• Neuroscience & Pharmacology Discussion Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Recent Journal Articles Chemistry Mega-Thread
    FREE Chemistry Databases! Self-Education Guide

  • N&PD Moderators: Skorpio

MDMA Folklore

^^I gave two examples, actually: one extreme and one moderate.

MDA is said to be twice as neurotoxic as MDMA. People have been bingeing on MDA since at least 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco to name but one place to no ill effects save for subsequent speed addiction which later usually cleared itself up on its own over time.

THAT WAS 41 YEARS AGO.

I mean, look at Ann and Sasha Shulgin by now; they're elderly! What more proof do you people want? Why is it so hard to accept the fact that MDA, MDMA, and MDE are overwhelmingly positive substances AND as physically, mentally, and psychologically benign as could possibly be hoped for.

Are you aware that SSRIs cause the same neurochemical changes that are seen with MDMA? Well, I don't hear anyone clamouring to have the SSRIs taken off the market, far from it! For one thing, it's because these changes are minor, insignificant, and clinically unimportant/undetectable.

The MDxx class of so-called love (or hug) drugs are truly a blessing and a gift from God himself to humanity. It makes me sick when people outlaw, disrespect, disbelieve, and in general spread gross calumnies about them.
 
MDA and MDMA are actually pretty much equal in terms of neurotoxicity: both form the toxic pro-oxidant 5-cysteinyl-alpha-methyldopamine metabolites. MDA, however, is far worse for the heart, as it is a full agonist at the 5-HT2B receptor, while MDMA is a very weak partial agonist (and less than 10% of an MDMA dose is metabolized to MDA in vivo). There does seem to be huge intersubject variation in the toxic potential of MDMA. This likely has to do with individual metabolic enzyme isoforms--dictating how much of the toxic metabolite is formed--and individual response to oxidative stress.

Of course, I am talking about pure MDMA powder, not "Ecstasy" pills (for which nothing can be said, because no two clandestine pills are going to contain the exact same ingrediants and doses). But YES, even pure MDMA does have clear toxic potential because of the pro-oxidant metabolites. Just because the drug "feels good" psychically during the experience does not mean that it is absolutely free of toxicity.
 
Last edited:
Rectify said:
^^I gave two examples, actually: one extreme and one moderate.

MDA is said to be twice as neurotoxic as MDMA. People have been bingeing on MDA since at least 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco to name but one place to no ill effects save for subsequent speed addiction which later usually cleared itself up on its own over time.

THAT WAS 41 YEARS AGO.

I mean, look at Ann and Sasha Shulgin by now; they're elderly! What more proof do you people want? Why is it so hard to accept the fact that MDA, MDMA, and MDE are overwhelmingly positive substances AND as physically, mentally, and psychologically benign as could possibly be hoped for.

Are you aware that SSRIs cause the same neurochemical changes that are seen with MDMA? Well, I don't hear anyone clamouring to have the SSRIs taken off the market, far from it! For one thing, it's because these changes are minor, insignificant, and clinically unimportant/undetectable.

The MDxx class of so-called love (or hug) drugs are truly a blessing and a gift from God himself to humanity. It makes me sick when people outlaw, disrespect, disbelieve, and in general spread gross calumnies about them.
Click to expand...


Seriously, listen to melange and spend a half hour with PubMed, PubChem and just good. Take 150 bucks and get some quality papers on the subject, because you have obviously not looked at anything besides anecdote.
 
It is true that I haven't looked at the scientific literature with respect to MDMA in several years, not since I was in college to be precise, but I certainly have looked at it. However, it was clear to me even then that the research was horribly wrong. It was wrong then and, from what you're telling me, I have no reason to doubt that it is just as wrong today. The mainstream published scientific journals have had nothing but horrible things to say about MDMA from the start.

Those scientists didn't seem to know much about MDMA, certainly not on a first hand basis, except that it was extremely, extremely neurotoxic. You would have thought that they were writing about cyanide, mercury, lead, arsenic or asbestos.

While they very well may have been well-meaning professionals, it became apparent to me that a large majority of them were being paid by the US government to come up with negative things to say about MDMA, a relatively new drug of abuse whose popularity in the United States was skyrocketing at the time and had been for a long time.

