Please, Guys, These MDMA Myths Need to Die
Written by Simon Doherty
They say in London that you’re never further than 6ft from a rat, which it turns out is a bullshit urban legend. But on the internet, you are never more than six clicks away from someone wheeling out tired myths about ecstasy. Please, guys, let’s retire these claims…
Myth: “More is better.”
FACT: Actually, no. Less is more.
With a lot of things in life, more is indeed better. Like weed, ice cream, festivals, friends, ice cream at festivals, ice cream at festivals while stoned, ice cream at festivals while stoned with your friends, and so on. More equals better for all that, sure. But, trust me reader, this does not extend to MDMA.
Once you get over, say, 200mg of MDMA, you’re not going to get any more of the positive, pro-social, emotional, tell-your-friend-you-fancy-them effects of the drug. Which is undoubtedly the best part. But you will get more and more of the stimulant effects of the drug which means more of the side effects – like overheating or gurning so bad that you look like you’re chewing a wasp, when you keep thwacking your top lip against the bottom one in an involuntary motion, like an eagle swooping down to capture its prey. And after a sick night out, your memory of it is fragmented. You only recall bits of the night and the rest just becomes a dull hunk of confusion. Or, even worse, your memory is entirely obliterated and that’s when you keep asking people if they’ve been to this festival before, seemingly forgetting the conversation which took place five minutes previously. And if you abuse MDMA, the comedown will be much, much worse (see the next section).
With the right dose, however, it can make simply being alive, floating down the lazy river of life, relentlessly delicious. It can spray euphoria, empathy, and love all over the scene. Like a rusty nail bomb of happiness exploded in your skull. But if you take it in huge doses, it can make you messy and a bit all-over-the-place. With MDMA, you can maximise your enjoyment by simply taking less.
Myth: “You’re guaranteed a terrible comedown.”
FACT: An extreme comedown is linked to extreme use and is totally avoidable.
Let me paint two pictures here: Scenario One, someone takes a moderate amount of MDMA, goes home, gets some sleep, eats some healthy food, does some light exercise, and takes it easy the next day. That person won’t get a bad comedown. Guaranteed. In fact, they’ll probably have an afterglow, where they are in a positive mindset for a period after the sesh.
Scenario Two, someone smashes a huge amount of MDMA, mixes it with a bunch of other substances, stays up for three days, and doesn’t eat healthy food after to lubricate the body’s recovery. That person is going to have a comedown so bad that it’ll feel like they’ve been headbutted by a rhino. You know the type of comedown, where simply getting up to go for a piss (head pulsing and ringing like an alarm bell) requires a 40min period of psyching yourself up. And then when you do get up, walking to the toilet feels like wading through a swimming pool filled with treacle. All this can be avoided, by opting for a moderate dose during the sesh.
Myth: One Pill is One Dose
FACT: One pill is more than one dose.
The strength of pills has dramatically increased over the past ten years. In a recent YouTube video I made, we heard from a huge pill manufacturer. Based in the Netherlands, he presses millions of pills. He said that while he believes that the ideal amount of MDMA in one pill would be “120mg for most people”, he has to press stronger ones because that’s what the market demands.
“It’s not normal [now] to have multiple pills at a festival,” he said. “The MDMA level is so high in pills nowadays. [With] some pills, a half is easily enough.” He added: “Personally, I’d like to lower the dose of MDMA in pills.”
Most of the pills that this guy produces are made to order: A customer will place an order for a minimum of 300,000 pills and they will dictate the dose, design, and colour. But he does also sometimes have stock pills, that he makes speculatively which people can buy too if they don’t have specific requirements for their order. “In my stock pills, I have some influence [over the strength], but I can’t go too low or they won’t sell,” he explains. “The lowest I’d do is about 100mg, but the demand for extremely high dose pills is still very high.”
Don’t take it from me, guys, take it from a guy making pills: Let’s say it again, for the people at the back: One pill is more than one dose. You’re going to want to split that in half or even a quarter if it’s a very strong one and you have a low tolerance. Then don’t consider re-dosing for two hours. If you’re dancing in a hot environment (whether it’s a festival or a club or in a disused warehouse) you’ll want to sip half a pint of water (around 250ml) an hour. If it’s a heatwave, up that intake to one pint (around 500ml) an hour. Take regular breaks from dancing and cool down in the shade, this is also the point you often end up chatting to people and making MDMAmazing new friends. Wearing loose clothes is a good idea too, so you don’t get too hot.
Myth: “MDMA crystal is a different type of drug to a pill.”
FACT: It’s the same drug. A pill is simply crystals broken down and mixed with a binding agent, food dye, and pressed into a shape. Same drug, presented in a different way.
Myth: “The Blue Punisher pill is the best.”
FACT: Only testing can give a clear indication as to what’s in a pill, the stamp is irrelevant.
