Many of us have seen this chart at some point when researching MDMA doses, possibly on Erowid itself.

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What you probably don't know is what this chart actually represent and is great example of how most advice that you read online about MDMA is misrepresented and misunderstood. I decided to spend some time, look at the actual sources, and figure out what every part of this chart really means.

Based on how it's presented, you'd think it's from a medical study in which they measured the effects of different doses in a controlled medical setting. Unfortunately that is NOT the case, and as a result there are many confounding factors that strongly impact what types of conclusions we can draw.

This chart is a break down of how much MDMA was in different tested samples of ecstasy, and then looking at the subjective relative strength of "desirable effects" vs "adverse effects". DIMS, the Dutch Street Drug Testing Service, surveyed about 6000 people who submitted samples of illegal drugs (specifically ecstasy pressed pills, not crystals) from 2000-2010. Note, this specifically in the Netherlands, and only represents a very small portion of the population of people who submitted drugs for testing. In many cases, people would only submit their drugs for testing after a bad experience, so there is certainly an overrepresentation of bad/tainted drugs, or people who are simply prone to bad drug experiences with MDMA. In this survey they collected reports of "desirable" and "adverse" effects and attempted to correlate it to measured MDMA doses in the tested press pills. This chart below shows what those effects actually are:

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Before we look at the results, we need to consider the environment around the drug testing itself. We are testing illegal ecstasy pills, specifically in Netherlands, specifically from 2000-2010, with a bias towards submissions by people with bad experiences in the first place. Note that especially in 2011 there was a lot of RCs and other contaminats floating around in their drug supply. In 2011 only about 60% of samples actually had MDMA only , and this quote directly from DIMS confirms that.

"The periods around 1997 and 2009 are characterized by the appearance of other psychoactivesubstances in tablets sold as Ecstasy, e.g. MBDB, 2C-B, atropine,4-MTA, PMA around 1997, and mCPP and mephedrone around 2009"

"In and around 1997, many Ecstasy tablets containedamphetamines and in and around 2009 many tablets containedmeta-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) instead of or in addition toMDMA."

In many of the yearly DIMS report about the state of the drug market, they reference the original 2011 subjective review that the chart comes from. They decide to summarize the findings as below:

"It was shown that higher doses of MDMA (higher than 100 mg) and the presence of PMMA or mCPP in ecstasy pills were associated with a decreased likeli- hood in desirable effects and increased risk of adverse effects compared to medium dose MDMA tablets or tablets containing only MDMA, respectively. For example, mCPP was associated especially with nausea and PMMA led to several reported cases of hyperthermic seizures. Also BZP and MDA were not appreciated as replacements for MDMA. "

Therefore, the "adverse" affects CANNOT only be attributed to the MDMA doses as they were mixed with several other substances in the tested ecstasy which can also cause adverse effects.

Furthermore, some of the adverse effects measured are palpitations and nausea, which are fairly common with a strong come up. Just because you have a rough come up doesn't mean it's going to offset the positive effects. In fact, in most cases if you don't have some nausea or palpitations, you're NOT even going to experience a full-on roll. Building on this, they specifically state that first time users are more likely to have these "adverse" effects, so the probability and dosing does differ for first time vs experienced users.

As far as the recommend dose of 1.5mg/kg that we often see in medical studies, that only applicable for use in therapeutic settings. There's a even few studies where they did upwards of 2.7mg/kg. It wouldn't be comfortable having a rough come up and a full roll in a therapist's room, they're mostly looking at increasing empathy for therapy sessions, not creating a great high or roll***.***

The "adverse" effects in a therapeutic settings can actually be very enjoyable in a recreational setting. For example, that chart suggests that 100mg is the optimal dose, I don't know anyone who would prefer 100mg unless it was their first or second time and they didn't know any better. DIMS themselves say that the recreational dose goes up to about 4mg/kg. Ultimately dosing depends on the individual's metabolism as well as what effects they're looking for. We do know that things such as short term memory loss start to happen around 3mg/kg, which matches up with my personal experiences as well as that of people in my rave group. Not everyone wants a full roll but personally I'm not going to put a strain on my serotonin system for a half experience.

So how much do you dose?

This depends on how many times you've rolled, as well as your weight and metabolism. I'm 180lbs so 100mg is still enjoyable and I feel the roll building up, but it never gets me over the hump, similar to getting blue balls. I use a weight formula with myself and friends now. Past 3mg/kg is when you get the short term memory loss and I like to keep it below that around 2.5mg/kg so I actually remember the set. At this level you get the full body orgasm euphoria, increased visuals, and the fun eye wiggles. For myself that's right at 225mg for initial dose, for my wife that's 100lbs that's only 135mg. For a first timer, I recommend staying closer to 1.5mg/kg, as you will likely be more sensitive to the drug and not need as much.