For a drug to be classified as truly "neurotoxic," then something bad should happen after you take it. Just because an untruth has been published a million times already in the scientific literature doesn't make it true. It sounds like you have been blinded by science on this issue, and that you truly believe that mdma is somehow an overwhelmingly harmful, dangerous drug.

Do you honestly believe that 100-250mg MDMA.hcl is particularly dangerous for the vast majority of users in any way, shape, form or fashion or, for that matter, even somehow remotely more "neurotoxic" than a single session of binge drinking, a perfectly legal alternative?

Sorry, but's that's just not the case.
 
For a drug to be classified as truly "neurotoxic," then something bad should happen after you take it. Just because an untruth has been published a million times already in the scientific literature doesn't make it true. It sounds like you have been blinded by science on this issue, and that you truly believe that mdma is somehow an overwhelmingly harmful, dangerous drug.

Do you honestly believe that 100-250mg MDMA.hcl is particularly dangerous for the vast majority of users in any way, shape, form or fashion or, for that matter, even somehow remotely more "neurotoxic" than a single session of binge drinking, a perfectly legal alternative?

Sorry, but's that's just not the case.
Click to expand...

You're upset because research is coming to a different conclusion than the one you want, and accuse those who've looked at the research, the methodology and results as being "blinded"?

Single use of MDMA compared to a single binge drinking session results in poorer memory four days later. Yes, MDMA is more neurotoxic. Ethanol isn't great by any means, but it's not particularly bad.

If you're thinking that MDMA was a new drug of abuse "several years" ago, you really haven't done your research. Since the late 80s extensive research has been done. Hell, the first retrospectives started appearing as early as 92 or 95.

You keep complaining about how the research doesn't 'jive' with what you've experienced. That's called anecdote, and you're consistently confused with what it's worth.

Go through the research and then explain why the methodology was wrong or bad. If you can't, you shouldn't be complaining about the research. That's called bias.
 
The vast majority of MDMA neurotoxicity studies were done in mice or rats via injection in doses far exceeding human doses, generating a great amount of readily visible neurotoxicity from an analytical standpoint but a lot of very useless data from a practical standpoint.

The animals need to studied after they consume oral doses at 1x or 2x human equivalents. No one is conducting this research, probably because the people who conduct MDMA animal research are paid by the government to do so, who does not generally like MDMA.
 
^Thank you, nuke.

Hammilton,

I know you're sincere about this. I mean I think you are anyway. I'm sure that you are a very smart young man. You seem like you really believe in this science and everything but the more that this dialogue progresses the more and more apparent it is becoming to me that you have little to no first hand, real life experience with this drug and its effects at all. On top of that, you are completely closed off to the possibility that you are completely wrong about this issue and are oblivious to the fact that you have been so far utterly misled by corrupt government funded antidrug war junk science. You haven't been able to tell me a single bad, measurable, concrete thing that mdma does as a result of its purported overwhelming irrefutable debilitating "neurotoxicity." In general, if there is a group of people who have loads of experience with something of which you have no first hand knowledge, it is generally best not to start arguing with them about it based on what you have learned from watching what amounts to government funded antidrug after school specials parading as science. The fact that you view binge drinking as less toxic than MDMA is a dead giveaway and makes painfully obvious that you don't know jack about this subject. Seriously.
 
Last edited:
nuke said:
The vast majority of MDMA neurotoxicity studies were done in mice or rats via injection in doses far exceeding human doses, generating a great amount of readily visible neurotoxicity from an analytical standpoint but a lot of very useless data from a practical standpoint.

The animals need to studied after they consume oral doses at 1x or 2x human equivalents. No one is conducting this research, probably because the people who conduct MDMA animal research are paid by the government to do so, who does not generally like MDMA.
Click to expand...

This is largely nonsense. You're assuming that MDMA dosing in rats and mice on a mg/kg is equal to that of a human. It's not. A human being could never survive a 40mg/kg dose, and yet rats and mice are able to do so just fine. Obviously a dose for rats and mice is much higher, and the research has appropriately adjusted for this. While on a mg/kg basis behavioral effects are equal, this isn't an indication that neurotoxic effects are equal as evidenced by much higher LD50 for rats.

