The funny/ironic part about calling MDMA Ecstasy is that many dealers can't sell pure MDMA because their clientele expect a stimulant buzz along with the good vibes. People getting pure MDMA often think it's poor quality or cut with something, much to the face-palm of their dealers.
I've always felt the ecstasy/molly/mdma thing (at least in seller/user circles) was more about branding than anything else.
In the 90's you'd buy "ecstasy" which theoretically contained MDMA as the sole active ingredient but likely did not. Various cheaper actives and inactives were added to make more money for sellers as you'd expect in an underground market so the term became less trusted.
Enter "molly" which implies a more pure product containing only MDMA but still with the potential to be bogus or cut with something else. As with "ecstasy" the only way to tell was to test it.
Regardless of the semantics of illicit drug slang, I just hate when purportedly "serious" pieces use slang terms for the drugs in question. Same as when they use "pot" or "marijuana" in place of cannabis. I can't imagine a serious article that discusses medical studies of alcoholic beverages referring to their "booze" and "hooch" studies.
From Wikipedia on MDMA:history (and a true story AFAIK -- go see their citations):
> Perceiving a business opportunity, Michael Clegg, the Southwest distributor for the Boston Group, started his own "Texas Group" backed financially by Texas friends. In 1981, Clegg had coined "Ecstasy" as a slang term for MDMA to increase its marketability.
Mind you, this was before it became illegal.
Much like Marijuana, that stupid (but successful) name was probably one of the main reasons it did become so popular, and then illegal, in the first place.
As with many illegal street drugs, there is no standard definition of Ecstasy. It's whatever a drug dealer decides to sell you and/or call it It is certainly not bad journalism to call it that. That's what MDMA pills were known as in the late 90's/ early 2000's.
Also, call me an old timer, but I refuse to call it Molly
OK, I have friends of friends who say they take 'MDMA' on a Saturday night out. Is it really pure MDMA, or is it just what we would have called Ecstasy in the past?
To be honest, the only way to truly know if one is taking pure MDMA is to run a fairly expensive test (along the lines of GCMS, NMR, or many of the other qualitative analysis).
Reagent tests ala what Dancesafe sells are great harm reduction, if the pill fails the test, the pill certainly has 0% MDMA. However, they will not be able to identify that you are taking pure MDMA. I imagine any MDMA+other substance mixture will flag positive. In addition there are probably a few non-MDMA substances that will false-positive that reagent test.
There's an organization out there (https://www.ecstasydata.org/) that does GCMS analysis of pills, the data on what they find (in terms of ratio of substances) is public. So if you want a bit of a sampling of what type of things get sold as "molly" / "ecstasy" you can look there.
Absolutely. I did not mean to imply that the results are lab grade quality.
To clarify, by "pure MDMA", I did not mean that the substance is 100℅ pure MDMA, but rather that it does not contain other active adulterants.
With reagent tests you can be reasonably sure that a given pill does or does not (most likely) contain only MDMA and (most likely) contain no other (common) adulterants.
If you want to be sure on the actual amount of MDMA and be absolutely certain it contains nothing else, then you absolutely need a lab test.
Agreed- I've known people to send off samples for GCMS and have a pretty good idea then of what they've got in their hands. It costs money, but if you're worried about safety it is possible.
(GCMS doesn't actually cost much to run, places just charge a lot for it.)
This is incredibly naive. You are much better off testing any substance you put into your body. Whether you test it yourself, or can confirm that a trusted party has tested it.
What if your reliable supplier was sold cyanide from an unreliable supplier? Better one of you is wise enough to test it.
True in the sense that pure MDMA cannot be pressed into a solid tablet alone. It needs to be mixed with fillers/binders to be pressed into a pill and stick together.
However, you can find Ecstasy pills that contain nothing but MDMA and inactive fillers/binders.
Where I'm from those old definitions hold true. Molly is MDMA, ecstasy is MDMA and methamphetamine pressed into pill form. If I bought it back in the day and it tested as anything else, I would've gotten my money back.
Anecdotal, but back when I used to use drugs recreationally all of the dealers I used actually placed a very strong emphasis on customer service. Maybe this person has a similar relationship with their supplier. Not all drug deals are conducted from street pushers.
I'm annoyed by the Hollywood depiction implied by this comment. In my version of "back in the day", all the "street pushers" were some of my closest friends, not grumpy thugs.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't usually buy drugs like that literally on the street. It's not unthinkable to have an ongoing relation with a dealer enough to be able to return something that doesn't meet your expectations, if you are an important enough client. Not saying it's common, but I think possible.
If you're dealing with a dealer a bit more upscale than a street pusher, he will have a money back guarantee. It's in his interest since his reputation is everything.
I agree that it makes sense for a journalist in the sense that many people do not know what MDMA is, but they have heard of Ecstasy. However, Ecstasy does have negative connotations that pure MDMA does not. The risk of unknown adulterants is probably the biggest danger in taking illicitly obtained Ecstasy tablets. This danger is completely mitigated with pharmaceutical grade MDMA.
If you don't like Molly. Please just call it MDMA. Not Ecstasy.
> That's what MDMA pills were known as in the late 90's/ early 2000's.
That means there IS a definition of Ecstacy, the meaning hasn't changed. There are just lots of bad pills in circulation. That's why you should always check pillreports.net before using any untested stuff.
Nobody would ever allow the use of Ecstasy as a treatment drug.