• MDMA &
    Empathogenic
    Drugs

    Welcome Guest!
  • MDMA Moderators:

What is wrong with the MDMA available today?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Reading no_id's story and indigo's replies I remember that my first experience with MDMA was also lackluster. It was nice, but it wasn't at all the lovey empathic experience of MDMA. It was tested and from a reliable source. Only a month or so later I did other stuff and had an amazing time, exactly as you'd hope to expect.
 
Good looking out indigo, also appreciate the response on Marquis.

GMP (good manufacturing practices) MDMA is kind of a US scam to keep people from using pharmacies outside the country. GMP mdma is product where certain practices are followed and everything documented along the way. GMP MDMA is "born" that way but can't be claimed GMP MDMA after synthesis even if it's 99.9% pure.

It's in a nutshell another hurdle that the US gov has put in place to make research harder as well as increase domestic profits. MAPS purchased non GMP MDMA in the 90's that they used up until phase 3 trials which was perfectly stable and fine.

The one thing I found interesting while reading was this..

""I had expected that manufacturing a chemical that is over 100 years old to be a simple process, like making widgets. I thought that there was a set of directions that all pharmacologists and chemists would know that would produce MDMA. However, from our discussions and exchanges during the search, we learned that building a chemical is more akin to cooking or artwork: finding a cost-effective, high-yield route to making a future medicine is a creative process of discovery, not to be found in a single set of directions.""

This quote is coming from someone who works with maps and has a PHD.. Not all MDMA is the same.

I believe it doesn't matter much the route so long as the purity is high, obtaining high purity mdma is harder than most people care to admit.

-GC
 
Last time I experienced good MDMA was 2007 with some "Pink Buddha" pills. Turned Marquis into dark purple and did NOT fizzle or smoke.
Every other MDMA pills or crystals or powder I have come across since then pretty much sucked. They are really sleeping pills for me. The only way I have found to work around that is to drink a Redbull once the pill kicks in (about an hour after ingestion). This simple trick has worked fairly well to bring up some energy during the otherwise sleepy roll but yeah pills have been different since 2007 and its not only me who noticed that.
In fact i am so disappointed at today's MDMA that I am seriously thinking of switching over to 2CB.
 
Funny you should mention energy drinks, Ionized. I resorted to that trick too. I would use 5 hour energy before a roll and during the roll to try to negate that sleepy feeling. Eventually gave up on that, because it still just was not the same. It just made it harder to sleep afterwards.

Great quote to pull from the article, G_Chem. I basically got the same impression.

I emailed MAPS a brief query and explained our concerns regarding the quality of MDMA being sold on the street currently. We'll see if they bother to reply.

And, just to add, the "sleepy" MDMA I have did not turn purple on the marquis testing. It does the fizzle black reaction. I need a new marquis kit and then I can film both reactions in good light and upload them.
 
^^^Awesome information here that continues to confirm the marquis reagent theory that good product goes purple whereas the not so good product doesn't..

Also I appreciate you contacting them as I was thinking about it but got a lot of craziness in the life right now so my hobbies are on the back burner for a min.

Yea needing energy drinks does solidify the notion there's a difference as well..

The one thing I'll say is I don't think ALL marquis reactions which go straight black signify bad product. I've seen highly pure MDMA go straight black that was pretty damn good. I think MDMA if made exceedingly pure via this piperanol to PMK glycidate route will feel almost or completely identical to mdma made from more "traditional" routes (excluding polymorphic differences). With that said as we know finding highly pure MDMA ain't easy. I also think this is why we see variations in how "mongy" and lacking certain batches are. So straight to black on marquis isn't always bad but not a great sign either unless your looking at crystals that resemble perfect little pieces of clear quartz (as I was when I stumbled upon the product I talk about above.)

I think this observation that highly pure MDMA which goes straight black is still good also helps confirm the sedating impurity theory even more.

-GC
 
In addition to caffeine, I've also found alcohol to help smooth out the shitty edges of bad batches, and bring out the good stuff. I'm just throwing stuff in here as I remember it anecdotally.
 
Most studies show that mixing alcohol with MDMA increases the chances of neurotoxicity, so I stay away from that. I also just don't like alcohol in general. Not my thing.
 
