• MDMA &
    Empathogenic
    Drugs

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How we rolled in the 90s when the pills were super strong

Wow! The UK, eh? The us is a bunch of uptight hypocrites who like to tell people, "I tried it once but I didn't inhale."...yeah, right..And The Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bowie and The Sex Pistols are from England. Cool.

Would love to find good rolls..X...thing of the past. Such a bummer. I would be so appreciative
 
I only heard from friends that E in 90's was much better quality than nowadays. So, people rolling in that period of time must have a lot of fun. :)
 
Those days are gone forever (for now anyway). We should just let them go. Yes, that's a quote by DJ Sammy. It's horrible not to have been able to find a good pill in over ten years. I never thought that it would have come to this.
 
I might be attending an edm festival this weekend so wish me luck, but I am pretty sure the southeast USA has been in a drought for a while now. And I don't want to resort to the deep net.
 
lol.. dude, 200+mg pills are all over the place. You need some better hook ups.



Everything is as it ever was.. better, even.

Q uoted F or T ruth

but i feel ya on the getting older and finding connects for it...it seems to be certain groups.
But when my black street dealer friend started selling moonrocks steady....I know
things are gettin better in this place which ,,has been a black hole of sorts for E..Its getting
really popular in the hip hop community.....
 
lol.. dude, 200+mg pills are all over the place. You need some better hook ups.

Everything is as it ever was.. better, even.

Oh awesome this debate back online :)

I think things now are not necessarily better but different. Like with all things in life you have to move with the times.

The overall quality of pills back in the 90s was definitely of a higher standard. ie more chance of getting an MDMA pill not many RCs around then if any at all. This was even more the case in the USA at the time.

Chances of getting MDA or MDEA back then was definitely higher. If this was your thing then this could be a bonus. Getting MDA or MDEA now is a lot harder (generally speaking)

MDMA definitely followed different synthetic routes at the time. There are a few reasons for this. Precursor availability was different then so this would dictate often different processes used to make it. These processes could produce byproducts thus producing a different high. Also techniques have improved (ie more efficient yields) so this will also produce different processes and potentially a slightly different end product.

For me personally I think an MDMA pill or "E" then GENERALLY speaking was different. Note the word GENERALLY. I think that is the key. The perception of a pill in the 90s was based on general experiences.

Sure there are pills around now that are also KICK ASS but I think they are a lot harder to find now than they were then.

The MDMA molecule is of course an MDMA molecule but as you know with all molecules they can be bundled in many different formats to make all kinds of crazy things happen.

On the basis we are discussing clandestine LAB techniques as to exactly what is going on is anyones guess. I suspect in many cases even the chap in charge of the lab only has a vague idea of what he is doing and as long as the end product makes people fucked up and they like it his job is complete. If he fucks around too much trying to purify or analyise his product he is one step closer to jail so move fast and leave the analysis to the ravers.
 
I realise this topic has been spoken about over and over for some years now but it is relevant to what I have been reading up on recently, as some of the high dose Dutch pills have started to reach Australia, a country which has for many years been a barren wasteland for any MDMA pills over about 60mg and a few years before that there was none.

This situation directly contributed to crystal methylamphetamine use skyrocketing all over the country, including amongst very young adults who 10 years ago would have only ever touched MDMA pills and today have not even experienced one properly.

The difference between the current crop of pills containing very large doses of MDMA and the pills of the 90s (as well as MDMA crystal currently) must be down to something or things which are identifiable, because the difference is widely reported and becoming consistent.

Firstly, there is no doubt some MDA in an MDMA pill would effect things, but it is clear that the majority of the earlier pills were not necessarily combo pills. Whilst MDA played a part, it does not provide the answer.

My suggestions:

(1) THE PURITY OF THE MDMA AND OTHER DRUGS BEING PRESSED INTO THE PILLS

The first reason is that perhaps the Superlabs putting out all these high dose and obviously related pills over recent years are generally not purifying the MDMA product as much as was done previously; perhaps the precursors being used at the outset are not particularly pure, having had to be obtained from alternative sources (whether synthetic or plant based).

- therefore, where a lab report has said that the pill contains 200mg of pure MDMA-HCL that is because it does, but the lab report says nothing about the purity of the MDMA powder which was actually used to make the pill.

- so in actual fact it might be that the pill contains 250mg of 80% pure "MDMA-HCl product" or worse still 300mg of 66.66% pure "MDMA-HCl product".

- in both examples there is a total of 200mg of pure MDMA but one pill also has 50 mg of who knows what - I.e. precursors, reactants, impurities generated by the chemical reactions required, solvents, and so on etc; the second example has 100mg of such a mixture!

