Dose - How Much?

[Can'tSwim]

My mate from swimming classes was asking questions about how much MDMA he should be taking.

Back in the day when he did pills he knew the strength that he go and could dose accordingly. However, doses have eroded over the years and pills are not what they used to be, so he has moved on to Mandy.

He has been doing it a year now and perhaps realised that he has never talked to anyone about how much to take. He was discussing it with some friends during some blurry NYE conversations and they were surprised that he had done 1.5g (he normally does 1g on an average night). His mates would normally do 2/3g, spaced over a night.

What do people take?

[yaba]

Think its a dangerous dose !!!
In a normal good XTC pill should be 100mg of MDMA so 1.5g is equivalent to 15 pills.
Maybe the quality is sh*t or his tolerance is that high.. But swim would be careful !

quote:Back in the day when he did pills he knew the strength that he go and could dose accordingly.

Please have a look at this tread it will explain that only a few people knoe exactly whats in a pill.http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73467

[yates88]

The stuff he's buying cant be full strength MDMA because swim is an experienced user and that seem v.dangerous amount to be using.

Any chance you could descride the texture colour etc.

[KyleM]

Originally Posted by Can'tSwim

My mate from swimming classes was asking questions about how much MDMA he should be taking.

Back in the day when he did pills he knew the strength that he go and could dose accordingly. However, doses have eroded over the years and pills are not what they used to be, so he has moved on to Mandy.

He has been doing it a year now and perhaps realised that he has never talked to anyone about how much to take. He was discussing it with some friends during some blurry NYE conversations and they were surprised that he had done 1.5g (he normally does 1g on an average night). His mates would normally do 2/3g, spaced over a night.

What do people take?

Can you clarify what Mandy and NYE mean? There is no reason to ever take even close to a gram of MDMA in a night. That is a complete waste of MDMA first of all and is much more likely to lead to unwanted, long-lasting side effects. SWIY should probably refer his friends to drugs forum for some much needed harm reduction information as well if they are doing 2/3g. SWIM would recommend no more than 250mg in a night and that is still alot. Even a 150mg in one dose is a very strong dose of MDMA. If SWIY requires more than that, then that is a good sign that a break from MDMA is necessary. Best advice for how many pills to take would be to start at the lowest number, SWIY can always take more.

[KomodoMK]

Originally Posted by KyleM

Can you clarify what Mandy and NYE mean?

Mandy/molly = Slang for MDMA
NYE = New Years Eve

The dosage has been discussed to death in other threads but I'll state my opinion again here.

The sweet spot for most people with MDMA is 110-125mg. At dosages between 120-150mg metabolic saturation starts to occur. When more is taken the enzymes (mainly CYP2D6) become saturated and a disproportionately large increase in the concentration of blood and brain MDMA occurs, as a result the oxidative stress substantially increases magnifying the risk of toxicity. From this you can work out what the safety area for dosages is for yourself.

That said, little fishy is a very experienced and tolerant user of clean crystal MDMA, and as such even with large periods of abstinence, the small doses just don't do much for him any more. Mostly he would use ~200-300mg single dose in one session, never more. However on NYE he shared 3.5g (2.5g pure, 1g questionable) MDMA and a few pills with some friends, so probably easily used over 1.5g in a 16 hour period. After about 600-700mg or 10 hours no effects other than extended stimulation were noticed. There were no significant negative effects except tiredness (31 hours no sleep) and dehydration, probably didn't help that little fishy didn't eat for 48 hours though. That said, little fishy is usually very healthy, eats well, attends the gym 5 times a week, gets a good amount of sleep every night and no longer abuses any drugs regularly, so he tends not to suffer seriously with come downs. When he abused some years ago he did suffer severe short term memory loss which took a year to repair... this is why he has learnt to respect drugs and now only uses MDMA 2-3 times a year.

Little fishys point with all this... from a scientific point of view it is not recommended to take high doses, especially for a new user or someone with low tolerance or little experience. However, little fishy also realises how much fun it is too have a session with friends and how tempting it is to keep trying to prolong the experience, so the bottom line of it is...

If you care about your health don't use more than 110-125mg a session and don't use regularly, but on the other hand if you want to have fun, take on board all the facts and make an educated decision, and look out for warning signs. Know your body, know your mind...

There is no excuse to not educate yourself. If you can spare 6+ hours too buzz your tits off on MDMA, you can spare a couple more to educate yourself about what you're doing...

