Have you seen Molly? That seems to be the popular question with college students recently. This Molly isn’t just any normal party girl. Molly is the street name for methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), the active ingredient in ecstasy. It is said to be the purest form of the MDMA molecule because it is not laced with any other drug the way the pill form of Ecstasy usually is.
This drug is growing more popular in the college scene. Pax Prentiss, The CEO of Passages, a clinic that helps addicts, says that Molly users tend to be around ages 16 to 24. Within the past two months, three college students overdosed on the drug at musical festivals and died. According to a Monitoring the Future report, 5.8 percent of college students reported using ecstasy in 2012, an increase of 1.6 percent from the previous year.
MDMA has been around since the early 20th century. It didn’t become popular as a recreational drug until the 80s and early 90s, when it started to show up in the European rave community in the form of Ecstasy. Ecstasy comes in pill form, but Molly is a powder or crystal. The users of this drug claim they take it to increase their senses and pleasure. Molly is stimulant and psychedelic, meaning that it alters cognition and perception while accelerating physical activity. According to the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration, the drug overflows the user’s brain with neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, making them feel overjoyed and full of energy.
Katherine Reilly, a senior exercise and sport science major said, “I’ve seen people on Molly and they look very happy, dancing around like crazy.”
Long-term users of Molly have tried to voice their concerns to the younger generation by discussing its long-term effects, one of which is lowering serotonin, making it nearly impossible to feel genuine emotions. This is because the drug speeds up heart rates and cause dehydration. Factor that in with large crowds at concerts and the body heat that’s produced from them, and, essentially, you have concertgoers that can’t regulate their body temperature, causing health problems like seizures.
With the growing reputation of the drug at musical events, musicians are starting to reference the drug more often in their songs and performances.
Molly is being glorified by artists such as Rihanna, Rick Ross and many other rap artists. In her song “We Can’t Stop,” Miley Cyrus sings about “dancing with Molly.” Even Madonna was heard speaking about Molly when she was at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami last year. While on stage, she asked the crowd “if anyone had seen Molly”, which sent the audience into an uproar. She has since clarified her statement, saying she was referring to a song with the same name. On Sept. 1, the New York City Mayor’s Office cancelled the third day of the music festival Electric Zoo, after two people died and four others were hospitalized as a result of Molly.
In early September, extra security measures were implemented at Boston Calling, an electric dance music festival. More police were on patrol to spot people in danger of overdosing on the drug.
Though Reilly hasn’t heard of the recent Molly-related deaths, she said, “Maybe NSU should hire a speaker to come in and talk about its use or leave fliers with facts on tables in the University Center.”
However, Tim Coyle, field operations supervisor for public safety, doesn’t think it’s a problem at NSU.
“In the past year, it has actually been pretty stagnant; we haven’t had many issues with drug use at all,” he said. “But we have a zero-tolerance policy in regards to drug use and that includes any type of consumption, possession, or distribution.”
In colleges across the nation, faculty and administration are concerned about their students’ health and are taking action. This is especially true in the northeast, after the deaths of students from the University of New Hampshire, Syracuse University and Plymouth State University. Boston College is handing out information about the drug to its nearly 30,000 students. Plymouth State College has implemented a form for students to fill out if they are concerned about another student.
NSU Public Safety is taking proactive measures, even though no Molly-related incidents have been reported to the office yet.
Coyle said, “We meet with a lot of RA staff, and we even go door to door, we just had an event in regards to house calls, which is an event where we teamed up with Res Life. We actually went door to door and provided students with materials in regards to what services we provided and different points of contact if they have any issues on campus.”