Binder and inactive filler and possibly colouring is then generally added (if the pill also contained other known drugs/adulterants in addition to the MDMA, then the lab would report this; as we know for almost all of the pills under consideration MDMA is the only active ingredient). If the binder/filler/colouring actually did something, as some people quite strangely believe, then pharmaceutical companies would struggle to get approval to sell the thousands of drugs in pill form that they do in all sorts of shapes, compositions and colours. These considerations might be relevant for absorption and rate of onset issues but they are irrelevant to this discussion.

Unless thorough investigation is done into what other chemicals are found within these pills, aside from merely reporting the active drug, then we just cannot know how pure the MDMA is that goes into the pill being consumed. A forensic chemist can easily do this because when they analyse the pills (generally through a combination of HPLC/mass spectrometry), the machine will tell them the identity of every other chemical contained in the pill and its relative proportions. They do this all the time, for example when they want to determine the manufacturing method used in a particular case or if they want to prove that two separate samples were created during the same manufacturing process. Of course whether the impurities have any appreciable physiological effect is another thing entirely. I seriously doubt they would have a psychoactive effect.

Pure MDMA-HCl is white. It is interesting how darkly coloured some of these super pills are, which might be for novelty reasons, but it might also be to mask the colour of the original product which might be brown. Saying that, if left over precursors was a problem, you would expect these pills to smell fairly strong - do they? I am aware that those huge skull pills were bone white - did they have the desired effect or did they seem similar to the rest of these super pills?

It would also be interesting to see whether a group of the super pills which we can be confident come from the same manufacturer, all contained an impurity generated in the reaction that perhaps other pills do not. This would be a product of the manufacturing process being utilised by that manufacturer and might then indicate something specific in a group of related pills which is doing something physiologically that others are not; and perhaps the presence of an impurity unknown to the detailed studies previously undertaken into this area focusing on the common methods.

This is the reason in my opinion why some people claim that white MDMA crystal (which if it is brilliant may well have been purified to 95% feels different to these pills even when the same 100mg dose is taken:

- the crystal contains ~105mg of white 95% pure "MDMA-HCl product" whereas the pill might contain 150mg of brown, smelly 66.6% pure "MDMA-HCl product, which is then coloured into something much more appetising and made to look very cool indeed).

Perhaps the MDMA going into the 90s pills was purified to a greater extent, given that the market was much smaller and also included pure MDEA (legally obtained) from time to time. If indeed amphetamine was also in there then perhaps those complaining of being too ruined and not loved up enough on these new pills, need only a quick bump of amphet or a couple of dexies to be once again running around and hugging all and sundry.

Bluelighters above have continually said that the synthesis of MDMA was different back then. How and in what way?

I know of no viable synthesis that does not start with MD-P2P, which is the exact same chemical as PMK, just named differently. Whether the MD-P2P is sourced commercially, made from piperonal or made from safrole is surely neither here nor there. If it was of significance then it could only be from the different impurities produced and these should by now have been identified.

I cannot see anyone making MDMA from MDA.

Piperonal can be more easily used to manufacture MDA in addition to MDMA but this would not result in more MDA in my view as if MDA was desired it can easily be manufacture from MD-P2P as well.

So what are people going on about as I don't see one single difference in the synthesis method which could explain anything (the purity of the final product aside of course which I have already mentioned).

If indeed MDMA is able to be made from another precursor or the ketone manufactured from entirely different starting chemicals, then this might of course explain something.

(2) NEW MANUFACTURING PROCESSES NOT PRODUCING A RACEMIC MIX OF MDMA ENANTIOMERS

As stated, I have no doubt almost all MDMA is produced from MD-P2P. The piperonal route produces MD-phenyl-2-nitropropene as an intermediate, so who knows what this latter chemical might do if not removed from the final product. Further, some manufacturers might use methylamine and others nitromethane to make the MDMA. Again, these chemicals being left over in the product might effect things, and they are quite different indeed, although others have said above they shouldn't.

However, despite all of this, most chemists agree that any manufacture of MDMA from MD-P2P will produce racemic MDMA (give or take). But what if these superlabs are using new manufacturing processes which for some reason don't do this. A catalyst or other reactant of some kind (such as an Aluminium-Mercury amalgam or other chemicals I won't mention) must be used in the final step.

The chemicals which facilitate this final step or the catalysts which do the same thing can work in unusual ways and there is the possibility that if these superlabs are employing novel and new reactants/catalysts (especially given the tried and tested ones would be watched closely) which favour the production of a particular enantiomer over the other, then perhaps the MDMA going into the recent super pills isn't actually the desired 1:1 ratio of the two MDMA enantiomers at all. If this ratio is out then the subjective effects will be skewed in a particular direction and if there is more R then the dosage is going to go up and the effects will not be as wonderful.

