History of Ecstasy (MDMA)

ON THIS PAGE

Since Ecstasy is a fairly new drug, it has a short but remarkable history. Know as Molly, MDMA or Ecstacy, the chemical name of the drug is ±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). As a chemical, it is a stimulant, but in action, it is a hallucinogen.

Early 1900s

MDMA was patented in 1913 (patent #274.350) by the German chemical company Merck supposedly to be sold as a diet pill (the patent does not mention any intended use), the company decided against marketing the drug and had nothing more to do with it.

An urban legend has the US army testing MDMA in 1953 as a possible truth serum, but there is no real evidence supporting this.

Ecstasy: What You Need to Know.

Get the information about Ecstasy that may help you prevent a disaster for your or your loved one.

DOWNLOAD NOW

1960s

The man responsible for the modern research of MDMA is Alexander Shulgin, who after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry landed a job as a research chemist with Dow Chemicals. Among his many achievements for Dow Chemicals were one profitable insecticide and several controversial patents for what were to become popular street drugs. Dow was happy with the insecticide but Shulgin’s other projects created a parting of the way between the biochemist and the chemical company.

Shulgin continued his legal research of new compounds after leaving Dow.

In 1965, Alexander Shulgin synthesized MDMA and documented the method of synthesis that its uses, both illicit and legitimate, began to develop.

Several years later, Merrie Kleinman, a graduate student who was advised by Shulgin at San Francisco State University, discovered its psychoactive effects and told Shulgin.

Alexander Shulgin made a batch and began to test it on himself at a variety of dosages, taking careful notes of each experience. For example, at 60 milligrams of MDMA, he reported “At the one hour point, I am quite certain that I could not drive, time is slowing down a bit, but I am mentally very active. My pupils are considerably dilated.”

Shulgin had a group of eight friends plus himself and his wife that he tested his experimental psychoactive drugs on. Over the many years, he was involved in this research, he estimated that he had tried these drugs on himself more than 4,000 times.

Ecstasy Use Branches Out in the 1970s

In 1977, Shulgin presented the drug to an associate, Leo Zeff, a Ph.D. who had a psychotherapy practice. Zeff began to use the drug on his patients as a therapeutic aid. It was not, at this point, an illegal substance. He passed the drug on to his colleagues and by 1980, there were more than a thousand therapists using the drug in their practices.

In 1978, Shulgin published a paper that documented its effects. And in 1991, he and his wife published the book PIHKAL or Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved. (MDMA is in a class of drug called phenethylamines.) By doing so, he cemented his association with this drug. He has since been called the “father” and “godfather” of Ecstasy.

Ecstasy in the 1980s

In the mid-1980s, the media picked up on this drug and began to feature it, including the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, Newsweek and Harper’s Bazaar. A Los Angeles distributor who wanted to make the drug more appealing is said to have given it the name Ecstasy. And the drug hit the music festival and nightclub scene. It quickly jumped the Atlantic and became popular in the UK and on the Spanish island of Ibiza.

In the US, the DEA managed to get the drug outlawed by placing it on Schedule 1, a category of drug that has no valid medical use. Although there were opponents of this action, largely practitioners who wanted to use the drug in their psychoanalysis practices, the DEA eventually prevailed.

In 1985, MDMA/Ecstasy received massive media attention when a group of people sued the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to try to prevent them from outlawing the drug by placing it on Schedule 1. The US Congress had passed a new law allowing the DEA to put an emergency ban on any drug that it thought might be a danger to the public. On July 1st, 1985, this right was used for the first time to ban MDMA.

A hearing was held to decide what permanent measures should be taken against the drug. One side argued that MDMA caused brain damage in rats, the other side claimed this might not be true for humans and that there was proof of the beneficial use of MDMA as a drug treatment in psychotherapy. The presiding judge after weighing the evidence recommended that MDMA be placed on Schedule 3, which would have allowed it to be manufactured, used on prescription and subject to further research. But the DEA decided to place MDMA permanently on Schedule I.

The 1990s

In 1993, Trial research into the effects of MDMA on human volunteers resumed in 1993 with the approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the first psychoactive drug approved for human testing by the FDA.

In 1995-1996, MDMA is used increasingly among college students and young adults and also is being used at relatively high levels by America’s 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, according to NIDA’s 1996 Monitoring the Future study. Nearly 5 percent of 10th and 12th graders and about 2 percent of 8th graders said they had used MDMA in the past year at the time of the study.

Previous "Monitoring the Future studies" asked 12th graders about the use of MDMA by their friends and about the drug’s availability. The 1996 study was the first to question 8th, 10th, and 12th graders about their own use of the drug.

2000s

The DEA reported on emergency department mentions regarding MDMA with this graph that shows a steady increase since the year 2000.

By 2000, the drug was being manufactured by criminal groups in the Netherlands and Belgium. US supplies were smuggled from Europe to Canada and then into the US. It was logical then that manufacturing facilities would begin to be found in Canada to feed the American demand. In 2000, US Customs agents seized more than nine million of the pills and in 2005, a shipment of five million pills was found in Australia.

2010 to Present

In 2010, the Australian Sunday Mail reported that more than 100 young people in that country had died after taking Ecstasy. Between the beginning of 2011 and January 13, 2012, a total of eighteen of British Columbia’s deaths involved Ecstasy or PMMA (Para-Methoxy-Meth-Amphetamine, a drug similar to Ecstasy). Britain’s Daily Mail reported 200 deaths between 1996 and 2011.

In 2012, eight deaths in Alberta, Canada and five in British Columbia were attributed to Ecstasy pills that actually contained PMMA. Ecstasy’s popularity contributed to these deaths without the drug even being involved.

Problems with Ecstasy

Not every person who tried Ecstasy had a good experience with the drug and not every pill sold as Ecstasy actually contained the drug. In one series of tests, only 10-15% of the pills sold as Ecstasy were completely composed of this drug. In many other cases, there was no MDMA in the pill at all or it was composed of a mixture of drugs, occasionally including heroin or methamphetamine.

But even when the pill was straight, unadulterated MDMA, it was possible to have a bad “trip” or even a fatal outcome. Panic attacks, vomiting, blurred vision, faintness, overheating and resultant organ breakdown are possible.

People having bad reactions to Ecstasy began to arrive in emergency rooms. In 1994, there were 253 of these events but by 2001, the number had climbed to 5,542. At music events around the world, reports of deaths began to mount.