Interesting on salvia. I haven't done it much. There's something that turns me off from it, including all the negative reports you hear, and I know that the real exploration is in the tryptamines, namely mushrooms and DMT, but I would like to try salvia again.
Re: "MDMA has to be synthesized, and if I understand correctly it's a methamphetamine so you're probably going to end up on a gov't watch list."
Well, as I understand it it's chemically similar to a methamphetamine (hence the name), but it's quite different, and thus a whole new drug category- "empathogen"- was made up to describe it. Certainly, its effect is *completely* different from a traditional methamphetamine.
And regarding production of it- I have a friend familiar with such things (though she doesn't produce it herself!)... first of all, MDMA doesn't have to be synthesized; it can be extracted from sassafrass root, though that's rare. And there are a lot of precursors which can lead a chemist to producing MDMA. Since they're quite numerous and have various other uses than MDMA production they're not watched with really high scrutiny, apparently especially in Europe. That's definitely where a lot of the ecstasy comes from. There are even various cutting-edge techniques for making the stuff; people discuss these subjects on rogue online chat boards. There were a couple famous books on MDMA production that a guy wrote from prison; I'm blanking out on the names, though. Basically, though, the cat is out of the bag on it, and the DEA and its international allies have trouble keeping up. Which is very different from LSD production, which is highly centralized, i.e. rare because the pre-cursors are virtually impossible to get, and if you go anywhere near such compounds you'll get a knock on your door within ten minutes. Which is why a lot of the major acid producers have been insiders.
Anyway, though, the primary reason there are so many impure or altogether phony "ecstasy" pills out there is not a lack of pure MDMA, but just the economics; it's cheaper to load your pills with other crap and people will still feel dramatically altered, and since many have never had pure MDMA they don't know the difference. But again, go to any hippy festival, and the place is loaded with grams of "molly" selling for 80-100 bucks, ounces for 11-14 hundred, all legit. But acid and mushrooms is more rare these rare. Which one might find odd regarding the former, since any jane or joe can legally buy mushroom spores and grow it in a basement. But the economics aren't such that's it's very profitable. Unfortunately. Fuck capitalism. What I'd love to see is some of the socialist-leaning countries leading the way on psychedelic therapy studies. Instead, we have a random assortment of countries where MAPS is having success getting official studies approved- Israel and Jordan are hosting MDMA for PTSD studies; the U.S. finally has some major studies going on, despite resistance from NIDA (the FDA, to its credit, has largely prioritized science over politics); Switzerland has some going. How about a government that allows these studies en masse, that says, "Look, the western establishment was tragically wrong forty years ago in banning psychedelic research, and if we're going to move forward in the right direction as a society and species we better start putting sincere scientific effort into studying these compounds and responsibly integrating them into our society." That's what I'm talking about.
The only good news is this stuff is growing slowly but surely, and MDMA therapy in particular has gotten a lot of positive mainstream press, including the Wash Post and- even biggere- a cover article in Oprah's magazine this year!
http://www.oprah.com/health/PTSD-and-MD ... f-Ecstasy/
