-new users consuming the questionable product and reporting no empathy and no eye dilation. It is not a tolerance issue. Especially when some of the long-time users have tried both products and observe a quantifiable, distinct difference in the two products. If you can have a traditional roll off one product, and you don't roll off another product then it is a product issue and not a user issue. The question is why laboratories and regeant tests cannot tell the difference currently.
In the UK by any chance? I remember those dark piperazine/bzp days and some batches of mdma that did absolutely nothing but tested positive for mdma (marquis) I can confirm first hand that I tested at least two or three batches and witnessed this myself. Good mdma tested inky purple then black. This stuff went straight to black and fizzed (at the time people would post on pillreports that this fizzing was a sign of "pure mdma" - utter nonsense. I tested it, I took it. It did nothing except keep you awake for ages feeling uncomfortable - hot/cold sweats were typical) I stress again the mdma did absolutely nothing, it was junk.
I guess it's called trying to make some easy money - I had to supply my dealer with a test kit, but I don't think he really cared as long as he could sell it. He sure as hell wasn't giving refunds. All connected to the same people who introduced piperazine pills on the market. Remember the pink star shaped pills - that did nothing? VW's, Mitsubishis, Hearts, etc. The majority of them could be easily identified with a quick test, but there were also some pills (the white hearts spring to mind) that passed the marquis test and, again, did nothing. - Ironically the last decent pills I remember in the Uk that absolutely stank of safrole were green hearts from the same pressers a few months before the drought kicked in - fantastic pills, in every sense - you really could smell the safrole from distance.
I always find it strange that SE England is considered the wealthiest area of the UK, yet the quality of street drugs was nothing short of horrendous. I don't just mean pills - skunk, hashish, just about all of it (I mean specifically the stuff sold in bulk) was nothing short of poison. I always joked at the time that if the suppliers could remove the bit that kills you then they'd happily sell rat poison. Likewise, the criteria for skunk seemed to be "Is it green?" "Yes" "Okay, that will do."
Sure, there was some decent stuff around somewhere (of course) but it really was few and far between - I'd say 90% of it was plain toxic. I left the UK in 2008 before things returned to some sense of normality. This experience is from 1993 - 2008. Pills enjoyed the best run, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. They were great until piperazines flooded the market. I've often theorised about why it happened but I keep coming back to the same conclusion - pills dropped so far down in price it wasn't worth the risk. Before the drought I was getting good beans for as little as a couple of quid. When the prices hit rock bottom things changed because I'm guessing the risks didn't outweigh the reward anymore for those producing mdma in large quantities. Again though, this is very specific to SE London. Holland was largely unaffected at the time (although actual consumption clearly dropped significantly) which completely disproves the bizarre "China's hosting the Olympics and they're clamping down on chemical exports" (wtf?!) false-rumours that were being spread around at that time - to try and increase the sale of this fake mdma.
"Man you had some crappy dealers!" - Indeed, and I can assure you they were everywhere. I've lost count of how many I must have met in that timeframe, but certainly between 50-100 over a 15 year period. The problem is that, like I said, many of them just didn't care - and, perhaps more tragically, a lot of people didn't notice. I remember one night doing a house move with my other half and I suggested we drop some pills (bzp/pipes) We knew full well they were bunk as I'd tested them - by around midnight we'd both completely forgotten we'd even taken anything. What's really interesting (yet thoroughly sad) is that at the start of the evening I'd visited a dealer and his girlfriend was on the sofa claiming she was high as a kite from the very same pills I'd tested as bzp/pipes earlier. They did nothing (at all) yet she was there thinking she was rolling on mdma. Bonkers. Utterly bonkers. But she believed it, hook, line and sinker.
My rather long and tedious point is that some chemists have absolutely no interest in purity whatsoever. It's all about finding the cheapest chemicals to maximise profits - if they could find something that would fool you, then it's fair game. Thankfully the DNM have changed all this - but I hope it gives people an idea of just how bad things got. Good mdma that positively reeks of safrole is definitely out there, but the 'magic' - that's something you'll only come close to feeling again if you take a break for a few years. I could be wrong but that's how it feels for me. I should add that even today, there's a lot of mediocre mdma about. It's good but the real dynamite stuff is still quite rare and boils down to pot luck. Out of 15 batches, I'd say 2-3 were high calibre, the rest was okay but nothing special.
I'd also really like to know how they fooled the test kit back in the day. I can't say I've researched the matter but it's something that's still mystified me after all these years - and I really need to finish reading this thread! (I'm about halfway through, i think?!)