From my experience in the 90s rave scene the most common adulterants were DXM and speed since they're cheap and press more easily than meth. Acid was the drug of choice when I started going to parties in 94 but then ecstasy overtook it by a long shot and acid pretty much dried up.
I think RCs as adulterants like 2cb or similar phenethylamines started to creep into the scene in the early 2000s. Then cat was _huge_ mid 2000s until it and the other RCs started to get prohibited.
This is just what I picked up from people I knew doing these things btw. I was there for the music and girls.
This sort of subject matter is absolutely fascinating to me. The intersection of pharmacology, law, society and culture and the actual evolution and changes they all go through.
I feel like you could tie phases of electronic music to the drugs people were taking at the time.
I'm not suggesting lacing mdma with dxm would be out of the question, and maybe it was more common in the 90s, but it's my understanding that the biggest adulterant of mdma (besides meth) in 2000-2013 was methylone, which could be ordered online until recently, and is known for having a relatively similar profile to mdma, with relatively few side effects and a low risk profile (to the best of our current knowledge)
In the early 2000s I don't think it would have been methylone. MDEA was a big one that was similar (although not legal, was less scheduled and / or was semi legal at some point so there were big stockpiles of it. This was for the UK
Your body metabolizes MDMA into MDA, though. And MDA is actually just the amphetamine analog to MDMA. Just thought that's important to mention, despite it not changing the fact that putting mda into mdma is still "lacing".
This is misleading - a bit like saying "ethanol is metabolized to acetaldehyde". Technically true, but you can't just take acetaldehyde and expect the same effect as alcohol. Alcohol itself is bioactive. You also don't want to injest acetaldehyde directly since you don't want high concentrations of it in your blood (its quite a bit more toxic than alcohol).
MDMA is itself bioactive/psychoactive, and MDA is more neurotoxic.
Fair point and good analogy. While I can't comment on the neurotoxicity, I will definitely say MDA itself has a more LSD like effect than MDMA does and contributes significantly to differing effects.
But yes, MDMA anecdotally is much safer than anything else.