December 27, 2004

• Unfortunately, the benefits get offset by the loud rave music, and these unfortunate souls go into the afterlife kicking and screaming in agony.
• The drug Ecstacy has the power to alleviate the anxiety related to a lot of things. I've heard.
• Like I need to see a bunch of elderly people walking around with glow-sticks.
• Ok, first off, ecstasy is not MDMA. Repeat. Ecstasy is not MDMA. Ecstasy is MDMA cut with amphetamines. Low quality ecstasy is almost completely speed. Ravers are rarely on MDMA, really. They're on shitty amphetamines and a nice placebo effect high. They may as well be coked up. If they're using pure MDMA, it's completely unsurprising, though, since it was originally used for relieving anxiety in couples therapy.
• Ecstasy is MDMA, just as Heroin is diamorphine. BTW, Ecstasy/MDMA is 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. The fact that street MDMA is laced, does not change the fact that Ecstasy is not meant to refer to a combo. In any case, half of E out there is pure.
• I think Musingmelpomene and Bernockle just need a hug.
• good heavens i'm always impressed by the vast and varied knowledge of my fellow monkeys!
• Yes, yes, the A stands for amphetamine. But you also know that I'm talking about other amphetamines - the "speed" kind - and that nitpicking like that is like saying salt is exceedingly volatile because it has sodium and chlorine. Whether or not it's meant to be a combination drug, it is most of the time - especially considering that the first few comments referenced ravers. IRL, what people see at raves is generally people hopped up on stuff other than MDMA. And you're also wrong on your statistic. Half the kinds of tablets =/= half the ecstasy. Counterfeit tablets tend toward cheapness (speed is cheap!) and are in greater, more ready supply.
• I don't know about the US, but a Dutch study on cognitive performance of E users, had a comment that 60%+ of tablets out there are just E. I don't know how they figured that out, and I didn't follow up on that cite. But if that's an indicator...
• It seems to me that someone who's terminally ill should be allowed to take any drugs they bloody well feel like.
• In any case, to read about any or most research on psychedelics, check out MAPS.
• another good site is Erowid. placebo my ass
• musingmelpomene, what are you on? Your nitpicking is like trying to say salt isn't NaCl because sometimes they add iodine to it.
• I've never taken Ectasy. My comments are great, no? A credit to the community...
• Mr. Knickerbocker: The relevant analogy here is as follows: M-M-M's nitpicking is like trying to say prozac isn't prozac because someone added a bit of morphine. See, Amphetamines, as a class of substances make there way into a whole bunch of things. Methylated Amphetamines, such as MDMA, MDA, Meth-Amphetamine, have widely varied effects. Both psychological and physiological. They are different "drugs" altogether. I suggest checking Alexander Shulgin's Pihkal for an incredibly detailed scientific and psychological evaluation of various phenethylamines. Mixing MDMA and speed creates a synergistic multiplier effect on both, thus producing a "stronger" speed trip and MDMA trip. Some people, Particularly those who want to dance all night AND love everyone, tend to enjoy a mix. A friend-dealer once got a batch of absolutly pure MDMA and the ravers actually didn't like it as much as the usual dreck he got. Not enough speed. they just couldn't dance. Pure MDMA, while energizing, is much more relaxing and emotionally stimulating. I personally have experienced and observed incredible emotional breakthroughs while on MDMA. I think it's use in a therapeutic sense is wildly underrated. Hopefully this study will provide some sort of methodology for using MDMA in a medical fashion. AFAIK, when making MDMA, depending on how it is synthesized some meth-amphetamines may be present. Usually the shoddier the synthesis, the more speed. but then again it varies. The more expensive techniques produce clean MDMA.
• I believe amphetamines provide a route to specific subset of neurotransmitters and receptors, but it is the methyl groups that determine specific effects and interactions.... All of my info is cribbed from Shulgin's books and my good friend who is an organic chemist and neurobiologist.
• A hangover on any drug has the power to alleviate anxiety. Now LSD might might provide some insight into understanding the psyche of death and afterlife, but I'm sure no amphetamine based derivative or similar drug would allow you gain such insight. And they had similar research on this subject with LSD years ago.
