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What is wrong with the MDMA available today?

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higherconciousness said:
Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I procured some “mdma” last night and had quite a disappointing experience. I remember 10 years ago when I got pills they were smackers. Extreme euphoria, increased empathy and sociability, slight stimulation. Whatever I got last night was terrible. All it did was give me the negative side effects of mdma (nystagmus, dilated pupils, weird temperature fluctuations, drowsiness, and it also made me even more introverted). What the hell is going around these days? Is it because I’m older and my drug addled brain doesn’t respond the same? I haven’t done any stims or other mdma like drugs for years. What possibly could this substance have been?
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Is there any way you can send it to a lab? If you are in the USA, send to Drugs Data and make sure to put all of this in the notes. Maybe if enough people send samples with these types of comments, they will take note.

What you described is what I experience on lab tested "MDMA," but my pupils do not dilate. This thread (and the original thread) are trying to figure out why this is happening.

You will read a lot of back and forth and debate in the thread, as well as links to articles with possible connections to the topic. Right now, we think there may be some type of contaminant present that is interfering in the high, or that the product is being mis-identified as MDMA when it is NOT MDMA. Other factors may be individual history and genetics that are causing some users to respond in an atypical fashion. However, there have been reports here in the thread of first-time MDMA users who have subpar experiences as well. Other long-time users eventually have a "classic" experience on a different batch of MDMA.

Wish we had more definitive information for you.

Would you be open to posting your experience on our Wiki? If not, would you mind giving us a little more detail here?

When was the last time you had quality MDMA that produced the expected effects?
Did anyone else try this product with you? What was their experience?
What is your history of MDMA use? Did you abuse it previously? When did you first use MDMA?

For ease of communication here, we refer to subpar MDMA as Meh-DMA and classic MDMA as Magic MDMA. :)

Happy New Year.
 
I haven’t done ecstasy, molly, mdma, or whatever the hell people call it these days for approximately ten years or so. I did do 6-apb 4 years ago and had a great experience. I first took E when I was 15 in high school and it was such a magical and transformational experience. Waves of rushing euphoria swept across my body and I recall dialing almost everyone in my phone book to express my gratitude for there mere existence. From age 15-20 I did E collectively 30 times or so and had similar experiences bar the few times I got bunk pills.

The material I acquired last night was in a capsule and had a grey/tan crystal appearance. I first took 150mg and then plugged another 50mg an hour later. 30 minutes in I began to feel it’s effects. As I’ve stated all it resulted in was weird temperature fluctuations (cold in a hot room), nystagmus with dilated pupils etc. pretty much all of the negative side effects you’d read on erowid in the effects section. It was such a bummer. I kept waiting in desperate apprehension for these weird side effects to dissipate and the magic to ensue but nothing came to fruition. What struck me was how tired and introverted it made. I thought mdma was suppose to do the opposite (pure mdma as I recall can be oddly sedating and trance like, but it wasn’t like that at all). My girl tried 100mg and didn’t feel a damn thing. She said it sobered her up, mind you she is on Effexor but even an snri shouldn’t inhibit mdma that much.

That day I had done a small dose of deoxymethoxetamine 5 hours prior so that probably wasn’t an relevant factor. From what little I know Dissociatives shouldn’t completely block the effect of mdma. I’ve done ketamine with mdma and had a great time. I wish I had more so I could properly have it analyzed.
 
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Live updates

11 pm - Blood glucose 90 (Yes, I have a high fasting glucose level)
Dissolved 190 mg of MDMA in water. It dissolved redily.
Drank it.
Very bitter.
Made my tongue numb. Is that typical? I always just put it in a capsule, so I don't know.

@higherconciousness Yes, to everything you said. I get the cold feeling in the hot room and the negative side effects without the primary effect. Yes, it makes me tired and introverted and antisocial. My partner called it, "a collection of symptoms."
 
