phase_dancer
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2001
- Messages
- 6,179
No one knowingly takes PMA
Well, most educated people wouldn't, but it's incorrect to say no one knowingly would. It's been seen on this site before that some people actually prefer the effects of PMA (god knows why). One of these (Ian Hard) died from it.
That's my thought, if you're planning to screw people over to make a quick buck, why not just sell them a bunk pill
Good question. Of those who regularly seek MDMA to press, there's more than a good chance that at some point they may have to resort to something else in order to get a batch out there. As MDMA becomes hard to find, it may well be supplemented with something like PMA - to give a low MDMA dose some legs and still fool the kits - as a punter once said to me. An MDA & MDMA combo is virtually impossible to discern from a PMA & MDMA combo with presently available kits.
While most, if not all of us would think this is very silly, there are many out there who don't care what happens to someone 15 + people down the chain - that's if they are even aware of PMA being in their mixture.... but hey, so what if someone dies, it'll likely never come back on the manufacture or presser anyway 8)
IMHO, unless someone is doing it "for the cause of rescuing humanity" or other fanciful reason, money is what counts most to those synthesizing illicit drugs to sell. In such environments, quality control is more often than not given a back seat, at best.
Getting back to the question; these days, any pills that contain no actives (or amphetamine type actives) would only expect to have a short period of popularity. Word spreads. But by "watering down" subsequent batches with another active, it's much more likely the tablet will remain fashionable for longer - that is, until a death or 10.
We need to focus on WHY this is occurring. Very few producers- probably none- would make and circulate PMA or PMMA if safrole was available (to make MDMA from). But few law makers seem willing to accept that new regulations (governing the supply and availability of MDMA precursor ingredients) will result in drugs being produced that require easier to procure ingredients. As an amphetamine derivative with psychedelic qualities, PMA is first choice here.
A smart and resourceful chemist could visit a supermarket, hardware shop and liqueur store and have every thing needed to produce PMA. Anethole, starting material to PMA, is a "tougher" molecule than safrole, meaning reaction conditions could be employed that are too harsh for safrole. In other words, even a fuck up in the synthesis may still result in some useable product
This will very likely get worse. We've previously seen pills containing mixtures of MDMA with all manner of pharmaceutical and illicit drugs. Anyway I look at it, it doesn't seem there is much hope of scaring punters into stopping - at least before there are many deaths. Without proper testing being made available, it will also be unbelievably difficult to keep up with all future additives/replacements sold as pure MDMA.
So, who is to blame? There seems to be fuck all of us who are pointing the finger at the right people. Drugs may be bad, but half thought out changes to law are far, far worse. People will still take drugs regardless of the laws governing chemical availability and the impacting quality of the drugs produced, only more innocent people will die from it.
If PMA was to become widely circulated, it's very possible other drugs will also be experimented with in attempt to reduce the hyperthermia associated with PMA. I have heard talk of such things in the past. Whether this would be successful or not remains to be seen, but either way, you'd hardly call it an improvement over pills containing a known dose MDMA only.
Methoxyamfetamine is about 3 times as potent as methylenedioxyamfetamine and appears to be more toxic. At least 20 deaths worldwide have been reported to be due to PMA toxicity, some involving other drugs. PMA can produce both CNS stimulation and hallucinogenic effects. Acute toxicity primarily results in hyperthermia but there may also be “serotonin syndrome” related symptoms and some respiratory depression. Such symptoms may be produced at blood concentrations over 0.5 mg/L.
PMA concentrations in postmortem femoral blood ranged from 0.24 to 4.9 mg/L (mean 2.3 mg/L) in 6 fatalities related to PMA poisoning. Corresponding liver concentrations ranged from 1.4 to 21 mg/kg (mean 8.9 mg/kg). Other amfetamines (including metamfetamine and MDMA) were detected in 5 of the 6 cases. All cases involved hyperthermia; in some cases rhabdomyolysis and haemorrhaging were also observed [H. E. Felgate et al.,J. Anal. Toxicol.,1998, 22, 169–172.]
MDMA may not be the perfect drug for society, and definitely has dangers associated with recreational use, but compared to what will replace it, MDMA is certainly a devil we know.
Last edited: