Disclaimer-I am in no way considering using/selling this drug.
That out of the way, what exactly are the drawbacks to using Ecstasy? From what I’ve heard, the drawbacks are minimal, compared to other drugs. I’ve heard that the original drug is engineered in a laboratory, and is therefore safe, but Jesu Cristi, what kind of lab is going to make up a big batch of X to sell on the street?
Man do i love the memories i have of being on E.
[sub]Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form condone the use of any drug illegal to be had, sold, bought or used in any place. This is strictly a matter of personal experience.[/sub]
Great stuff when i was on it. Made me thirsty as all hell, but man were the love making and cuddling sessions with the ladies absolutely wonderful? Yes. Did anyone taking it care where it came from? No. If it had the Mitsubishi logo on it, were we happier than ever? Oh definitely yes. I never experienced any drawbacks so far as i can tell. Physicals check me out as okay, and no health issues to worry about. I have dropped over 3,000 hits of Acid in my senior year of High School alone, though i’m still not sure what the straight dope is on the whole legally/clinically insane thing. And the labs that make the big batches of E/X/Ecstasy, are made up in peoples apartments or dorm rooms, or some other country and then imported. It’s not hard to make, neither is Acid. My friends and i made huge batches of the stuff in High School, in just a few days in one of my friends basements.
Hardly effect free…
or…
*Source: http://www.ecstasy.org/info/karl.html *
Do a search on Ecstasy and you can find tons of info…
Teh problem with these reports on drugs is that they are ethnographic. People who use drugs probably use more than one, so there is no way to isolate teh effects.
I have dropped a ton of acid as have some of my pals. I don’t know anyone who has any of the problems that they are supposed to have. OF course, this does not prove one way or the other whether D-LSD-25 is dangerous. But neither do a lot of the bogus assertions made by anti drug doctors.
WIth X as with all drugs, there is a strong antidrug agenda that pollutes the objectivity of the medical community.
Don’t trust The Man.
Purely anecdotal, but:
My friend Richard was doing quite a bit of X in college. He started getting these INCREDIBLE backaches. He weaned himself off because they were freaking him out–and when he stopped, his backaches improved.
(tries not to look wistful remembering her brief but intensely pleasurable experiences with Ecstasy).
I would swear it’s addictive. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. Addictive to feel that way.
That may be true, but drug dealers have an agenda too, you know…
An ex of mine was heavy into Extacy and she kept spouting the “no side effects” line, which sounds like bullshit to me at first glance. The old “something for nothing” axiom comes to mind. There was severe problem with dehydration among users of X. Much of this is secondary to the drug use, as the drug enabled people to dance more energetically and for longer periods of time in crowded hot sweaty clubs. Thus users overheated rather quickly.
IIRC, X alters the salt content of cerebrospinal fluid by affecting sodium channels. This may also make the user thristy. I’ll have to find the references to all this, but the thing I remember is that people who took X were constantly advised to drink a lot of water all the time.
Having done about 30 - 40 E trips, I have found that it has some serious short term effects but no real long term effects (for me at least).
The short term effects would be a hard “coming down” phase followed by 3-4 days of crankiness due to low seratonin. Depending on how much ectasy is consumed, this period can be extended. It always took me about a week to feel completely normal again. But I always returned to my previous stated of awareness, etc.
I have not noticed any long term mental or physical changes.
You may also want to read this other thread in this same forum:
Ecstasy relatively safe? - 19 replies
Well E certainly causes dehydration. But prudent use involves the constant drinking of water throughout.
Soul- I’m right there with you. Just thinking about it now brings me back. I had some of the greatest experiences of my life on E, but it’s been awhile. The rave scene used to be one big E party, similar to the acid tests in the 60’s, before the wrong people started showin up. But Soul, 3000 hits of acid? I consider myself a fairly experienced acid head, though that’s been awhile for me too, with about 40 trips total, taking multiple hits for each trip (anywhere from around 3 to 7 or 8), and I don’t even come close to that. Sure you didn’t accidentally throw in an extra zero?