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higherconciousness said:
Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I procured some “mdma” last night and had quite a disappointing experience. I remember 10 years ago when I got pills they were smackers. Extreme euphoria, increased empathy and sociability, slight stimulation. Whatever I got last night was terrible. All it did was give me the negative side effects of mdma (nystagmus, dilated pupils, weird temperature fluctuations, drowsiness, and it also made me even more introverted). What the hell is going around these days? Is it because I’m older and my drug addled brain doesn’t respond the same? I haven’t done any stims or other mdma like drugs for years. What possibly could this substance have been?
Click to expand...

That is the question. You're lucky to have even got dilated pupils. Most of the MDMA I take these days just gets me fucked, but I never seem to 'break through' to heaven.
 
indigoaura said:
Live updates

11 pm - Blood glucose 90 (Yes, I have a high fasting glucose level)
Dissolved 190 mg of MDMA in water. It dissolved redily.
Drank it.
Very bitter.
Made my tongue numb. Is that typical? I always just put it in a capsule, so I don't know.

@higherconciousness Yes, to everything you said. I get the cold feeling in the hot room and the negative side effects without the primary effect. Yes, it makes me tired and introverted and antisocial. It is My partner called it, "a collection of symptoms."
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yeah i have had that effect when for some reason i just let a mdma pill dissolve under my tounge once. A few people i know always reported a numb mouth from drinking mdma water.
 
F.U.B.A.R. said:
That is the question. You're lucky to have even got dilated pupils. Most of the MDMA I take these days just gets me fucked, but I never seem to 'break through' to heaven.
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Don't fret. Somebody has undertaken to buy me one of those little chemistry sets (you know: those little ones for the kids) (for educational purposes of course)! ;) I'll be sure to try and figure out the problem for you! :ROFLMAO: In the meantime: growing some copper sulfate crystals on a piece of cotton. Pretty things really! :ROFLMAO:
 
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I have followed this thread for almost it's entirety. Only recently in the last few months have I made a few comments. I suppose what kept me coming back is the mystery. I don't have a firm opinion either way. It seems to me that the MDMA most readily available to the masses, primarily manufactured by the Dutch superlabs, could indeed be sub par due to contaminants, byproducts, or could even be a imposter RC as has been suggested here. It also seems very possible that it is a bias that is being experienced by long term users, and in fact, the drug has not changed. ( I would write off the times where multiple new users had sub par effects to indeed being bad product, as that should never happen, but do not necessarily extend that view to the majority of the supply of readily available MDMA.). I am partly confused because while my MDMA experiences are certainly not as good as the first few times I used it, they are still rewarding and enjoyable. I'm in a limbo, uncertain if the slight reduction in the positivity of my experiences are due to subpar product or are a result of familiarity, changes in my brain chemistry, and rose tinted glasses.

I do not know the answer to this.

What I do know is that this is a dead end.

The only way forward is what @indigoaura is attempting to accomplish in another thread. (Great job for getting that going). Concrete scientific analysis of the product that specifically looks for the issues discussed here. The rest of this is all noise. 4 years of discussion is enough. The hypotheses are there and are fairly concrete and established.

I see myself as an outsider here, with no true skin in the game. However, @indigoaura, it does seem from time to time that you in fact are the one with a bit of narrow minded and combative stance, and perhaps that needs to be reflected upon. In a 300 plus page thread, there are going to be many folks with differing opinions who want to debate the other side. This is most definitely not "Gaslighting" as you referred to it earlier. Academic discussion requires both sides to be open to differing opinions, which is something that you espouse that you believe in frequently, but do not seem to actually practice. The information and posts that particularly @Negi have brought recently are well researched, well sourced, non combative, and educational. This is not in anyway to say that he is "right", but his viewpoint is 100% valid and relevant to this discussion. He goes out of his way to acknowledge that is it possible that the product is indeed sub-par. He is simply providing counter arguments against that, which is a healthy thing in an academic debate.

