The Side Effects of Molly

After the initial high from Molly wears off, users have reported abnormal, unexpected emotions with a strong desire to take more of the drug (coming down) and intense feelings of sadness, anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts that last from one to three days. This can linger up to approximately two weeks (longer with chronic users). Others say it dramatically affects their appetite and sleeping patterns, finding themselves unable to fall asleep when physically tired. Erectile dysfunction and difficulty reaching orgasm are also joint after taking Molly.

The drug’s long term effects are associated with significant depletions of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, which can lead to cognitive issues, problems with emotional control and severe emotional distress. For example, the pleasuresome release of serotonin that occurs when taking MDMA causes those receptors in the brain to then down-regulate, meaning they turn themselves off for a while. Reported long term effects also include anxiety, depression and severe paranoia. Clinical studies suggest that MDMA may increase the risk of long term, perhaps permanent, problems with memory and learning. There are also studies that indicate brain toxicity can occur after use of the drug, however, there is little or no knowledge of what the consequences are.

Common Causes of Death Associated with Molly

Exhaustion, overheating, and dehydration together dramatically increase seizure potential and can lead to severe damage to the brain and other organs. In the same stride, they are compromising the heart’s ability to maintain its normal rhythm.

The DEA reports that high doses of MDMA can lead to a sharp increase in body temperature, a condition called hyperthermia (a heat stroke), resulting in liver, kidney, cardiovascular system failure, and, ultimately, death. Because MDMA can interfere with its metabolism or breakdown within the body, harmful levels can be reached by repeated drug use within short intervals.

Strangely, although dehydration and heatstroke in club environments are the most common causes of medical emergencies relating to MDMA, the drug itself is actually water retentive, causing the body to retain water. There have been a number of cases where a person has died from consuming too much water while on MDMA. Hyponaetremia, or ‘water intoxication,’ is a condition in which the body holds onto too much water, thus diluting the amount of sodium in the blood and causing levels to drop dangerously low. This dramatic increase in water in your body causes a water shift from the intracellular compartment to the extracellular compartment. The osmotic pressure on your tissues increases, forcing water into them, causing your organs to swell, but the brain doesn’t have that option. The intense pressure forces the tearing of blood vessels and bleeding within the brain, resulting in severe and irreversible brain damage.

“Pure” Molly – A Pure Fallacy

Recreational users often refer to the “pure” and “clean” features of Molly, making it a seemingly better, safer option than its contaminant-corrupted sister, Ecstasy. Now marketed to very young, first-time users in addition to rave and EDM fans, who think they’re getting pure and unadulterated MDMA, when research reveals this is often a maliciously well marketed misunderstanding. While this could have been true at one point, it isn’t now. In reality, the promised ‘pure’ MDMA experience “doesn’t exist,” says Rusty Payne, a spokesman with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Molly today is neither pure nor safe. In fact, chemical analyses of drugs sold as “Molly” have shown to instead contain many, much more dangerous drugs and often contain no MDMA at all. Between 2011 and 2013, for example, over 80% of the Molly seized by the DEA in the northeast US did not contain any MDMA, instead many contained methylone, the same stimulant found in bath salts.

In its pill form, Ecstasy is actually harder to tamper with, but as a powder, Molly can be easily cut with a myriad of other substances, or cutting agents. Capsules of what users had thought to be pure MDMA have actually been found to contain not only methylone, but also PCP, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine (crystal meth), toxic household substances, DXM (dextromethorphan, which is found in cough medicines and extremely dangerous at high doses), a very potent form of amphetamine known as PMA (which is more likely than many other drugs to kill with one dose) and even rat poison.

“Molly can be pretty much anything,” says Special Agent Joseph Moses. “Molly is whatever the seller wants to say is Molly.”

Payne states that the ‘Molly’ they are finding is actually one of several synthetic designer drugs that have been flooding the US and European marketplace from chemical labs, primarily based in China. Most of the time, it’s a mixture of any number of synthetic drugs, many of which are more dangerous and much less predictable than MDMA. “A lot of people are missing the boat here,” he said. “80 to 90 percent of the time we are given a chemical or substance believed to be Molly, we’re finding most of the time it is something completely different.”

In a report with CNN, “You’re playing Russian roulette if you take these compounds because we’re seeing significant batch-to-batch variances,” Associate Deputy Administrator for the DEA, Al Santos, said. Officials have been finding completely different ingredients in drugs sold in the same packaging. Santos also says the amount of active ingredients can be dangerously different. “The dosing for these sorts of drugs are in the micrograms, the room for error is tremendous, and we’ve seen a lot of deaths with some of these compounds.”

“It’s exactly the same phenomenon that occurred with ecstasy a decade ago,” said Dr. Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine and an expert on MDMA. “Ecstasy had terrible reliability and it’s the same with Molly. Though it’s being marketed as pure MDMA, it’s a hoax.”

Is it ignorance? Negligence? What’s truly in a name? Call it whitewashing, call it downplaying, soft-pedaling, sugarcoat it anyway you’d like, but you still have an incredibly dangerous and ever-changing drug that has over twenty thousand people each year in an ambulance at death’s door. Today it’s ‘Molly,’ tomorrow it may have another name. Nonetheless, it has destructive and disastrous consequences that could send you knocking on the same door. Is it really worth it? If you ask me, that is a pill that’s hard to swallow.