• True retank. MDMA, in it's pure form, is not really about spirituality, metaphysics, or "the psyche of death and afterlife". Primarily, the benefits of MDMA are primarily related to emotion, anxiety, and self awareness. It provides a space in which barriers to feeling and expression can be broken. I've witnessed experiences with MDMA that have been incredible outpourings of positive emotions of connectedness, (the specific case was between a father and son who had grown distant and rediscovered their love for each other.) As well as processing and coming to terms with highly traumatic experiences in the past, particularly a friend of mine who was a rape victim who was able to confront her sense of emotional isolation as well as her fears of physical contact with other people. These experiences weren't about communing with the great white light, or understanding the metaphysical nature of the universe, they were very real, very lasting experiences of emotional growth that have had profoundly positive influences on the lives of these people. That isn't to say it's a panacea. I've seen bad things happen with people on MDMA who have become entirely too emotionally open, particularly in sub-optimal conditions, and have, as a result been hurt. I believe MDMA is a very powerful emotional catalyst. The times when it has proven to be highly beneficial, have been very well organized, planned, and been supervised by good friends who understood the power and seriousness of the act of consuming such a powerful medicine as MDMA. The negative experiences have primarily been at totally uncontrolled events, where DMA was taken in a party atmosphere with strangers, for totally recreational purposes. Not always, though, there have been plenty of wonderful experiences in the sub optimal environments i have described but I have never had a negative experience with MDMA in a well planned, organized, safe environment with good friends. I personally have done MDMA 8 times. I have been present, and sober, during 11 dosings. I understand that this is hardly a representative sampling. However, after having read quite a bit of research from MAPS, as well as other sources, i've found that my anecdotal experience meshes quite well with scientific experimental data. That said, MDMA is a tremendously powerful drug, and should be used, like all drugs with extreme caution. That which makes you stronger, can also kill you.
• "It seems to me that someone who's terminally ill should be allowed to take any drugs they bloody well feel like." -- fatoudust Agreed. I've got a close relative here who's been approved for medical marijuana because of cancer. And, in other news....
• Gyan: I lived in Belgium for a year, and believe me when i say this: the state of affairs in the netherlands visa-vis drugs, drug purity, and drug culture is an entirely different world that just about anyplace else on the planet.
• If drugs like MDMA were legal there would be less impurities, more publicly available information and support about it, etc. Removing punitive legal sanctions against it would open the doors of perception for those who seek it. Granted it may open a pandora's box. But people are using it, anyway. Why should it be a jail sentence?
• Why should it be a jail sentence? The government doesn't want its citizens having too much fun. All part of the game of legitimacy.
• (and money)
• Freen, not that I doubt you, but could you elaborate?
• monkeyfilter: a space in which barriers to feeling and expression can be broken (hey! that's kinda cool!)
• Gyan: I think the explanation is much as bobbo11 said. MDMA is illegal there, but not nearly as illegal as it is just about anywhere else, particularly America. Take for example mushroom quality. Mushrooms, while legal in the netherlands, are of a significantly higher quality on average than they are here in the states. Why is that? Well, they are easy to get, there no risk involved in selling them, therefore no risk based markup of prices ( Think, if doing action A had the possibility of going to jail, wouldn't you want to extract the maximum possible short term gain from action A? whereas if action A had little to no possibility of resulting in jail time, wouldn't you be more inclined to have the greatest possible long term gain, thus doing action A as well as possible to ensure the ability to continue to do action A?) With Mushrooms, in the states they are sold for weight, not quality. Mushrooms reach the highest psychedelic potency, with a minimum of poisonous alkaloids immediately after the caps open after that, the size and weight of the mushroom increases but the potency falls, and the amount of poisonous alkaloids increases. The process of drying mushrooms, common in the US to preserve them has the same result, reduce psychedelic potency and increase the negative alkaloids. In the Netherlands, you can buy fresh mushrooms, right at the peak of potency at just about any head shop. In America, this is next to impossible. The same is true with other drugs, even those that are illegal, precisely because they are not as illegal as they are in the US. Increasing the risk of an activity means that short terms gains are maximized and long term concerns are minimized. that's just the way it happens.
• After a 40-year virtual ban on research involving psychedelic drugs, scientists look anew at their potential in treating pain and anxiety