This is exactly why I prefer crystals because it's impossible to fine tune doses with presses that can vary as much as /- 80mg in a single batch of pills.

What about re-dosing?

Once you have your initial dose fine tunes, it's important to keep the redone at 50% of initial after 90-120 minutes, if it's bigger or sooner, you'll effectively be taking a higher initial dose and it will make the effects more intense. Building on that, if you're at the 90-120 minute mark and you're not where you want to be with intensity or not fulling rolling, unless you increase the size of the redone to more than 50% of initial up to 100% of initial, you're just going to main that same level of intensity. For a beginner you probably won't even need a re-dose, but if you're worried that you won't get a full-on roll, bring an extra dose equal to your initial dose and don't take it until the 2 hour mark. If you're close to peaking but starting to feel it die down in intensity, this will get you over the hump instead of keeping you at a plateau.

Sometime else to consider, hugging and sharing love with people during your come up will 100% make the roll that much stronger. The more oxytocin you release, the love hormone, the stronger the roll gets based on its mechanism. Before you re-dose or take more, try releasing more oxytocin to see if it gets you there.

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TLDR; The optimal dose is most certainly NOT 100mg, and the DIMS chart is also grossly out of date and not applicable to todays drug supply or pure MDMA crystals. Do your own research, but for a true rolling experience where you will potentially have a rough come up, but maximized euphoria, the dose is somewhere around 2.5 mg/kg.

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Bonus section: Supplements

I’ve rolled a ton with and without the supplements. Rolled a total of 10 times over the past 7 months with and without supps at different doses (before/during/after roll) and breaks between rolls. Thought I was losing the magic but my last roll was like the first one again with no supps. The only one I took leading up to was 5htp including with my roll. Had one of my smallest doses and rolled by face off.

Preloading and taking anything else during your roll 100% BLUNTS the roll. Anything that is neuroprotective by design blocks the actual mechanism of the drug. This is shown in multiple studies where they measure the effectiveness of these supplements such as NAC by looking at decreased locomotion in rats and mice administered MDMA at uber high doses upwards of 20mg/kg.

There are no human studies on how and if MDMA damages human brains. The only studies are on rats and monkeys at super high doses (5-10x normal high doses for humans), and multiple times a day multiple days in a row. The actual damage is from dopamine binding to serotonin receptors because serotonin was depleted too much, and that only occurs in those extreme cases. Even once a week doesn’t deplete your serotonin that much

My advice is keep your first dose around 2.5mg/kg, only redeose at most 1.25mg/kg or half the initial. We still don’t know the actual mechanism of damage in humans, and oxidative stress has been ruled out in mice. In the P19 neurons, however, the antioxidants N-acetyl-L-cysteine and ( )- α-tocopherol did not decrease the toxic effects of MDMA suggesting that oxidative stress was not the main cytotoxicity cause under the conditions used. At this point, neurotoxicity and comedown is only directly shown to impacted by dose, body temperature, dehydration (mostly electrolyte loss), and poly drug use.

Don’t take NAC or green tea or anything else until you are for sure going to sleep, they will end any residual effects right then and there.

If your goal is to prevent neurotoxicity completely, you’re better off not taking anything because most recent studies show it’s the amount of seratonin released that causes the most receptor damage, aka how hard you roll, not oxidative stress.

Wait you took 5htp WITH your roll? Isn't that bad?

Not in my experience and not according to research. Extra cellular concentration of 5-ht does not lead to serotonin syndrome,, only increased receptor sensitivity. 5-htp is a precursor to 5-hp that has a rate limiting step for production.

Rolling itself on MDMA is mild serotonin syndrome (MDMA causes serotonin (5-HT) syndrome immediately after administration), with the severity depending on your dose and what other drugs you’re taking at the same time. 5-htp itself just gives your body enough building blocks to make serotonin and prevent you from being too depleted, but it’s impossible for your body to create enough extra serotonin to increase the roll intensity. There have been no recorded cases of severe serotonin syndrome from 5-htp.

What about Vitamin C? Will that blunt my roll too?

Yeah potentially, one of the studies I read found Ascorbic acid also attenuated the MDMA-induced depletion of striatal 5-HT content. In rats treated with a neurotoxic regimen of MDMA, the ability of a subsequent injection of MDMA to increase the extracellular concentration of 5-HT in the striatum, elicit the 5-HT behavioral syndrome, and produce hyperthermia was markedly reduced compared to the responses in control rats..

Translation: it provided some protection from free radicals but prevented more seratonin from being dumped in the brain. A stronger roll will release more more serotonin, and what they call here the “5-HT behavioral syndrome”, which is what we call rolling. Of they found that it reduced hyperthermia, that also means the roll was blunted. I haven’t tested the personal effects of just vitamin C before/during my roll, but it was a part of my entire stack which did blunt my rolls in intensity and overall duration substantially.