Not gonna lie guys, you have put me down a bit. Here I am, got some pure MDMA from the glorious internet (if I had this access to all the different drugs back then OMG) and MDA, and have had it about a year, waiting like a fine bottle of Champagne to open up on a good day. Well that time is near, and I must say, I am worried.

I was Rolling starting in 2000. Back then man it was amazing, the culture, music, all of it. When I went to college in 2003, I rolled a few times but the pills got dirtier and dirtier with worse come downs and hangovers. So I stopped

I remember the last time I rolled in 2006, at Junkie XL, in ATL. My sister had me up to hang out and roll, and they were fairly new to the scene wheras I am a veteran. The way they did it was odd. They wanted to re dose all night long, I gave up my last roll for my sister. I was taught to take 2 pills then in an hour or 2 take another or maybe 2, but then after that its over. let it go. It was just different, I realize people were doing that before, but it was new to me.

There can only be a few things here. Isomeric differences: with the S-isomer being much more active, looking at PihKAl the R isomer is active but less so, and the experience is similar, but not as sparkly. There should not be any major difference in the lasting hangover, if anything, the more active S-Isomer should be worse since it drains Serotonin much more readily.

Then there are by products in the synthesis, as we all know the differing substiution patterns to amphetamines are pretty much all active, with methylenedioxy compounds probably in the list of impurities found in the endpoint, and also would probably ride along with in the recrystallizations. The only way to get real super pure product reliably is chromatography (do the dutch labs do this?)

My issue with this is with so many people have Marquis tested these things (is this mostly with pills or also powder/crystal?) Marquis can be fooled, but it cant be the rule, rather the exception. Now if you get marquis tested product that turns black/purple immediately, it can safely be said to be high yield. Not many impurities are active in that low of concentration.

I feel that if the synthetic pathway has changed, the issue is a preference for the R-Isomer (remember Shulgin used Racemic MDMA most of the time). So the preference may be fairly high. The issue with all these negative reactions in the following days I feel is probably misuse and over use of the drug.

Or we are getting old... but again, Shulgin and his colleagues werent spring chickens when they tool MDMA.

I hope I aint disappointed when I get the chance to take my MDA/MDMA rolls!

Edit: As someone who has worked in the chemical and pharmaceutical business a very long time, GMP/GLP, albeit slow and tedious as shit is indeed a good thing and brings traceability and accountability to pharmaceutical companies. It is there for a reason.
 
@G_Chem

I just stuck a pill featuring a "Trump" logo, brought from NL by a friend of a friend, into my Raman spectrometer, and the major signal, aside from polyvinylpyrrolidone, was 2,3-MDP2P Glycidate. The signal was so strong that it overshadowed any MDMA in it...if there was any.
 
Last edited:
Shit are you serious?!? Great work my man! At work but I'll get back tonight or tmrw.

So it was 2,3-MDP2P glycidate not 3,4?? Wouldn't that mean we are looking at 2,3-MDMA in the sample too then? I wonder the legality of 2,3-MDP2P glycidate? That may be the reason they are flooding the market with this stuff.

Damn if that's the case then you were on the right track all along (as well as shunenja..).

Either way it's clear these labs could give a shit if there intermediates even aminate, all I can do is shake my head in disgust..

Be back,

-GC
 
Glubrahnum said:
@G_Chem

I just stuck a pill featuring a "Trump" logo, brought from NL by a friend of a friend, into my Raman spectrometer, and the major signal, aside from polyvinylpyrrolidone, was 2,3-MDP2P Glycidate. The signal was so strong that it overshadowed any MDMA in it...if there was any.
Click to expand...

Sorry Im not a chemist, so in laymans terms, what does all this mean? The samples are testing positive as MDMA in the labs but its not the correct MDMA?
 
Last edited:
If Glubra is right it means we have 2,3-MDMA in place of 3,4-MDMA (the right one) for some pills, and on top of that most of the content of that pill contained the intermediate which has little if any activity.

2,3-MDMA doesn't have much research on it, all I could find is a research paper which says it has similar action on NE but much less action on SERT. (This would mean more of a nasty stimulus with zero euphoria.) Others have talked about it being hard to distinguish from real 3,4-MDMA via GCMS but I found a paper saying it can be distinguished so someone will have to clarify that for me..

It's not far fetched to see mostly MDP2P (or analogous substances like the glycidate) like we do here in a sample although I wonder how common it is.. I also wonder how active a pill like this would even be?..

