It’s the holidays, and dealers and users alike are ready to celebrate. From Mardi Gras to Spring Break … Drugs Inc s7e13: Holidaze
Molly is on the top of the list for the holiday crowd … effects for up to six hours. ibid.
The amount of drug varies significantly from tablet to tablet. Professor John Ramsey, toxicologist
People have lost confidence in ecstasy tablets, so we’ve seen the appearance of MDMA in crystal form. John Ramsey
MDMA kills people. At the height about forty or fifty people a year were dying from MDMA. John Ramsey
Ecstasy is a love drug. There was a TV program about drugs the other day, and even they had to admit that basically Ecstasy killed off football egotism. Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim, 1999
More than anything, rave was an intentionally designed experience. The music, lighting and ambience were all fine-tuned to elicit and augment altered states of consciousness. The rhythm of the music was precisely 120 beats per minute, the frequency of the fetal heart rate, and the same beat believed to be used by South American shamans to bring their tribes into a trance state. Through dancing together, without prescribed movements, or even partners, rave dancers sought to reach group consciousness on a level they had never experienced before. Dr Douglass Rushkoff
Over the past 25 years we have seen MDMA go from being praised as a serious psychotherapeutic aid to being vilified by global governments and media, to coming full circle again with FDA-approved trials using Ecstasy to treat post-traumatic stress disorders. Tim Pilcher, E: The Incredibly Strange History of Ecstasy
Beatriz Elena Henao nicknamed La Negra ... came out of Colombia in the late 1990s ... The biggest ecstasy shipment US authorities had ever heard of. Gangsters: America’s Most Evil s1e9: Wanted Lethal Beauties, Bio 2012
The world’s best-selling dance drug: ecstasy ... The world-wide trade in ecstasy is huge. Stacey Dooley: Ecstasy Wars, BBC 2015
Some of the most sort-after trees in the world ... the natural oil they contain ... Safrol oil. ibid.
I told the Relief Society of secret underground drug parties that go by the name of Rave. Here with flashing lights and noisy music, if it can be called that, young men and women dance and sway. They sell and buy drugs. The drugs are called Ecstasy. They are a derivative of methamphetamine. The dancers suck on babies’ pacifiers because the drug makes them grind their teeth. The hot music and the sultry dancing … Gordon B Hinckley, article Ensign Fall 2000, ‘Great Shall Be the Peace of Thy Children’
Ecstasy was one of the few drugs where the American market was not yet supersaturated. Europe is the top manufacturing base ... The main Western European centre is Amsterdam, although the industrial-scale busts have been made since the turn of the millennium in Serbia and Bulgaria as well.
In 2003 the US State Department issued a report which claimed that Israel is the hub of global Ecstasy trafficking, having branched out from Europe to the US. Misha Glenny, McMafia
The DEA implied in one report that the turf was in New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles over the Ecstasy trade may be directly linked to the open warfare between families in Israel. ibid.
But the extent of the internationalisation of organised crime and the role that Israelis played in it would not have been possible without globalisation – and one aspect in particular, the deregulation of international financial markets. ibid.
By the mid-1990s it had become a war zone. Gang warfare poisoned the dream as organised crime spilled out of London’s East End into the fields, beaches, streets and nightclubs of Essex. It’s a story that’s now hit the big screen. Britain’s Underworld: Essex Bad Boys, National Geographic 2011
Essex was a gateway to Europe ... In the quiet fields and farmlands criminal networks had started to take root. ibid.
In the next twenty years Essex would tear itself apart. ibid.
The rave scene was descending more and more into the underworld. ibid.
With raves came drugs, and with drugs came a bloody gang warfare. ibid.
The Essex drugs market was rife. ibid.
The Essex Boys were making enemies in high places. ibid.
So who shot the Essex Boys? ibid.
This industry is worth £8 billion in the UK each year. Illegal drugs are used by over 5 million people. There are at least 20,000 dealers in London alone. Drugland I: Cocaine, Cannabis & Ecstasy, captions, BBC 2005
This is the story of a hidden industry. It is set in Britain’s capital where one in five young people regularly use recreation drugs. ibid.
2 million ecstasy tablets are now swallowed every week in Britain. ibid.
A quarter of a million UK clubbers visit Ibiza every year. Since 1999 drug taking in this group has trebled. Dealers call this island White Paradise. Drugland III: Ibiza
Since the major English nightclubs opened for business in Ibiza in the late ’80s the White Island has become a dream destination for Britain’s young clubbing fraternity. ibid.
MDMA crystals are a powerful form of ecstasy that’s sold in small bags of white powder. ibid.
Britain’s love affair with ecstasy has lasted three decades … What started as a club drug has broken through the darkness and into streets, pubs and homes across the UK … But the pills in MDMA crystal are stronger than ever before. Drugs Map of Britain VI: Newcastle: Super-Strength Ecstasy, BBC 2016
Ecstasy causes tachycardia or raised heart rate. Psychedelic Underworld, National Geographic 2017
As criminals blaze trails into Cambodia’s most remote mountains, little by little the forest is being devoured from this inside out. And all to help satisfy the global demand for this little pill. Vanguard: Forest of Ecstasy, Vice 2009
A substance called safrole oil … ‘Safrole oil can produce ecstasy.’ ibid.
The carcinogenic waste products end up polluting the water. ibid.
These factories are run by Vietnamese crime syndicates. ibid.
For the past thirty years ecstasy has become one of America’s top club drugs. It’s had a major effect on fashion, music and how we party. Drugged s1e3: High on Ecstasy, National Geographic 2011
The crystal form of the drug … MDMA. ibid.
Temperature can rise rapidly without them noticing. ibid.
‘You never get all your stores back up to the way they were before you took MDMA.’ ibid. user
Hidden in the woods lies a dismantled lab. The glassware and chemicals that survive are used only to illuminate memories of a career tragically cut short … This is the story of clandestine MDMA chemistry. Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia: The Clandestine Chemist’s Tale
The manufacture of psychedelics moved to China where controlled substances are replaced by uncontrolled derivatives that are sold without restriction to consumers in the United States. ibid.
In 1966 [Alexander] Shulgin quit his job as a chemist for Dow Chemical to devote himself entirely to the study of psychoactive drugs. Dirty Pictures, 2010
‘Shulgin personally tested hundreds of drugs.’ ibid. news
‘Beyond the therapist’s office it becomes wildly popular.’ ibid. documentary
‘I see psychedelics as spiritual tools.’ ibid. Ann Shulgin
‘Could one stay in a state of bliss for the rest of his life?’ ibid. Alexander
‘Every bit of MDMA is the best bit of MDMA.’ My Extreme Drugs Diary s1e3: MDMA, user, Channel 5 2019
Over half a million people used ecstasy in Britain in 2017, the highest consumption in a decade. ibid.
Low prices have made ecstasy Britain’s party drug of choice. ibid.
The idea of moderation can be hard to swallow. ibid.
‘Sometimes it would go on for days … Because it was such a high, the comedown would last for as long as the session, if not longer.’ ibid. user
Detroit: famed for its downtown raves. Home to a multi-million dollar trade in party drugs. And the scene of a feeding frenzy among dealers. Dope s1e3: I’m Gonna Get Me That White People Money, Netflix 2017
One E-pill should contain around 0.1 grams of MDMA … On the East Side E-pills have a reputation for patchy quality. ibid.
Up to 60% of E-pills contain no MDMA at all. ibid.