how long does ecstasy stay in your system

[sidebrake]

swim's girl is not sure if she should drop because of a future drug test, so the question is how long does X stay in your system?

[RaverHippie]

Mostly gone within 24 hours completely gone within 5 days. Will test positive for amphetamines or methamphetamines even if not tested directly for MDMA.

[moda00]

I've wondered about this and heard mixed results. MDMA is not amphetamine or methamphetamine, but does have the chemical structure as a part of it via substitution or whatnot ie. "methylenedioxymethamphetamine" righty (not a chemist)? So would it only come up in this manner if the MDMA pill or powder was cut with something else (like an actual amp/methamp, which would clearly show up as such) or is this just one of the chemical products that results and is detectable in the body even if one only ingests pure mdma??

[RaverHippie]

I checked erowid for the information and they states that urine tests don't check for MDMA directly but some hair tests do include MDMA as one of the options. This is taken from here


Though MDMA is not specifically tested for in the standard 'NIDA-5" drug tests, it is chemically closely enough related to amphetamines that recent MDMA users will test positive in both amphetamines (a common test) and methamphetamines (a somewhat newer and less common test). Because of this, the detection periods for MDMA are going to be very similar to those for amphetamines. Another important point is that many tablets of street ecstasy are not pure MDMA and frequently includes amphetamines (and may also contain DXM, caffeine, MDA, MDE, ephedrine etc).


The argument you made for the impurity of E tablets also extended the timeframe I posted earlier since MDMA gets out of the body faster than amphetamines, and since meth is a pretty common adulterant. So yeah, pure MDMA would come up as amp/methamp.

[Micklemouse]

Depends on who is testing. NHS (U.K. National Health Service) drug-tests routinely report MDxx & it's cousins when found, although until a couple of years ago MDxx showed as amphetamine unless a test for MDxx was specifically requested.

[sidebrake]

So in this case, the question is: How long does amphetamine stay in your system?

[RaverHippie]

assuming the test being taken is a urine test, then yes. Other tests would be able to cater toward MDMA specifically.

[moda00]

I don't mean to be dense.. but could someone explain exactly how this works and why? For example, in a urine test, what chemical substances or metabolites are tested for in order to come up for amphetamines? Along those lines, if they weren't specifically trying to distinguish MDxx use, any MDxx would show some characteristic chemical or metabolite that an amphetamine such as say amphetamine sulfate like in Europe, or ADHD meds in the US like Dexedrine (d-amps) would also have? What is this chemical marker that they share, specifically tested for and identifiable in urine?

And if they were to then do a specific test for MDxx, what would be the different way of telling this apart, and would say someone who ingested pure MDxx (not cut with amps or any other drugs) then test positive for both MDxx AND amphetamines? Also, I thought they could distinguish between amps and methamp- am I totally off base on that? Because wouldn't methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) be more likely to show up as methamphetamine than amphetamine-- obviously it is not classified as either.. but I'm guessing it's something to do with that structure/skeleton being a part of the overall compound- is any MDxx excreted intact in urine, or is it broken down into other compounds?

Again, I don't know much about this, and forgive me if this is off topic, but I am just wondering so that I can best understand the question being posed and how to answer it. Thanks.