No standard laboratory test is going to distinguish between the two types and so we just don't know. My understanding of inorganic chemistry and especially catalysts is fairly limited when compared to organic chemistry, so if anyone has more advanced knowledge in this area any contribution would be valuable. In 2012 people above said all the reactants and catalysts were not stereo selective and so that was the end of that; but two years have past and in that time these very high dose pills have flooded the market.

Whilst no sensible person wants these labs to cease production by being busted (trust me it just means more crystal meth addicts in my country at least), it would be very interesting to know whether they are manufacturing MDMA in the same way that Shulgin did, the same way as they did when it was legal and the same way as they plainly did in the 90s and early 2000s. If the methods have changed slightly (whether in respect to the chemicals used or the reaction conditions employed) then who knows whether the MDMA going into these pills is quite the same as the MDMA which went into the pills of yesteryear.

I also don't believe any manufacturer would deliberately try to separate out the enantiomers. If the racemate is produced, the racemate would stay.

(3) THE SALT ISSUE

I also believe almost all MDMA is in HCl form. I don't believe the sulphate can easily be created because sulphuric acid will destroy the MD bridge. If indeed there was phosphate, citrate or tartrate salts then perhaps absorption would be effected. However, what people should be more focused on is whether the drug in this form could seriously mislead the effective amount of MDMA in the pill.

All of the other three salts would have a much greater molecular weight and if the total weight of the MDMA salt in the pill was quoted in the lab result, this could be misleading. However, all of the recent Eve-Rave results specify MDMA-HCL, including some of the very big ones. Therefore, this is a red herring.

(4) THOSE LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE TAKEN MDMA IN THE 90s DON'T FEEL THE EFFECTS OF THE DRUG AS THEY ONCE DID

The final possibility and one that cannot be ignored ad beaten to death throughout 2012, is that those people in the 90s who likely consumed many MDMA pills when they were first starting out, now find the pills of today different because the experiences from one's early days are such that they cannot truly ever be replicated ever again; there is that undeniable loss of "magic" - perhaps for this drug, after sufficient use and moving on from whatever scene you were a part of and which made using the drug at that time so special, losing the real magic is truly permanent.

Maybe the brain is capable of reacting chemically as it once did, but the "out of the world" experience which we have all enjoyed in our younger years isn't the same because we are familiar with it, know what to expect, now see the world in a different light, and thus adjust our behaviour and response to the drug accordingly. People don't dance all sweaty and loved up to the end of these events anymore because now too many people are worried about their hair, showing their tattoos and updating their Facebook, despite being just as munted.

Perhaps if those same people could go forward in time and have the current crop of pills, they would feel exactly the same. Likewise, if those just starting out on the current pills went back in time and tried those of the early rave scene, they too would be just as happy, just as loved up and just as naïve and excited about the adventure that awaits.

I realise this is a long post but this is a particularly interesting area which I know has been debated a lot above, but at a time before the supply of these super pills really took off and spread worldwide. I have no doubt the answers are out there somewhere and a more detailed chemical analysis of these pills is required.
 
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I am a cool 48 and can't. find x in Florida period

I can't tell you how grateful I would be to get something..REAL. In the 90's I had a small window where the stuff was tabs and it was amazing. I was in my 30's than. My friends and I would take only 1 and be rolling hard for a good 4 hours. It was an up for sure, and I could feel a summer breeze caressing me which felt like a pair of skilled hands. Every. Sensation was a thrill. Going on a walk in NYC was an adventure. This stuff was so much FUN! Now, at 48, either I don't know the right people or what I have gotten. My hands on has been bunk..My son is supposed. To have a good connect so time will tell..more 2 follow..peace
 
Late 90's half a pill and I was chewing my face off. Had a great time never felt anything like it. Big break then mid 2000's had a mitzy was the same but more prepared had a great time. 2012 new years eve had some good powder best shit ever with my gf and since then every blue moon and we have a great time. Better now I'm in a better situation and have a great gf. So I think its all bs no difference in chemicals but my mental stability has changed and my expectations have changed.
 
the drugs may have gotten worse but at least the music has gotten much better!!

quite on the contrary (and not all music was like in that video). music used to be faster, more hard hitting and more flowing in an entrancing way. now most genres have evolved into an endless stream of buildup-buildup-drop to bass-buildup-buildup-drop to bass-... which provides interspersed bouts of instant gratification instead of logical progression and dancability all the way through.

also party culture has deteriorated. it used to be all about the people and the music, but now the focus is much more on the artist and the light show around the stage. it's no longer that kind of communal even but rather just "watching a show" - even though most artists now just press play and wiggle their hands a bit. back in the day the dj console was often tucked away on the side and people were facing each other or the speakers. if you now put the dj console in such a spot, 90% of the people will orient in that direction not not give a shit about where the music's coming from (yes, i have seen that happen).