Another huge discovery from that research is these labs are using the glycidate as is to synthesize (or at least this one did..). This could mean two things; the lab who made this pill tried synth'ing straight from the glycidate and failed miserably, and/or this is common practice and many labs synth straight from glycidate.

So much to go on from here. Next I'd love to dive into experience reports for that particular pill. Any chance on a picture Glubra, if not describe the pill to best of your ability.

Awesome work everyone seriously, this is by far the best independent research collaboration I've seen in a long time. I'm proud of what we've accomplished thus far.

Edit:

https://www.ecstasydata.org/view.php?id=6039&mobile=1

Here's a link to the latest trump pill that they claim is just over 200mg MDMA.. What's your take on that Glubra or anyone? Do you think they are missing something? I wouldn't doubt it based on what Lucid has described of testing centers. How far off is MDP2P from MDMA on GCMS?

-GC
 
Last edited:
Was this RAMAN spectrum obtained with a solid like a KBr pellet (I am not up on RAMAN spec)? If it was a solid, then you would not always get a complete sample of the compound due to mixing and all that. These pills are not homogeneous at all.

3,4-MDMA and 2,3 should be distinguishable with good chromatography, because the two will not elute into the MS at the same time. That is why you cant tell R/S isomers with a normal column, they are pretty much shaped the same with the same electrochemical properties, but these two are a bit different and I would expect them to elute near each other but not quite the same. YOu would have to have standards for each though, because I would guess that the MS spectrum would look similar. This is where having LCMS with tandem mass spec would come in quite handy to do MS^3, or a triple quad GCMS

Sounds like this pill had a lot of precursor left in it, probably due to a bad synthesis.

My question is is 2,3-MDMA and 3,4-MDMA common products in the synthesis of MDMA? I could potentially see this happening in the course of some reactions, you have a phenol ring, and unless you are guaranteeing where the reaction occurs on the ring you could get multiple products which would have to be separated by batch level chromatography (alumina or silica).

Remember this is one pill and is no way representative of even every trump pill out there. (was a marquid reagent test done on the RAMAN pill??)
 
Here is an experiment someone can try on either powdered MDMA or pills that they feel is MDMA but sucks: this should remove much of the contaminants that are disimilar in polarity to MDMA.

Take a 5mL syringe (the longer the tube the better a buret is the best thing to use), get some Alumina powder from the pharmacist or online and some glass wool or something to loosely stopper the bottom of the column. Add the alumina, and condition it with ethanol. put like 10 column volumes through, never let it dry except the first like cm.

Then add the powder (a little more than a dose) to about a half mL of ethanol, take this and add to the column. Now run 10 column volumes of ethanol through the column, collect each, 1mL at a time and save them.
Now switch to hexane or some other nonpolar solvent and run it through the column (maybe 10 column volumes ) again, keeping the aliquots in 1mL increments.

Now do a marquis reagent test on them there should be maybe one or two that turn black, the others will have the other junk. Throw out the negatives. combine the positives, dry and take to see how it feels.

anyone can pm me if they want to try it and I can probably scrape up a better method.
 
Would the possibility of todays MDMA pills and powder actually being 2,3 MDMA instead of 3,4 MDMA be the reason the mgs are so high nowadays?

And if we can verify 2,3 MDMA is the culprit, could a simple reagent test be produced to distinguish against that and 3,4 MDMA?
 
you would need to search the literature or reports of colorimetric tests with 2,3-MDMA.

I really wonder how active and how similar this would be to MDMA
 
From the readings, it seems as though it's more in line with a traditional stimulant. But there's near zero experiences with it, and little in way of pharmacological testing. We know it acts similar on norepinephrine but much less on serotonin. This would explain the lack of mydriasis and empathy, also would explain how people can take such large doses of it..

Although it doesn't really explain the monginess..

-GC
 
I just dont think this is the culprit in what you guys are feeling. From what I have gathered 2,3-MDMA is not even a major or minor product in the current synthesis of the age.

A lab would almost have had to purposely throw this in the pill. I want to take a little harder look at the synthesis to see if it is even a chemical possibility in the reaction. Also would like more info on the chiral nature of the reaction.
 
I think we need further input from Glubra. If this was the case it would be very interesting, but we need more evidence to back the claim that 2,3-MDMA was the culprit all along.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top