Anyway, that bullshit on being declared clinically insane from taking a certain amount of acid is just that - bullshit, among the many other urban legends and poor science that has accompanied drug use for years.
As far as the safety involved with E, well I don’t know what the current findings on it are. Jeff, I am curious to hear more about the first study you quoted, specifically the actual doses and frequency of use in the sample because there are many ways to use drugs. E certainly can be addicting, though it is very expensive, and I’ve known the entire range of users, from those who have used it once or twice, to those who’ve used it weekly (myself at my most extreme point, to those who’ve used it many times a week for a long period of time (years). I find it difficult to believe that those who use it in moderation have any major health problems (physical) to worry about. I have known too many people who have used it regularly for a long period of time and suffered no major effects (as of yet, of course), nor have I heard of anyone through word of mouth (it was a pretty large community at one point) having any major problems. I certainly wouldn’t deny that intuitively it seems major problems would arise from someone using E constantly in very high doses over a long period of time. Of course, intuition is no substitute for science. As others have said, to the OP, do a search and read about the research on it, there’s tons.
I can tell, though, about drawbacks to my experience. I’ll just say first off that I love my experiences I’ve had with it and feel the pleasure greatly outweighed the not-so pleasurable parts. But the comedown, for me, was always very unpleasant. It was very depressing, overwhelmingly so at times. You just don’t want to leave such a beautiful world. Also, you really feel a genuine feeling of love for people when you’re on it and you say some really deep things to people, things you would never say (and probably don’t even feel) otherwise, and when I come down, suddenly all those things I should not have said comeback to haunt me. It feels great to be huggin strangers and talking about love and beauty, and exchanging numbers and all that, but it can make you feel quite awkward and self-conscious when you come back to the real world.
However, once you learn that this is going to happen, you learn to deal with it and ride it out, it passes. It may help to smoke a joint or even do a shot or 2 to ease the comedown (provided you continue to drink lots of water), and you learn to monitor yourself a little bit when you are on it. It’s not so bad around complete strangers who you probably wont ever see again (or you might only see in places where you’ll both be likely to be on it anyway), but it’s bad around minor acquaintances or not-so-close friends.
Moe
I have no more info than what I listed (the source is listed in the quote…you could search on that). I merely did a quick search on Ecstasy and you can find tons of hits. The link http://www.ecstasy.org/info/karl.html seems to be a good page for info. It seems that the health risks largely mention potential psychological and not so much physiological ones.
I will mention one other risk. Be sure you know who you’re getting your E from. When in college myself and a bunch of friends bought some and whatever we got it was NOT Ecstasy. We all had the most fantastic hallucinations we’d ever experienced (I remember wishing I was an artist so I could paint what I had seen but alas stick figures are a challenge for me). To this day I have no idea what we all took. While nowhere near Soulsling’s LSD usage I did my share (more along the lines of Moe) and nothing in those experiences approached that night with whatever it was.
While many might say it’s obvious not to take something from someone you don’t know/trust it’s easier said than done. You’re at a party and someone who knows someone, etc., and that’s it. You have very little idea where it came from. Remember, people are whipping up this stuff in bathtubs sometimes (or home stills or whatever)…not exactly a controlled environment. Maybe they just used Draino to clear the drains earlier that day and didn’t rinse so well.
One last thing…Moe is right about a joint or two after a night of E. Really helps take the sting out at the end. I miss those days too although there is no way I could have kept up that pace and still be functional today. Now I’m relegated to beers with friends on the weekends. Sometimes getting responsible is no fun…
This is a man made chemical, made in someone’s home chem lab. No, it’s not made by a pharmaceutical co, then sold on the streets. Just like speed and bathtub gin, it’s homemade.
My $.02 here is never do a chemical drug (i.e. anything not pot or mushrooms) first. Let some other person be the guinea pig. I’m not saying don’t do them (it’s your choice), just don’t be the first in line. Wait, watch, and if no problems arise - make your decision.
