August 15th #TestItTuesday Alert: Pentylone Sold as MDMA at UK Music Festival

A blue Anonymous (Guy Fawkes) pill sold as MDMA at Kendal Calling, a festival in the UK, was tested onsite by The Loop and determined to contain 100 mg of pentylone and no MDMA. (Note: photo was blurry in submission to ecstasydata.org.) Pentylone is a stimulant in the valerone family, that is being marketed as MDMA in pill, powder and crystal form. Its effects are similar to MDMA, but wear off much quicker, causing people to continue redosing. With all of the valerones, including pentylone and its analogues N-ethyl pentylone, a-PVP, MDPV, and pentedrone, “redosing seems to disproportionately extend the time...

July 25th #TestItTuesday Alert: Blue Sun Pill Sold as Ecstasy Tests as Amphetamine

A blue pill sourced from Zurich, Switzerland is being marketed and sold as ecstasy (MDMA). Test results published on Friday show the tablet contains 21.1 mg of amphetamine, a common stimulant that is found in Adderall and black market drugs such as speed. As Erowid states, amphetamines are “the standard against which all other stimulants are measured.” Although a commonly used drug, an amphetamine experience is much different than an MDMA experience, so it is always important to know what substance you are consuming in order to properly prepare yourself. Purchase your DanceSafe drug checking kit here so you can identify...

DanceSafe Now Offering Fentanyl Testing Strips

July 18, 2017 - Fentanyl is a short-acting synthetic opiate that is now being used as an adulterant in substances such as heroin, cocaine, and MDMA. Due to its high potency, it has caused numerous deaths on unsuspecting victims. In response to the rising death toll caused by fentanyl-laced drugs, DanceSafe and the University of California San Francisco have conducted a study assessing five different immunoassay fentanyl test strips for their effectiveness at detecting fentanyl and its various analogs at concentrations typically found in street drugs. Although none of the five strips detected all of the fentanyl-related analogs, and one Chinese-manufactured...

Drug checking is a valuable public health tool and Johns Hopkins University agrees

A new study by Johns Hopkins University published online in the Journal of Psychopharmacology concludes that individuals were significantly less likely to report intent to consume a substance marketed as MDMA if the substance did not test as such. Results also suggest that Molly is not a less-adulterated substance, as discussed in this week's #MythBusterMonday blog post. The study used data collected by DanceSafe from on-site drug checking conducted at events between July 2010 and July 2015. The data was collected by DanceSafe volunteers Dr. Sarah Saleemi, researcher and physician at University of Illinois Chicago hospital, Dr. Steven Pennybaker, researcher and...

May 2nd #TestItTuesday Alert: MDMA Therapy and Black Markets

It's #TestItTuesday! The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has been moving quickly on making MDMA into an FDA-approved medication, and the amount of positive press they are getting is phenomenal. When outlets as diverse as military blogs, Time magazine and now Fortune are covering this research, you know you've really made some waves. But with the increased public understanding of the therapeutic potential of MDMA comes an increased risk of people trying to access these substances via the black market. While it's become increasingly clear that pharmaceutically produced MDMA in a clinical setting has a relatively low risk, extrapolating from that...