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Comment by baby | Hacker News Reader

By the way. I believe everyone should try MDMA at least once in their lives. Do it with your friends, with your loved ones, etc. If it wasn’t so stigmatized I would have already bought some for my parents.

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Try it once. The salient point about drugs like ecstasy is that they don’t actually add to the chemicals to your brain that make you feel good - instead they release the reserves in your brain all at once. Those incredible highs are all of your nice feelings for the next couple weeks getting released at once. It’s a trade off I don’t want to make.

> Those incredible highs are all of your nice feelings for the next couple weeks getting released at once.

This is a massive simplification. It represents the pop-psych nonsense like serotonin is the happiness molecule. It really depends. Mood and brain chemistry are much more complex than: serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrine

My anecdata: most of my friends have a down day 1-2 days after, then they’re fine. A couple have a really hard down day, others don’t have comedowns. This comment is irresponsible in that it confuses anecdote for data and uses a very inaccurate metaphor.

Good advice here is: if you want to try MDMA:

1. Test your product. Almost none of the MDMA on the streets is actually MDMA. It’s usually bath salts or something else unsavory

2. Dose correctly. MDMA is dosed generally based on body weight. If you don’t have the luxury of weighing you should probably take 75mg to 100mg.

3. Spend some time during your experience grappling with things that have bothered you lately. This is purely anecdotal, but this helps me with both the comedown and helps me figure out difficult things I’ve recently had difficulty with.

4. Expect some sad feelings 1-2 days after, so if you can plan those days around close friends in non stressful environments.

>Almost none of the MDMA on the streets is actually MDMA.

That is not really true. At least not in Europe. Real MDMA is incredibly common.

I have read that Europe has less fake MDMA, but regardless everyone should be testing.

From rollsafe.org:

> 87% of “Molly” analyzed by the DEA between 2009 and 2013 contained 0% MDMA, instead mostly containing “bath salts.”

> 46% of Ecstasy tablets analyzed in a study contained 0% MDMA.

That’s interesting...almost the opposite result was found by the Dutch drugs monitoring institute, with over 90% of analyzed pills containing MDMA.

https://energycontrol-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

By and large, most of the "ecstasy"/"MDMA" sold at the street level is a mix of cheap research chemicals and amphetamines. I volunteered at a tent that tested drugs at festivals, and for every 10 people that thought they had pure MDMA maybe 1-2 in 10 tested positive for containing any MDMA

That's one way to get people to be more skeptical of the psychotropic substances they're taking. Wish kits like this were wide spread.

This is not universally true, at least it is certainly false in the Netherlands.

https://energycontrol-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

See figure 7.

Very interesting. Did you publish any data or do you have any references you could share?

A massive simplification - sounds like a compliment. Perhaps people need the complexities of brain chemistry simplified to understand what they’re getting into.

The important thing is that all of those chemicals you described get released at once, and while you may only notice the acute effects for a couple days, the subtle effects last a lot longer. To massively simplify again - a week later maybe you can’t enjoy a sunset as much as you normally do, whether you’re cogniscent of it or not.

To massively simplify, you are focused entirely on the negative effects which can be mitigated especially in a clinical setting.

What you're describing as a "bad" thing is that all the chemicals get released at once - what that does is create the perfect mental environment to deal with issues or trauma that would be literally too painful to access otherwise. Often times the benefit of getting through or starting a journey of healing of some long-standing problem will hugely outweigh the minor downregulation of neurochemicals afterwards (you will feel a little slow).

If I thought the side effects could be mitigated I’d be doing it all the time ;) But I’m skeptical and don’t buy into all of those downplaying the effects as “minor”.

The mechanism still depletes your stores of neurotransmitters, but the neurotoxic effects and the "regrowth" period can be mitigated with supplements. Nobody should do it more often than once every 2 weeks under any circumstances, and only then in a clinical setting - once ever 2-3 months is okayish, but again the more environmental control the better.

This is not my experience. If you overdo it, this can happen, but with the proper dosage there is no noticeable happiness hangover.

It really is incredible. Although I've tried cocaine, and personally I found MDMA much harder to resist multiple doses with. So for me, I have to be super careful else I could end up harming myself or becoming psychologically dependent on it.

It's definitely got a risk factor, but the sheer experience is something everyone should have once.

Compared to cocaine, smoking and the like it is not very probable that anyone becomes psychologically dependent on it because of the way it works:

It releases serotonin stored in your body, and thus depletes those stores. So multiple doses feel less and less good. The body needs several weeks/months to refill those serotonin storages. All you do is risk getting serotonin syndrome [1] which is a whole other story/problem. But becoming "addicted" (physically or psychologically) in the classical sense is not an immediate issue as it is with cocaine, smoking, weed, etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin_syndrome

MDMA quickly loses its effect, though. I've done it twice in a month before and even then the second time wasn't that great. I'll only experience full waves once a month at most. And you can't just take more next time. It doesn't work. It will just give you a suicide tuesday.

I think drugs should be scientifically researched for all the same reasons we research neuroscience in general.

I disagree that everyone should try (any) drugs. It's hard enough to trust your own mind (and those of everyone around you). Adding drugs to the mix compounds this uncertainty.

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