I can't tell you how grateful I would be to get something..REAL. In the 90's I had a small window where the stuff was tabs and it was amazing. I was in my 30's than. My friends and I would take only 1 and be rolling hard for a good 4 hours. It was an up for sure, and I could feel a summer breeze caressing me which felt like a pair of skilled hands. Every. Sensation was a thrill. Going on a walk in NYC was an adventure. This stuff was so much FUN!
that's exactly how pills were over here in the early 00s.
 
black. I was just generalizing. There was some good trance music back in the early 2000s late 90s that I still enjoy. But i would say that on a grand scale (as a person that appreciates a variety of electronic genres) that electronic music has evolved and gotten better
 
that's exactly how pills were over here in the early 00s.

Or over here right now :) I can't help but think, every time I read on of these stories about how the pills were a long time ago, that they always describe exactly how pure MDMA has always felt and still feels for me. I do not believe there is a difference in my case as I have been feeling the exact same thing for close to 10 years, with some occasional tolerance- or set/setting-issues added in the mix of course. If I take a lot of it, it looks exactly like in those videos and I feel exactly the same as everyone describes the pills were like in the 'old days'

As for the music, I can't speak on that much, as I'm only 25 so the real rave scene was from just before my time. I do agree with Black, this "let's build a track following the same pattern as before" and "buildups ruuuuuule, let's do just buildups" is getting a bit tiresome. There is still a lot of music that surprises me in some way, drum and bass has had a very interesting evolution over the years, but most of the other older genres have stopped evolving. They were great and original but they have either been abandoned or deformed to please the masses (I've had someone call Tiesto trance once *shiver*), except for a few underground crews that still have their original sound. I would've LOVED to see what the older genres would be like today if they continued evolving like jungle did all the way up to all the different sub-genres of drum and bass you have these days.

And yes I know trance had a lot of sub-genres too, but to me it seemed it died down when it still had so much potential for evolution, I guess together with the rave scene. Man I was born too late, gotta find me an illegal warehouse party again sometime soon. At least psytrance is still somewhat alive over here =D
 
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Or over here right now :) I can't help but think, every time I read on of these stories about how the pills were a long time ago, that they always describe exactly how pure MDMA has always felt and still feels for me. I do not believe there is a difference in my case as I have been feeling the exact same thing for close to 10 years, with some occasional tolerance- or set/setting-issues added in the mix of course. If I take a lot of it it looks exactly like in those videos and I feel exactly the same as everyone describes the pills were like in the 'old days'

As for the music, I can't speak on that much, as I'm only 25 so the real rave scene was from just before my time. I do agree with Black, this "let's build a track following the same pattern as before" and "buildups ruuuuuule, let's do just buildups" is getting a bit tiresome. There is still a lot of music that surprises me in some way, drum and bass has had a very interesting evolution over the years, but most of the other older genres have stopped evolving. They were great and original but they have either been abandoned or deformed to please the masses (I've had someone call Tiesto trance once *shiver*), except for a few underground crews that still have their original sound. I would've LOVED to see what the older genres would be like today if they continued evolving like jungle did all the way up to all the different sub-genres of drum and bass you have these days.

And yes I know trance had a lot of sub-genres too, but to me it seemed it died down when it still had so much potential for evolution, I guess together with the rave scene. Man I was born too late, gotta find me an illegal warehouse party again sometime soon. At least psytrance is still somewhat alive over here =D
There are some good illegal/unlicensed warehouse parties still going in NYC every weekend. I go to a lot of them and will be headed to one this weekend. As someone that first had MDMA back in 1985...I can say that at least in the NYC area, there were some excellent pill back in the day. Then a change happened years ago, now pills are not trusted here anymore. Very pure MDMA is available here but only from select sources but now I only see it in powder or capsule form.

Also most of what is being sold as molly does not even contain MDMA. On the other had it seems most of the under 30 crowd doesn't even know what pure MDMA is. They very rarely test and will buy virtually anything sold as "Molly", whatever that is now.
 