[thealmassi1]

Drugs act differently on different people. If SWIy is happy taking 1-1.5g and finds it much more effective (aka fun) than a 100-250mg dose than don't revert back to the "recommended dose." Although, it seems SWIY does overuse the drug and should abstain from it for a while.

[KomodoMK]

Originally Posted by thealmassi1

Drugs act differently on different people. If SWIy is happy taking 1-1.5g and finds it much more effective (aka fun) than a 100-250mg dose than don't revert back to the "recommended dose." Although, it seems SWIY does overuse the drug and should abstain from it for a while.

It maybe true that people feel different levels of effects from the same drug but they are metabolised the same way regardless, and as such the (neuro)toxic risks are still present. Toxicity is not synonymous with feeling.

[thealmassi1]

Originally Posted by KomodoMK

It maybe true that people feel different levels of effects from the same drug but they are metabolised the same way regardless, and as such the (neuro)toxic risks are still present. Toxicity is not synonymous with feeling.

His dose is not toxic or I'm sure he would not have ingested that amount. No one knows the purity of the substance, for all we know, 1g could have only 100mg MDMA in it. Who knows?

What is the toxic dose of MDMA? What is the lowest amount known to cause a fatality due to toxicity (not from drinking too much or too little water)?

[KyleM]

Originally Posted by thealmassi1

His dose is not toxic or I'm sure he would not have ingested that amount. No one knows the purity of the substance, for all we know, 1g could have only 100mg MDMA in it. Who knows?

What is the toxic dose of MDMA? What is the lowest amount known to cause a fatality due to toxicity (not from drinking too much or too little water)?

Toxicity and the LD50 (median lethal dose) are completely different aspects. Yes the LD50 of MDMA is fairly high, probably more than 20mg/kg. When discussing the LD50, that is the referential dose that one can theoretically take and have a 50% chance of dying. One shouldn't be calculating their dose on whether they can "survive" the amount taken, but rather to take an effective, safe amount and minimize the harm associated with using that drug. This does not mean that much lower doses will not or could not be toxic and/or cause problems to develop. With neurotoxicity, it all depends on how the word is defined, but regardless, it is very likely that one who consumes 1-1.5g of MDMA in a night consistently will develop long-term side negative side effects. Just read around the ecstasy forum for other swimmers' accounts of consuming large amounts of MDMA for a long time and developing many issues and then wanting to know how they can fix these issues. SWIM does not need to list all of them. The easiest way is to avoid risking that in the first place. The other part being, as SWIM already mentioned, that the brain's chemistry is not designed to utilize that much MDMA for the purpose in which most people use it. After a certain amount, the MDMA has no more serotonin to release. That amount is fairly low. The rest of the MDMA is wasted or is releasing other neurotransmitters, such as dopamine. So why risk developing long-term negative effects over trying to use more than is even remotely necessary for an MDMA experience?

And with purity, it goes both ways. Yes, one could be taking 1g of a substance with only a 100mg of MDMA in it and then sometime actually get 1g of a substance with 1g of MDMA as advertised to the buyer and end up consuming much more MDMA than he or she was expecting.

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Excellent post about toxicity and MDMA
	Really informative and well explained

[KyleM]

Originally Posted by thealmassi1

Drugs act differently on different people. If SWIy is happy taking 1-1.5g and finds it much more effective (aka fun) than a 100-250mg dose than don't revert back to the "recommended dose." Although, it seems SWIY does overuse the drug and should abstain from it for a while.

The recommended dose is the recommended dose for a reason. Just because the recommended dose does not work does not mean that one should take 10-15x that dose. Suggesting that it is ok is doing an injustice for the people who are here seeking advice on dosages.

From a scientific standpoint, there is just not enough serotonin available in the brain for even close to all that MDMA to be utilized for the purpose of releasing serotonin. So that alone makes it a waste of valuable MDMA. The only instance where it would be sensible to increase dosages (slowly) of MDMA in particular is if threshold doses are higher not because SWIY is tolerant to the recommended doses due to usage and/or abuse.

[KomodoMK]

After the enzymes become saturated if more MDMA is taken a large amount of MDMA is secreted in the urine unchanged and could be recycled.

[KomodoMK]

Thanks KyleM, you saved me a long explanation. It seems many people associate toxicity with fatality or obvious short term negative effects and give little thought to the long term implications that may (or may not) have started to manifest themselves yet.

[FrogEye]

KyleM really hit the nail on the head with this discussion. Good job.

[phatassone]

SWIM takes between 800mg and 1 gram on a very special BIG night out, on a club night swim will take about 500mg... allthough swim used to take a lot more, swim has realised its very bad, the come-downs were getting unbearable...