What's more, is that lower dose research IS being done. A few minutes with PubMed finds plenty

J Psychopharmacol. 2004 Sep;18(3):412-6. Links
Effect of repeated ('binge') dosing of MDMA to rats housed at normal and high temperature on neurotoxic damage to cerebral 5-HT and dopamine neurones.Sanchez V, O'shea E, Saadat KS, Elliott JM, Colado MI, Green AR.
Departamento de Farmacologia, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain.

The technique of 'binge' dosing (several doses in one session) by recreational users of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) requires evaluation in terms of its consequences on the acute hyperthermic response and long-term neurotoxicity. We examined the neurotoxic effects of this dosing schedule on 5-HT and dopamine neurones in the rat brain. When repeated (three) doses of MDMA (2, 4 and 6 mg/kg i.p.) were given 3 h apart to rats housed at 19 degrees C, a dose-dependent acute hyperthermia and long-term loss of 5-HT was observed in several brain regions (hippocampus, cortex and striatum), with an approximate 50% loss following 3 x 4 mg/kg and 65% decrease following 3 x 6 mg/kg. No decrease in striatal dopamine content was detected. When MDMA (4 mg/kg i.p.) was given repeatedly to rats housed at 30 degrees C, a larger acute hyperthermic response than that observed in rats treated at 19 degrees C environment was seen (maximum response 2.6 +/- 0.1 degrees C versus 1.3 +/- 0.2 degrees C). A long-term cerebral 5-HT loss of approximately 65% was also detected in both the cortex and hippocampus, but no loss in striatal dopamine content occurred. These data emphasize the increased acute hyperthermic response and neurotoxicity which occurs when MDMA is administered in a hot room environment compared to normal room temperature conditions, and support the view that MDMA is a selective 5-HT neurotoxin, even when a binge dosing schedule is employed and the rats are present in a hot environment.
Click to expand...

edit: the best study I've seen to date is PMID: 16555062. At least for primates.
 
Last edited:
Rectify said:
It is true that I haven't looked at the scientific literature with respect to MDMA in several years.

For a drug to be classified as truly "neurotoxic," then something bad should happen after you take it. Just because an untruth has been published a million times already in the scientific literature doesn't make it true.
Click to expand...

You admit to knowing nothing about the scientific literature, and then make unsubstantiated claims about it??

Something bad can be something that isnt measurable on tests. Something bad can be something that you dont feel right away or maybe even for months or years. There's no way for anyone to use their personal experience with a drug to state whether or not it is safe biologically and biochemically in the brain.

READ UP ON THE JOURNALS you're bashing, and you'll find out that there are unequivocal studies out there that show that MDMA is far from a "safe" drug.
 
4mg/kg IP is still too high. No human except one with extreme tolerance is even going to willingly inject 1.5mg/kg. The dosage isn't oral and does not encounter first pass metabolism. Find me one study that does oral dosing in rodents or primates from 1-2mg/kg. The lowest oral dosing schedule for primates I could find was 5-10mg/kg.

edit: Not only that but PMID: 16555062 shows contradictingly that 5HT was elevated in the caudate yet reduced in the putamen. While changes to the brain levels of monoamines and reduced self-administration are indicated there is no clear neurotoxicity demontrated.

Yes, there are journal studies that say if you inject x much of MDMA into an animal, that there will be changes in the animal's brain chemistry. Does this truly represent neurotoxicity? There are millions of MDMA users and former users in the world and according to studies most of them appear to be getting along fine with slight reduction in verbal memory. Changes in the brain do not necessarily correlate to toxicity!
 