There are some good illegal/unlicensed warehouse parties still going in NYC every weekend. I go to a lot of them and will be headed to one this weekend. As someone that first had MDMA back in 1985...I can say that at least in the NYC area, there were some excellent pill back in the day. Then a change happened years ago, now pills are not trusted here anymore. Very pure MDMA is available here but only from select sources but now I only see it in powder or capsule form.

Also most of what is being sold as molly does not even contain MDMA. On the other had it seems most of the under 30 crowd doesn't even know what pure MDMA is. They very rarely test and will buy virtually anything sold as "Molly", whatever that is now.

Yeah over here there are still some underground parties as well, I try to attend as much of them as I can, but they are becoming more and more scarce. And big industry is taking over very fast. We had one very big, very free festival over here up until recently. Had about 120000 visitors each year. It was magical because the people organizing the festival tried to imbue their festival with complete freedom, and succeeded. They gave us some huge fields to party on, put up huge speakers, stages and tents, food stands, beer stands, toilets and everything we needed and came back to clean everything up 5 days later so to speak. Zero rules, zero oversight, nothing. And surprisingly a relatively low incident rate. It was heaven... Two weeks ago I heard the biggest festival promoter in the country has bought up the festival. There goes our last big, 'free' festival. It's all entertainment for the masses now. Money and status, not music, are important. And music itself suffers from this change in crowd and mentality

And I of course realize a lot of it has to do with fake MDMA being sold. But you would at least expect someone from the old days claiming the MDMA has changed to test his or her stuff to be sure the claims he or she makes are about MDMA and not some other chemical I think =D I mean that's why I claim it hasn't changed. I test every time, have been for years plus I look up my pills on pillreports. On top of that I have a steady supply of well known Dutch super-pills. And it has always been like this for me. So I know the claims I make are about MDMA. I do not think anything has changed with the chemical itself...
 
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Yeah over here there are still some underground parties as well, I try to attend as much of them as I can, but they are becoming more and more scarce. And big industry is taking over very fast. We had one very big, very free festival over here up until recently. Had about 120000 visitors each year. It was magical because the people organizing the festival tried to imbue their festival with complete freedom, and succeeded. They gave us some huge fields to party on, put up huge speakers, stages and tents, food stands, beer stands, toilets and everything we needed and came back to clean everything up 5 days later so to speak. Zero rules, zero oversight, nothing. And surprisingly a relatively low incident rate. It was heaven... Two weeks ago I heard the biggest festival promoter in the country has bought up the festival. There goes our last big, 'free' festival. It's all entertainment for the masses now. Money and status, not music, are important. And music itself suffers from this change in crowd and mentality
That is really too bad!:(
And I of course realize a lot of it has to do with fake MDMA being sold. But you would at least expect someone from the old days claiming the MDMA has changed to test his or her stuff to be sure the claims he or she makes are about MDMA and not some other chemical I think =D I mean that's why I claim it hasn't changed. I test every time, have been for years plus I look up my pills on pillreports. On top of that I have a steady supply of well known Dutch super-pills. And it has always been like this for me. So I know the claims I make are about MDMA. I do not think anything has changed with the chemical itself...
I find pure MDMA is the same as it was 29 years ago. The difference I see is that so much of what is presented as "molly" nowadays has no MDMA in it whatsoever. Often it is the common substitutes but I remember testing some moonrocks for these folks that showed no reaction at all from any of my testing bottles. Too RCish, bath salt style, to be considered safe.

As for the pills in this area. Those are pretty problematic. The vast majority of times they suck when it comes to test results. Actually we have very high-quality MDMA here...if a person knows where to shop. But I would say the majority of the under-25 crowd here has not had real MDMA.
 
in the early 90s just took half a Dennis was flying all night but yes your tolerance did build up but was doing them every weekend for 2 years and once in the week all i needed was 1 pill 1 only and the speed was better as remember the floating and the tingle in the head so please tell me i have tried all most all the good ones of late why i do not get that everyones my mate feeling why i do not rush and need to throw up or have a good poo why i need to redose after 2 defcons why cant a pill last 6 or more hours why cant you put them in a spliff and smell of aniseed and the buzz from smoking it was not a rush but more a body rush more why when i talk to my age group yes we are in our early middle to late 40s if older no definitely older and i can say for a fact we are all yes all looking for that 1 and only 1 pill so if an old timer is reading this ffs get the little fuckers out before we go happy raving !!! ps i do not give a shit what was in them back in the day all i can ask for is dennis phase4 trippleXs not china whites they were amazing head rush out of this world but your body did not want to know gutted
 
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@ Biscuit

Unless you can identify a 5HT2 (abc) antagonist -- your contaminant theory is dead in the water. If you can -- good on you mate! -- seriously, I was thinking the same fucking thing the other night
 
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