Personally I am dropping out of this thread for at least 6 months, and will check in back at a later time to see if anything has developed. Good luck with the search, I am very interested to see where this goes, and I applaud your efforts to solve this mystery.
 
higherconciousness said:
Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but I procured some “mdma” last night and had quite a disappointing experience. I remember 10 years ago when I got pills they were smackers. Extreme euphoria, increased empathy and sociability, slight stimulation. Whatever I got last night was terrible. All it did was give me the negative side effects of mdma (nystagmus, dilated pupils, weird temperature fluctuations, drowsiness, and it also made me even more introverted). What the hell is going around these days? Is it because I’m older and my drug addled brain doesn’t respond the same? I haven’t done any stims or other mdma like drugs for years. What possibly could this substance have been?
Click to expand...

Definetly in the right place as this post seems to be geared around how MDMA has changed so much over the years.
You're not the only one having this experience, as is evident by everyone else chiming in with their similiar experiences.
I too have had similiar experiences. I got some molly a while ago and it was trash. The thing is, the reviews for it were excellent (having sourced it from the dark net) but I knew it seemed too good to be true. There's a lot of padding that goes on in reviews for products online and it's very easy to manipulate the numbers, ratings etc if you know how. Anyway, yeah, it was garbage. I felt like what seemed like MDMA for all but 30 minutes but it was a very 'fragile' MDMA experience ie the slightest bit of deviation in external/internal factors turned the experience from being present to not existing at all, and sometimes going completely south. Which is odd because with real MDMA you cannot help being on MDMA when you've taken it! Obviously! Same with speed. Just because you enter your living room doesn't mean the speed disappears. It's still there, still intense as shit.

All that being said, I try to be as objective as possible.
Things like antidepressants will have a significant affect on the level in which you feel the MDMA.
The initial dose you also take has a massive role too. If you take too much to begin with you can burn yourself out early on. The ideal dose is around 100-150mg (I'm not mistaken? It's been ages) and you then re-dose a few hours later, but not with a huge dose either. You don't need much MDMA (if it's real) to feel it.
If you're using other drugs at the time, this can be play a role. Anything that affects brain chemistry can also affect your MDMA experience. Stimulants being one main example. I knew someone who took steroids reguarly who tried MDMA and because he had been using steroids for that long and they had altered his body physiologically on different levels, it affected his brain chemistry and therefore he didn't feel it as much.
This list isn't exhaustive, by the way. Some real research is needed on this topic for an in-depth look at it. Last but not least is probably an obvious one. Is it bunk stuff? So much of it floating around today.
 
Just a quick update...

@Observer01 - Yes, I believe the only way forward is with advanced scientific analysis. We can talk all we want here and compare research articles and personal experiences, but none of that will definitively answer the question.

Also, I am aware that I can come across as combative (as I already said to Negi in my other post). Not my intention. However, I am going to stand up for myself and for all of the other users who have shared their experiences over the years. Not going to roll over and cater to the latest incomer who has arrived to tell everyone else that they are wrong. Also, "Psychologists use the term “gaslighting” to refer to a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else (or a group of people) to question their own reality, memory or perceptions." That is what I often see in the thread. The comment was not directed at you or at anyone in particular, but we have wasted pages and pages just trying to defend our own "reality, memory, or perceptions."

"Academic discussion requires both sides to be open to differing opinions, which is something that you espouse that you believe in frequently, but do not seem to actually practice." I have openly explored as wide a range of theories and explanations as I have been able to. I have posted about Zinc deficiency and serotonin, I have tried the NAC protocol, I have tried the BCP-157 protocol. I have posted trying to find out if my birth control could be interfering in my MDMA experiences, and openly, repeatedly acknowledged that my issue could be history of use (but that does not explain the new users who were given LAB TESTED MDMA and had a subpar experience).

(Edited to add - I have also spent more money on this endeavor than most people in this thread. I have paid for lab testing of almost all of my meh samples, and for a magic sample from another poster - easily $700-$800 on testing services alone. I've engaged actively with Drugs Data and International Energy Control trying to get scientific involvement to resolve this issue. So, not sure what kind of practice you are looking for. I've primarily advocated for gathering hard, scientific data to shed further light.)

