So you’ve got your stash of MDMA for you and your mates for the night. You’ve done the at-home test and it’s gone black/purple/dark brown or whatever colour it’s meant to, depending on which test you’ve used. Everyone measures out their dose, a spare, and drops.
An hour later, you’re not feeling particularly MDMA-like. There’s a bit of a tingle, but not what you’d expect from the dose you’d measured out. So you take your spare. A couple of hours later your heart’s racing, your jaw’s clenched, you’ve got a filthy headache, and you’re getting anxious AF. Your MDMA is definitely not MDMA-ing in ways you expected. But the at-home test said that it was MDMA, so what the heck?
A sprinkle of MDMA on cathinones will skunk reagent tests
Here’s the thing about colour-based reagent tests. They’ll react with all of the things in the substance they contact, sure. But the strongest reaction will drown out any other reactions, so you’ll effectively only see one result in a reagent test.
Black swamps everything
MDMA is active at a higher dose in peoples’ bodies, but reagents will still pick it up if it’s in a sample in trace amounts. Manufacturers can put a smidge of MDMA onto the cheaper cathinone base and people using reagent tests will be none the wiser.
The standard at-home reagent test uses the Mandelin reagent, which goes dark purple-black when MDMA is present, and bright yellow when cathinones are present.
If you’ve got black and you mix it with another colour, you’re not going to see that other colour. You’re only going to see black. So any cathinones in a sample will remain hidden.
Different potency
Most cathinones either sold as or mixed with MDMA are far more potent than MDMA. A standard dose of MDMA might be 100mg, while many cathinones are active at around 20 – 30mg. This is one reason why cathinones are so harmful, as people can unwittingly take 3 or 4 doses if they believe they have MDMA.
Read our tips on what to do if you accidentally take a cathinone thinking it was MDMA
FTIR Spectrometers can see most of the ingredients in a sample
When you bring us a sample to check, we put a sample through the spectrometer, and it looks for ingredients. It tells us what the main ingredient it thinks it’s looking at is, and how sure it is that it’s right about what it’s looking at. If the sample is a mix of MDMA and cathinones, this is where the spectrometer will see the main ingredient.
We can then do a thing called an autosubtract and new search. This is where we tell the spectrometer to look for things in the sample that aren’t what it first came up with. If the sample is a mix of MDMA and cathinones, this step is where we find the cathinones hidden by the MDMA.
This is why we definitely recommend you come and get your gear checked at a licenced drug checking clinic, rather than relying on reagents alone.
Ok but I can’t get to a checking clinic. What do I do?
While reagents aren’t as comprehensive as a spectrometer, they’re absolutely better than nothing, especially if you can’t get to a clinic.
If your reagent test comes back positive for MDMA, we recommend you do the following to make sure your MDMAybe doesn’t turn into MDMisery.
- Start by taking half your usual dose. If this is your first time with MDMA and you don’t know what your usual dose is, err on the side of caution. You can get some good dose advice on Psychonaut Wiki’s MDMA page
- Wait for at least an hour. If your MDMA isn’t MDMA-ing like it should and you’re not feeling the effects you’re expecting, chances are your MDMAybe wasn’t actually MDMA. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you take the rest, but if the MDMA isn’t MDMA-ing, we wouldn’t recommend it.
On the bright side, there’s more drug checking in Aotearoa happening now than ever before. Our friends at the Drug Foundation have just launched a drop-off service in Auckland, and over at the DISC Trust they’ve started mobile clinics in the Nelson-Tasman areas. However there’s still lots of places in the country where you can’t get your stuff checked – promise we’re working on it! In the meantime, stay as safe out there as you can, eh?