Clandestine Manufacture of MDMA

A correspondent recently expressed some confusion over the source of recreationally abused MDMA (“Ecstasy”; 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) because of an awareness that it typically is obtained and used as tablets. This person was under the impression that perhaps street Ecstasy was a diversion of a licit product (see ketamine). Not so.
A recent Daily Telegraph report from New South Wales in Australia supplies an excellent example.

HUNDREDS of thousands of ecstasy tablets destined for the Christmas party market have been seized by police after a $12 million drug kitchen was uncovered in a suburban house.

mmm. Doesn’t this operation look sanitary? The report indicates a kilo of powder was found in the vacuum cleaner. Wonder if that went right back into the pill press….yuck. Wait, wait, where’s my idea book…“do rat feces enhance the subjective effects of oral MDMA in a dose dependent manner?”. Hmm, the ol’ IRB might have a little problem with this one…