If I got given £1 for every time someone claimed that an ecstasy pill is somehow better if it has a Blue Punisher design embossed across it, I’d have enough money to build a castle out of Blue Punisher pills. I’d have enough cash to buy the Blue Punisher IP from Marvel and start a Blue Punisher theme park.
Christophe Smet is a software engineer who has created a website and app called PillScanner (check it out here). It allows people to visually upload and search for pill designs and reports from all over the world. Over 800 submissions on the database are Blue Punishers. “There’s eight visually distinct [different] Blue Punisher designs we can see,” he told me when I spoke to him for a recent video. “The first reports came from around 2016 then it gained popularity and momentum in around 2022. It’s still one of the most dominant and popular pill designs in America, Asia, and Europe.” Testing shows that Blue Punishers in the PillScanner database range from around 29mg of MDMA to 275mg. A huge variance.
“Some designs are very popular,” another ecstasy pill manufacturer, also based in the Netherlands, says in the same video. “Blue Punishers, for example. Which is crazy because that is one of the most copied pills with the most variance of quality.” He added: “You often see them from 100mg [of MDMA] to 300mg. People love some designs even if the design means nothing anymore. That’s why I keep making Blue Punishers, there’s always a demand. I probably make more than four million [of them] a year.”
The big message here is you can’t judge a book by its cover and you can’t judge a pill by its design. Only testing can indicate if your pill is the real deal or how strong they are – click here to grab an EZ Test kit.
Myth: “You can’t overdose on MDMA.”
FACT: You can.
MDMA isn’t the most dangerous drug. It has a relatively low risk profile compared to many other drugs like alcohol, coke, ketamine, and benzos, for instance. However, all drugs have the ability to be dangerous and that includes MDMA. You have to respect it, it’s a powerful stimulant after all. For some reason, there’s a misconception among a minority of users that you can’t overdose on MDMA but that’s not true at all. You can, and people do.
"Mixing MDMA with coke increases the effects."
FACT: It’s not an ideal combination.
Coke and MDMA is not a good combination. Firstly, it puts an unnecessary strain on your heart which over time can cause cardiovascular problems. Secondly, the pro-social, emotional effects of the MDMA melt away once the coke is introduced, so you just have two stimulants left which, again, is bad for the heart.
It surprises me that some people want to mix these substances. They are, after all, very different vibes: On the one hand you have coke, so that often means gathering round a kitchen table at 5AM and feverishly discussing personal achievements and fruitless business ideas, like a firehose of chitchat. It’s a reasonable way of spending Sunday morning, if that’s your thing: Smoking cigarettes like an industrial chimney and studying the limitations of human conversation: How fast can one talk? Can three people talk at once? Can we talk and talk and talk until the Bluetooth speaker won’t connect properly anymore and the cruel sunlight starts mocking us by peeping through the gap in the curtain?
Then there’s MDMA: Go to a club and pop half a pill, rack up 30,000 steps on the iPhone pedometer, gyrate around a dancefloor like a fairground carousel, then comedown, grab your coat at 6AM, say “thanks” to the security on the way out, and go about your life. Despite what you might read in the tabloid newspapers, that’s the reality of MDMA usage for the majority of people who take it. Where’s their article in the Daily Mirror? I guess the headline “Man Who Took Moderate Amount of MDMA Caught Up With Some Friends and Had a Lovely Night” doesn’t carry the same weight as "£12 TRIP TO AN EVIL NIGHT OF ECSTASY” (that was a real headline).
Because of the difference in vibes between coke and MDMA – from “we should totally start a marketing agency” to “our friendship means a lot to me” – it surprises me that people want to take these two substances together. But it’s not advised because of the strain it can put on your heart.
Myth: “MDMA crystal is pure for sure.”
FACT: That’s not guaranteed.
A very common myth. Many people, it seems, believe that if MDMA is in crystal or powder form it’s guaranteed to contain MDMA with no impurities. This is not the case; it often contains impurities or, even worse, it can be mixed with any substance that looks like it. Testing is the only way to know for sure in an illegal market.
Myth: “You can take MDMA all the time.”
FACT: This can lead to a general low mood, it’s better to leave big gaps.
“Try not to use it more often than once every month or every two or three months, saving it for special occasions,” Professor Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drugs Survey and university harm reduction programme Staying Safer, advised when I spoke to him for my podcast The Sesh Files, which is sponsored by EZ Test kits.
That way, he argues, you can magnify your enjoyment and give your brain enough time to recover in between. “It might surprise you that most users of MDMA use 10 times or less per year,” he says. “Using less than monthly gives your brain (especially serotonin levels) and body time to recover and return to baseline.”
This sentiment was echoed by Professor David Nutt, who is the latest guest on the pod. “I’ve always been of the view that people should take it no more than once a month or every couple of months, just to be on the safer side.” He added: “We know that if you take an awful lot, then it can down regulate some of the key receptors in the serotonin system and the transporters. So I think six to eight times a year could be a reasonable harm reduction message.”
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