The following narrative is based on a first time user’s experience with MDMA. Any students mentioned have had their names changed to protect their identity.

Senior John walks into a club and is welcomed by the sight of beautiful women dressed head-to-toe in neon, bandanas, pacifiers and Camelbacks,. He is engulfed by lights, lasers and the sound of banging techno music. John came to the club for his first rave experience, and he and his friends plan to take one capsule of Molly each for the night.

Call it Ecstasy, E, Rolls or Molly; Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) has burst onto the scene accompanying the recent rapid growth of the popular electronic music rave scene and its young following.

Once the music starts, John opens his capsule, dumps it into his plastic bag and starts taking “fun dips,” sticking his fingers in the crystals and then putting them in his mouth. John waits about 30 minutes for the drug to really take full effect. He feels an intimate closeness with everyone around him, and nothing in the crowded sweaty club can distract him from his euphoria. He becomes curious of his heightened sense of touch, feeling the things and objects around him that somehow feel all too new. Eyes peeled wide open, John notices the dilated pupils of the people he came with and their inability to refrain from moving to the music. When the artist comes on to open with John’s favorite song, the noise puts him into the climax of his high. John feels on top of the world, and there is nothing else he would rather be doing and nowhere else he would rather be than the spot he is uncontrollably jumping up and down in.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the feelings that John is beginning to experience are due to the drug’s ability to block serotonin receptors in order to increase levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin controls processes such as mood, emotions, sleep, appetite, anxiety, memory and perceptions. While under the influence of Ecstasy, ravers like John who are on the drug can be put into a trance by dancing, listening to electronic music and watching light shows that all heavily stimulate their heightened senses. The happiness, love for others and feeling of belongingness that users experience explain why it has been deemed “the love drug.”

John came to the rave prepared with a Camelback backpack filled with water to counteract the drug’s ability to cause dehydration due to constant dancing in the hot crowded environments. He also sees many female ravers around him choosing to suck on baby pacifiers during the experience to counter the urge to clench or bite with their teeth.

The high lasts for about three hours until the end of the concert. He starts to come back to his original feeling before his intake of MDMA but still feels some lingering effects of the drug, like increased happiness and infatuation with music, for the next day or so. With everything however, there is a give and take. The euphoria felt while on MDMA is reciprocated with adverse effects once off the drug.

According to the NIDA, a couple of days after ingesting the drug users will feel tired and depressed as their mind and body both try to recuperate from their recent stimulation.

“You reach a peak at the middle of your high, like a climax of a story then everything goes downhill and leads to a crash,” said senior Alfred, an ex-user.

“Stacking” MDMA, or building a tolerance and taking high dosages repeatedly, multiplies the drug’s adverse effects and does not allow the body time to let the drug’s effects wear off. Mild feelings of depression or not being fully alert during a crash get exponentially worse. Repeated use and repeated crashing, for some, can bring out the dark side of the drug that most infrequent users will never see.

“I myself was taking 3 to 4 ecstasy pills to feel the high,” Alfred said. “When I came down I started to feel very depressed and angry. I even tried to kill myself several times, but I kept chasing the high. I fell in love with it.”

Like any drug, MDMA’s euphoric effects can leave some users wanting to come back time and time again to experience the high they got their first time. Tolerance to the drug’s effects can build, and frequent users will need to take more to feel the way they need to.

“Raves are nearly every weekend and people always want to go, so you feel obligated to go and [roll],” Alfred said. “The thing is that once you’ve tried it, it makes you want to keep doing it again.”

For users like John, MDMA provided a one-time memorable night out with his friends, and he has had no urges to come back to the drug for now. From the perspective of an ex-abusive user, MDMA can lead down a road of depression and a dangerous addiction to the rolling raving lifestyle, but for people like John, the urge to use might only resurface next year when his favorite artist comes back to town.