Ok, so here goes.
For years I’ve been off and on researching and compiling scientific articles, comments and my own experiences in an attempt to answer this issue. I am not yet in position to provide my own definitive view on this, although my main theory concerning the cause of this issue and for which I still firmly believe, is contained throughout various posts in this and the earlier threads. The scientific reality is that until some analytical chemist decides to make this their PHD thesis, the answer chemically speaking will be out of reach.
But what I was told by my best friend today, and the context which makes what he said so compelling, must be shared with all of you immediately.
I am in my mid 40s, I have a science degree, I have a law degree, been an criminal lawyer for two decades, and I have been taking MDMA (whether pills or crystal) and methamphetamine continuously for 26 years. I have been a member of this site and contributed throughout this time (albeit fairly sporadically in more recent years) since December 1999 and my username and login has not changed. I have read every single post of every single page of this thread and its previous incarnations.
My best friend (who I have known for 27 years and who was my partner for nine of them) is the same age as me and this person has taken MDMA and methamphetamine this entire time too. From 1999 to 2009 we would have had all of the same pills and most of the same experiences. We have continued to take MDMA pills and crystal/powder and remain best friends to this day and have shared in many subsequent experiences since separating. My best friend has taken even more MDMA than I have, in fact way more, over the last 10 years. He has limited knowledge of this issue, no chemistry background and has no idea of the extensive discussion concerning it, that has been a feature of this forum and I am sure many others for years now.
Before posting what I wanted to share, I must state these matters from the outset:
1. No one who has said that meh-MDMA is a real thing and exists has ever said that all MDMA is meh; on the contrary.
2. Anyone who asserts that meh-MDMA is a real thing is saying that despite the massive doses in so many of the pills these days, when you got a pill in the earlier days that tested as MDXX and wasn’t a total fake (speed, Ket, chalk, etc), then provided the dose of MDMA in that pill was high enough (and back then then dose per pill was 50mg to 150mg at best and I know this due to many years of having been privy to the results of forensic laboratory tests for seized illicit substances and seeing the certificates with my own eyes since 2001), the experience was close to textbook, physical effects like mydriasis could not be hidden, the experiences were amazing, and indeed often life changing. You were buckled, looked buckled and literally needed to buckle up for the next few hours.
3. Anyone who asserts that meh-MDMA is a real thing and cannot be explained by more subjective factors is asserting that there is something chemically different about what they are consuming - either it is:
- not MDMA, despite test results stating to the contrary, including government forensic laboratory results which must be exact to be able of sustain a prosecution relating to MDMA as opposed to some other similar chemical;
- that the MDMA contains a greater proportion of the R enantiomer of MDMA as opposed to the S and is not racemic as it always was; or
- (this being my personal view) that much of the MDMA consumed today - illicitly produced and packaged as it is and requiring no purification at any of the steps of production along the way - being manufactured from different precursors (or let’s be clear pre-precursors) and using different reductive animation methods than MDMA produced in those earlier days, contains some type of impurity or impurities or combination of impurities, perhaps within the umbrella of a “impurity family”, all of which have the capability of muting/shortening/ruining the true MDMA experience to varying extents; much like SSRIs have the capability to do by blocking the monoamine transporters especially the SERT, so the MDMA molecule cannot enter into the axon of the nerve cell to work its magic.
4. It is accepted by most of those with sufficient knowledge advocating for the existence of the meh-MDMA phenomenon, that:
- pure MDMA-HCl is the same as any other PURE MDMA-HCl regardless of how it is made but we aren’t dealing with laboratories making pure illicit anything;
- pure 3,4-MDP2P can of course be made from any of the pre-precursors that are invariably what is currently being used to manufacture MDXX substances these days no matter which pre-precursor is being used, provided that those that are doing so purify the magical ketone first (so remove what is cleaved off from what is a far more complicated, likely chiral, and frankly “messy” molecule than the more simple safrole or piperonyl precursor that previously the chemist built upon to make the ketone);
- potential “one-pot” or “one-high pressure vessel” reactions which go simply and cheaply from some random chiral pre-precursor (whether used as the racemate or goodness me as an enantomerically pure version) to the desired amine, without any purification steps beyond extraction of crude MDMA freebase and everything else created due to other reactants having happily gone along for the same ride, before creating the hydrochloride, would likely exacerbate this problem.