Last edited:
Oh come on, this took me all of 6 seconds. Literally, six seconds

This version was published on March 1, 2008
Journal of Psychopharmacology, Vol. 22, No. 2, 187-202 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0269881107083639

MDMA-induced impairment in primates: antagonism by a selective norepinephrine or serotonin, but not by a dopamine/norepinephrine transport inhibitor

[authors removed to save space]

Human MDMA (R,S-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) users display selective cognitive deficits after acute MDMA exposure, frequently attributed to serotonin deficits. We postulated that MDMA will compromize executive function in primates and that an inhibitor of the serotonin transporter (SERT) and the norepinephrine transporter (NET) but not the dopamine (DAT) transporter, will prevent impairment. The potencies of DAT/NET, NET and SERT inhibitors to block transport of [3H]MDMA and [3H]monoamines were compared in vitro. Subsequently, cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fasicularis) were trained to stable performance in a reversal learning task. Effects of once-weekly oral or i.m. dose of MDMA (1.5 mg/kg, n = 4) on performance were monitored, alone or after pretreatment with inhibitors of the SERT, DAT or NET (prior to i.m. MDMA). 1) Drug potencies for blocking [3H]MDMA or [3H]monoamine transport were not consistent; 2) Oral MDMA increased error rates in a cognitive task for up to three days following exposure, whereas intramuscular MDMA prevented subjects from performing the cognitive task on the day of administration, but not on subsequent days; 3) The SERT inhibitor citalopram and the NET inhibitor desipramine, but not the DAT/NET inhibitor methylphenidate, reversed the effects of MDMA on task performance and mandibular movements induced by i.m. MDMA and 4) MDMA altered sleep latency. Oral MDMA impairs executive function in monkeys for several days, a finding of potential relevance to MDMA consumption by humans. Reversal of impaired executive function by a NET inhibitor implicates the NET and norepinephrine in MDMA-induced cognitive impairment and may be relevant to therapeutic strategies.
Click to expand...

And it's only too high in humans (and possibly other primates, I've not looked into this). Neurotoxicity in rodents is not the same as it is in humans, like I said, the LD50 values in rodents are much higher than they are for humans. It seems obvious that they are either not as sensitive or as prone to hyperthermia as humans.
 
DOI: 10.1177/0269881107083639
Click to expand...

The study says that four days after the consumption of MDMA the cognitive performance in monkeys was exactly the same as the controls (Figure 3). If anything the study suggests no long term neurotoxicity in primates.

It also confirmed exactly what I had said about injections as opposed to oral consumption:
Second, this is the first report to document differences in duration
of cognitive deficits as a function of oral MDMA (common human
route) compared with i.m. MDMA (common monkey route). An
order effect may contribute to these differences, but the findings are
supported by differences in the pharmacokinetics and neurotoxicity
or oral and subcutaneous MDMA (Ricaurte et al., 1988; Mechan
et al., 2005). Accordingly, it is necessary to exercise caution when
extrapolating preclinical findings with i.m. MDMA to human
MDMA oral use.
Click to expand...
 
The study says that four days after the consumption of MDMA the cognitive performance in monkeys was exactly the same as the controls (Figure 3). If anything the study suggests no long term neurotoxicity in primates.
Click to expand...

It does? No, it suggests that the deficits induced by a single dose may be overcome with time.

It also says that research using lower dose and oral dosing are being done, and finding evidence of impairment.



It's hilarious that two here want to believe that MDMA is not neurotoxic despite everything published. Even just pretend that it wasn't an SE releaser. At doses used significant DA and NE is released. Should we pretend that amphetamine isn't neurotoxic either? It's 15x less potent than meth, but considering that doses 15x+ are in common usage, what does this suggest? Where it's commonly agreed that all DA releasers and RIs will be neurotoxic, in the case of MDMA the opinion of users seems to be to pretend that the evil government just wants a reason to stomp on your fun.
 
Last edited:
This isn't tremortin-like toxicity we're talking about here, and I never said I didn't believe it to be neurotoxic. In fact I believe it to be so but feel there is a lack of empirical evidence brought forward on the matter. It's also been clearly shown that antioxidants mitigate the toxicity, so perhaps if the drug was marketed with an antioxidant all this could be easily avoided. This would require sensible drug legislation as well as drug research.
 
the price of tea in China

Please enlighten me, kind sir: what, praytell, do any of these repetitive sounding "scientific" findings have to do with anything concrete, relevant or actually found in or having to do with the real world or with real people or with drugs or with mdma in particular?

You still haven't found an application for this research or even a concrete example of a tangible negative repercussion of mdma's so called "neurotoxicity." Again, no one has ever defined what, exactly, the word neurotoxicity refers to except that its existence in relation to mdma and rat brains is utterly irrefutable. It seems to have in fact been expressly coined for this purpose.

I never said I didn't know anything about the scientific literature regarding this subject. To the contrary, I was reading this same bunch of poppycock when you were still in grammar school. It was utter bollocks then and it's utter bollocks now.

It's one thing to label MPP+ neurotoxic as ingesting MPTP which is then metabolized into MPP+ has measurable, consistent, predictable, grave, repeatable, and irreversible health consequences. I have no problem with that.

But calling MDMA neurotoxic is a highly disingenuous and ultimately foolish strategy for the for the government funded scientific community to play us for on this issue. It's disingenuous in that every grade school child knows that any neurotoxic drug that is harmless and produces no neurotoxic symptoms isn't neurotoxic. And it's a foolish strategy because having lost their credibility on this issue long, long ago by crying wolf over mdma over and over and over for more than 20 years running, if a truly dangerous drug were to come out, no one would know who or what to believe, at first anyway.

Mdma neurotoxicity research is drug war politics at its ugliest. If you believe that crap, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. If you can't see the underlying governmental antidrug agenda hidden in the very backbone of this research then you are utterly naive.

The gist of these studies is invariably something like this:
MDMA was given to rats. 5HT neurotoxicity was observed.

A better description would be:
MDMA was given to rats. The rats wouldn't stop dancing. Or talking.

Look, kids. The government doesn't want you to have drugs, ok? Especially good ones, ok? Any questions?
 
Rectify-

Aren't there plenty of case studies on individuals who have severe cognitive - and in particular memory - deficits as a result of chronic MDMA abuse?

You might say that these case studies have been cooked up by the government, but you can say that about any piece of evidence or information that one might tender you.

That is to say, you have a self-reinforcing set of beliefs: On the one hand you believe MDMA not to be neurotoxic and on the other you believe that the government conducts spurious, non-scientific studies in order to curry favour for its admittedly ridiculous anti-drug laws and measures so fraught with corruption. So whether we submit to you studies that show MDMA not to be toxic, in which case your belief that it is not will deepen, or we submit to you studies for your perusal that suggest that MDMA is neurotoxic, in which case you'll simply shout "conspiracy!", your conviction will not waver, so what's the point of even having a discussion about this? Especially one so acrimonious.

If Hammilton is unwarrantably biased in favour of the MDMA-is-toxic hypothesis, you are unwarrantably biased in the other direction.
 
Rectify, errrrrrrrm I uh, dunno about this one.

When I take a regular dose of MDMA, I get anxious throughout, suicidal afterwards, and completely unproductive for months after.

I too, have nothing but bad things to say about MDMA.

Science supports my (and a few million other people's) experiences.

Your subjective opinion, on the other hand, does not.

Why on earth should I listen to you, and not to science?

You are doing what people call misplaced anger. You're angry at government propaganda, but you're taking your anger out on drug-users posting on HARM REDUCTION forums. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that many of those scientists you bash are MDMA-users themselves. Or maybe they discovered the truth subjectively and became ex-MDMA users, thus enabling themselves to get a Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology.
 
Like anything else, different people--you and I for example--obviously respond to MDMA in wildly different ways. If it makes you feel like that, then of course your antipathy for the drug is personally well justified based on your experiences with it just as my enthusiasm for it was personally well justified based on my own experiences with it.

However, mdma science has made more than one outrageous claim over the years, and believe me, I have been following this story closely for decades: for example, at one point it was being claimed that a single standard sized recreational dose of mdma caused Parkinson's in humans and at another point in time they were promoting the idea that mdma, and again I'm not making this up, causes actual holes in one's brain. Not surprisingly, many people believed these claims and probably still do to this day. Yeah, that irks me. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. I'll try to work on that, I guess.

For a drug to be considered truly neurotoxic, though, something bad--reallly bad--should happen after you take it. This is obviously true for something like MPTP, but 99% of the time, it's simply not true for something like MDMA, and that's a fact.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top