Being open to debate does not mean that you allow the other side of the debate to steamroll your perspective. That is what academic debate is. You hold your own position as you engage different viewpoints.

@user666
I did the initial blood glucose test at 11 pm before I took the MDMA and it was 90. At 1 am, before I took a 2nd dose, it was up to 105. Nothing was consumed between 11 pm and 1 am other than the MDMA and water.

Overall experience report from last night...
Dissolving in water made no difference, and increasing the dose made no difference in the overall quality of the roll. I did come up a bit faster, and took note of that come-up around 11:30 pm. The first batch of MDMA that I took was not good. I was completely couch locked and spaced out. My partner even commented repeatedly that I did not seem like I was rolling and that my mannerisms, expressions, and movements did not seem "right."

I switched to a different batch of MDMA for the second dose. This was the 80% pure batch, and definitely the best of all my acquisitions over the past few years as far as I am concerned. I could feel the tone of the experience shift when that hit, and things became more positive, but it was very muted. It was not as positive of an experience as it was in the past when I started with this batch to begin with. This really just cements for me that the batches are different, very different. Both of these batches were lab tested as MDMA only, but had completely different feelings to them.

I threw some MDA on at the end, but it was a lost cause at that point.

Overall, very meh.
 
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indigoaura said:
@user666
I did the initial blood glucose test at 11 pm before I took the MDMA and it was 90. At 1 am, before I took a 2nd dose, it was up to 105. Nothing was consumed between 11 pm and 1 am other than the MDMA and water.
Click to expand...
Oh, no. Did you forget the N.E. graphs in Pifl paper ? After 2h the NET mediated effects on the blood glucose levels would have decayed.
Anyway, you exhibited apporoximately +16% increase in the blood glucose level when +35% is expected.
 
Research Article: https://sci-hub.st/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073809000954

Title: Optimization of HS-SPME/GC–MS analysis and its use in the profiling of illicit ecstasy tablets (Part 1)

Authors: Federica Bonadio, Pierre Margot, Olivier Dele´mont, Pierre Esseiva

A headspace solid-phase microextraction procedure (HS-SPME) was developed for the profiling of traces present in 3,4-methylenedioxymethylampethamine (MDMA). Traces were first extracted using HSSPME and then analyzed by gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS). The HS-SPME conditions were optimized using varying conditions. Optimal results were obtained when 40 mg of crushed MDMA sample was heated at 80 8C for 15 min, followed by extraction at 80 8C for 15 min with a polydimethylsiloxane/divinylbenzene coated fibre. A total of 31 compounds were identified as traces related to MDMA synthesis, namely precursors, intermediates or by-products. In addition some fatty acids used as tabletting materials and caffeine used as adulterant, were also detected.
Click to expand...

These ATS are synthetic drugs that are prepared in uncontrolled environment with little or no quality control, resulting in incomplete and side-reactions that provide several traces in the crude products, which are not normally extensively cleaned.
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The article includes a table of chemicals that were extracted from seized MDMA using a new method.

I am still in the process of reading this, but noticed that they have to extract the contaminants before they analyze them. They are not just analyzing the samples and seeing all the contaminants. If it was easy to identify the contaminants just by using GCMS on the original sample, wouldn't they do that?

Is this information something that can help those who are trying to use column chromatography and/or TLC plates? @user666 and @ThreePointCircle
Four fibres, with different polarities were evaluated: (PDMS),
(PDMS/DVB), (CAR/PDMS) and (DVB/CAR/PDMS). The PDMS and
CAR/PDMS fibres were rapidly discarded due to their weak affinity
to the target compounds (respectively, 31% and 37% of the targeted
compounds extracted). The results obtain with PDMS/DVB
(80%) and DVB/CAR/PDMS (60%) fibres were far better.
Click to expand...
 
