MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, is a schedule I controlled substance. It is illegal to purchase, sell, or distribute this chemical without a DEA license (which is hardly ever given with regard to schedule I substances). Yet, no matter how stringent the DEA makes regulations on ecstasy, more people continue to use it. Why would people use such a purportedly dangerous substance? Well, it’s fun, it goes well with techno music, and makes people feel good about themselves on a Saturday night. The real danger with ecstasy, as with most other psychoactive substances comes from chronic use. However, since ecstasy is a synthetic drug, use of the substance carries another risk that can affect even an occasional user.
Ecstasy is predominantly manufactured in small, home-made laboratories due to its illegal status. Since the chemical could be manufactured in some dude’s basement out in rural America, chances are rather good that the ecstasy you purchase is not 100% pure. In some cases the tabs might simply contain benign substances that are not psychoactive, but take up space on the tab so that less ecstasy can yield more tabs for greater profits. However, the tabs might also contain substances that do not mix well with ecstasy in the human body and produce unwanted side-effects or adverse reactions, or could contain toxic chemicals that are harmful even when not used with ecstasy. Statistics show that the number of deaths attributed directly to ecstasy is very low, less than 10 people per year in the United States. However, the number of deaths attributed to ecstasy and other chemicals per year in the U.S. hovers around 100. This statistic should be taken with caution, because it does not mean that the “other chemicals” were contained within the ecstasy tab itself. The chemicals could have been cocaine, alcohol, meth, etc. But the danger of tainted tabs is nonetheless a reality that few would want to tangle with.
Since the U.S. government has put the production of ecstasy out of the hands of pharmaceutical companies and into the hands of dubious amateur chemists living in cow town USA, the problem of tainted ecstasy tabs is real. What’s to be done about all this? Well, one could wait until the DEA takes down every single MDMA lab this side of China. However, this is not likely to ever take place because in any market, when there is demand, someone will step in to fill the supply. Well, couldn’t people just stop taking ecstasy due to the risk involved? Maybe in a Puritan utopian society, but in reality people like their drugs and will continue to take them.
Is there a solution for this reality in which we find ourselves? There is, and it comes in the form of home ecstasy test-kits and websites devoted to testing known ecstasy tabs. In the case of the home ecstasy test-kits, users can purchase these kits from websites such as dancesafe.org and subject their ecstasy tabs to simple tests to determine if the tab contains MDMA. These test kits are unfortunately limited in their abilities to determine purity. They can determine whether or not a pill contains ecstasy, but cannot test for the presence of other chemicals. So generally, the home test-kits are more effective at determining whether or not you’ve been ripped off than knowing if you are going to be poisoned. However, testing sites have stated that the majority of pills they tested that contain MDMA did not contain other harmful chemicals. Whether or not you choose to believe this is up to you.
The second method of testing your ecstasy tabs for possible contaminants is by visiting sites that catalog the results of laboratory tests on scores of different ecstasy tabs. One such site is ecstasydata.org. In general, ecstasy tabs are printed with a logo or other distinguishing mark by the producer, much like tabs of LSD. In this way, users can go to the site, look up the appearance of their tabs and find information about the chemical composition. These kinds of sites are a great idea and can potentially save lives for those who visit them.
Once again, proper information is essential to helping those who use psychoactive substances. In the case of ecstasy, increased police action and illegality of the substance has created a thriving black market of potentially fatal drug preparation. Until MDMA becomes legal (if it ever does), then the aforementioned methods of finding out the composition of your tabs is essential to a safe trip.