Moe, yeah. My friends in high school and I used to keep track. We got hooked on this movie called “The Rachel Papers” and started conducting all kinds of experiments on our own lives. I would do all the acid, a friend would do all the E, another purely weed, and we would take certain doses at certain times of the day… Got to where i was taking one tab in the morning, one for lunch, and one for dinner, and on the weekends, 3-10 depending on whether it was a party or not. The times i would crash i would crash for a day or two and skip school. My tolerence got way too high, and i ended up taking 12 hits for the afternoon of my prom, and 10 more just for the evening, plus another 6 to help stay awake so my girlfriend (on approximately the same amount of acid) and i could watch the sunrise and go surfing in the morning. Easily did close to 300 in just a couple of months. The extra zero was earned. But i value what i got out of it all. It definitely changed my life in a big way, and there’s no way i’d recommend it to anyone else. It just happened to work for me. I got the chance to explore myself in so many ways. I do so now without the need for any drugs or alcohol (completely opposite of how i used to be). As for flashbacks, i believe this myth has been debunked, but i’ve never had any, and i never had a “bad trip” either. And there is definitely something in X that makes a person thirsty, because i got all chapped and dry from it, and that’s not just from dancing and partying and having lots of sex.
I do have two sketchbooks done entirely on Acid. One skethcbook is an entire trip itself, lasted three days, two nights, then i crashed hard for a day and took the next day off of school. Took my SAT’s on two tabs, never studied and got a 1280. Not bad i think.
Coming down from E was never hard on me though, i would eat a good cheeseburger with fries or something at an all night diner and my stomach would feel better.
…sorry, meant that to be by my senior year of high school, by the end of it. First dropped in my Sophomore year.
BAHAHAHAHAH!!! Talk about gullible. I’ve got some investment properties to show you.
But someone told me that a big problem with X is that people are starting to cut it with crank and other drugs such as heroin. Of course that’s going to make it less “safe”.
Also, someone else told me that they now have people going to some raves who test the ecstasy being contributed there. They scrape some and test it to make sure that it is pure. If it’s not, they advise the user not to take it. shrugs Like I said, I’m not claiming this to be totally true and I don’t have any references.
I’ve done E maybe 100-120 times total. It is extremely safe. Is it completely safe? No. Is it safer than just about any other illegal drug and most legal ones? yes.
A good source of info
They have a whole slideshow on what E does to you on a step by step basis. They also offer testing kits for people. Good stuff.
To everyone who says, that E is only made in bathtubs, I disagree. According to a recent, in depth survey by Spin, most E on the streets is made in labs in Europe, mostly Dutch labs. The equipment needed to make it is quite specialized, and it is complicated enough to stop most high school dropout dealers. It requires a vaccuum tube, and that’s all I’m gonna say so I don’t risk getting banned. Due to certain laws, the penalties are much lower for importing E than making it in the states.
Hey red_dragon. You don’t have to worry about getting banned for posting info. Post away. Also, evidence that much E is manufactured in Europe is the 400,000 pill seizure that happened at SFO recently. Where was that E from? France of course. Also the South African government has one of the largest stockpiles of E in the world. They investigated using it as a crowd control device.
I have heard this too.
IMHO, the real worry is that the long term effects of E aren’t really well known. It hasn’t been around long enough to say for sure how safe it is in that regard. Hell, it would be great if E had almost no side effects, but we may not really know that for sure until these feather boa club kids are retirement age.
Woohoo I caught a Moderater in a semi error. E has been around for quite a while. It first started getting used in the late 60’s. Read Alexander Shulgin’s books for more insight on how hardcore drug users can be perfectly normal and live to ripe old ages. there is also info on the dancesafe site about the myth of cutting E with heroin or crank. Basicly it’s more trouble than it is worth. In all of the tests performed by dancesafe they haven’t found either substance in the pills