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user666 said:
Oh, no. Did you forget the N.E. graphs in Pifl paper ? After 2h the NET mediated effects on the blood glucose levels would have decayed.
Anyway, you exhibited apporoximately +16% increase in the blood glucose level when +35% is expected.
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After I took the blood glucose level the second time, I took a different batch of MDMA. At that point, I felt like any further analysis would be clouded by two different batches of product.

I have eye dilation pics too, which I can share.

Keep in mind that the 16% increase is from 190 mg of MDMA. I mean...shit. That is a high, high dose for such a minimal change.
 
More highlights from the article I just posted:

The results obtained indicate that with low amount of weighted samples (10 mg), some target compounds are difficult to detect or are absent.
This behaviour is illustrated in Fig. 3 presenting the relative intensity of a selection of the target compounds, where the compound unknown-176 is not detected with 10 mg of the sample.
Click to expand...

So, what does this mean for labs like Drugs Data who are asking for 20 mg of product and are not extracting the contaminants first?

In addition under high temperatures (90 or 100 8C) and long extraction times, some compounds co-elute as it is the case for 3,4-methylenedioxy-phenylbutanone-1 and MDMA.
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Co-elute Definition: coelution (countable and uncountable, plural coelutions) (analytical chemistry) The process whereby two or more chemical compounds elute from a chromatographic column at the same time, making separation and identification difficult.

 
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indigoaura said:
So, what does this mean for labs like Drugs Data who are asking for 20 mg of product and are not extracting the contaminants first?
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That article illustrates what kind of analysis is needed to detect most of the impurities of the impurities. The HS-PDMS sampling process causes some loss of the sample, so 20mg is sufficient for the lone GC/MS analysis but double that is needed for the HS-SPME + GC/MS method.

The HS-SPME is a solid sampling technique technique which could be easily adapted by labs like Drugs Data. The authors of this article fed the impurites adsorbed by the PDMS/DVB fibers directly into the input port of their GC/MS analyzer... DrugsData could easily do the same. Hell, we could even buy and send them these adsorbing PDMS/DVB fibers with the sample, since they are not very expensive and available from here.

But that would make the most sense when two samples are sent for impurity differentiation, namely: Magic-MDMA and Meh-MDMA, and when the effects of both samples had been tested on some MDMA-naive users first.

P.S.
I am curious what is the neuropharmacological activity of the compound 16 and 23 in Table1 of that article.
 
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user666 said:
That article illustrates what kind of analysis is needed to detect most of the impurities of the impurities. The HS-PDMS sampling process causes some loss of the sample, so 20mg is sufficient for their GC/MS analysis but double that is needed for The HS-SPME + GC/MS method.

The HS-SPME is a solid sampling technique technique which could be easily adapted by labs like Drugs Data. The authors of this article fed the impurites adsorbed by the PDMS/DVB fibers directly into the input port of their GC/MS analyzer... DrugsData could easily do the same. Hell, we could even buy and send them these adsorbing PDMS/DVBfibers with the sample, since they are not very expensive and available from here.

But that would make the most sense when two samples are sent for impurity differentiation, namely: Magic-MDMA and Meh-MDMA, and when both were tested on some MDMA-naive users first.

P.S.
I am curious what is the neuropharmacological activity of the compound 16 and 23 in Table1 of that article.
Click to expand...

Could I conceivably follow the process laid out in this article and use those threads to remove impurities from my samples? Would it be possible to then re-crystallize the remaining MDMA? Are the threads removing all the impurities, or just a limited amount? Seemed like the threads were limited, based on the comparison between using 40 mg and 100 mg of MDMA as the base.
.
As for the 47% dilation...that is in line with the 49% dilation you measured on another pic of my eyes with a meh sample.

I was also curious about the unidentified compounds in the study.
 
user666 said:
I agree, but the time scales on the graphs in the Pifl paper were much shorter than 2h after administration ...not longer
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That is my bad then. I was not looking at the graph, and I must have mis-remembered. I thought it was 1 hour after the comeup. Next time, I will reference the article before I go into it.
 
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