What is pill testing?

What is Pill Testing?

Pill testing, or adulterant screening, is the use of particular chemical reagents to determine the presence of a particular substance. 

Ecstasy is probably the most adulterated or outright faked drug on the international black market today, and has been for over two decades.  Ecstasy tablets sold on the street are "supposed" to contain MDMA.  Ecstasy was the name coined for the drugby a dealer in LA in 1981.  Until recently, when people bought "Ecstasy" they could reasonably expect the risks and experience of MDMA.   While MDMA has some dangers, the risks from consuming unknown drugs, or an unknown drug in combination with other drugs, are far greater.

Common substances currently sold as ecstasy on the black market are dextromethorphan (DXM), mephedrone, caffeine, methamphetamine, BZP, TFMPP, and other piperazines such as mCPP.  Several of these substances are more dangerous than MDMA in and of themselves.  BZP has been known to cause nausea, headache, overheating, and other problems for unsuspecting users and mephedrone has been known to cause serious blood circulation problems.  DXM is even more dangerous when mixed with MDMA, as your body uses the same enzyme to process them both.  Mixing DXM and MDMA can cause serotonin syndrome, overheating and/or electrolyte imbalance that can be deadly.  As law enforcement cracks down on MDMA precursors on the international market, more and more clandestine manufacturers and drug smuggling syndicates are turning to other, easier to obtain substances to sell as ecstasy to unsuspecting consumers.

DanceSafe provides adulterant screening kits to help users identify the substances that might be present in a pill or powder before they ingest it, preventing acute emergencies due to potentially more dangerous drugs.  DanceSafe uses a portion of the proceeds from the sale of such adulterant screening kits to help fund the EcstasyData lab testing project, which is the only operation in the Western Hemisphere that uses professional forensic lab equipment to analyze drug samples and posts the information on the internet for all to see.  It is our hope that services like ours, EcstasyData, and the sharing of reports on pillreports.com (by the Australian harm reduction group Enlighten) will provide some quality control on the international ecstasy market and help keep fake and adulterated pills from taking over the market as they have in the UK and parts of Europe.