5. That continuous anecdotal evidence as to the purple/black vs grey/black colour difference when testing pills or crystal, something I can personally attest to after using marquis reagent for 26 years, being that prior to any meh-MDMA, good MDMA pills tested with fresh marquis reagent went dark purple to black, but in more recent times so many of the pills or powder have gone very dark grey (some almost dark brown) to black and never any purple, and almost as night follows day the MDMA experience for the non-purple reactions is almost always meh-MDMA.
6. In the pictures below, the two pills were tested with the same marquis reagent, one after the other - the difference is striking - putting aside any impact of the dye used in the pills to one side, and assuming a similar binder in each, which given both have the “NL” branding press isn’t that far fetched, the only, THE ONLY, scientific explanation for this colour difference is that the makeup of the Onlyfans tablets on the right (that is THE TABLET which includes the illicitly produced impure MDMA-HCl mixture that went into producing the tablet, as opposed to the milligram amount of “pure MDMA-HCl” of the actual molecule quoted in a laboratory test and without reference to any other substance within) is different to the make up of the SoundCloud tablets on the left and the illicitly produced MDMA-HCl mixture that went into that tablet.
7. I was with this same ex-partner/best friend partying for four days straight only ten days earlier at the best event of our lives, where we consumed Pink Punishers and MDMA crystal and whilst both were decent, it was still of the meh kind, with many doses needing to be had and oh yes, I personally tested the Punisher and the MDMA with the EXACT SAME BOTTLE of marquis reagent as that used to test the pills in the picture below and both samples reacted exactly like the pill on the left did, no purple, straight to black through a very dark grey initial colour
8. My friend was communicating on a group chat to a mutual friend independently of any conscious thought as to this phenomenon; he said what he said without regard to any of this discussion, to Bluelight, to science or even to the purple result, so placebo can be ruled out. This experience was a mere ten nights after the last lot of MDMA pills, this person’s experience being vast and their tolerance utterly extreme.
Given what I know about the person who sent the message and the context in which it was sent, as corroborated by the starkest of differences in the chemical properties of each substance (admittedly fairly non-specific and with the significance of the colour change also deeply rooted in, and derived from, anecdotal experiences), this is about as compelling as far as user based evidence of the existence of meh-MDMA as one could ever get.
The reality of Meh-MDMA is a fact.
Meh-MDMA is part of the illicit supply of MDMA pills and powders to varying extents all over the world, with no doubt some localities fortunate enough to barely encounter it at all, whereas others might encounter it 90% of the time.
The fact of its existence in the world’s MDMA supply to varying extents cannot be summarily dismissed by the robotic trotting out of “advanced age”, “tolerance”, “set and settling” or “the distinct absence of yellow smiley faces” etc, etc, as sensible explanations.
All else being equal, the differences must be chemical.
- Is it one particular chemical that is responsible; likely not.
- Is it a group of chemicals with the pharmacological capability, at perhaps very low doses, of inhibiting MDMA’s ability to release that special blend of monoamine neurotransmitters, especially serotonin; maybe.
- If this is correct, then does this account for the seemingly subpar quality of modern day mass produced P2P methamphetamine, basically manufactured in the same way but just with different pre-precursors to start with that do not have the methylenedioxy bridge (and tartaric acid resolution to increase the D isomer %), despite us all being told that methamphetamine has supposedly never been so pure and never been so potent, in a similar way to us being told that MDMA pills have never been so pure and dosed so high; I say undoubtedly.
I don’t profess to have all the answers and it frustrates the shit out of me. But no one can tell me, someone of my experience and knowledge (derived from multiple bases as it has for over two and a half decades), that meh-MDMA, as I’ve explained it, is not a real thing; nor do I subscribe to the defeatist attitude that it is something that is just impossible to scientifically investigate and can never be explained.
Ok, I’ll hand over to the naysayers now. I can only hope that those who will inevitably chime in will actually have something constructive to say that they haven’t already said a hundred times already…
Biscuit out.
