At the risk of sounding like a D.A.R.E officer, it's common knowledge that taking molly is a little like playing Russian roulette with your system. Perhaps because it's marketed as the luxury brand of chemicals, it's almost considered gauche to ask what's in it. Or, on the other hand, maybe it's so commonplace that displaying any degree of caution is considered lame. In that sense, it's like inquiring if the eggs you're ordering from a greasy spoon are free-range, organic, or cage-free -- the expectation is to just shut up and take what you're given.
See also: The Miami Herald Attempts to Explain "Molly" to Old People
In March, the Miami Herald ran a 1,200-word "exposé" about molly that left much to be desired. The article touched on the popular drug's unpredictable quality, but its authors only used reports from the Miami Police Department to bolster their argument. It was also a vaguely alarmist primer for this year's Ultra Music Festival aimed at old people who might not have known the city would be overrun that weekend with teenagers tripping on illicit substances. Luckily, Miami New Times contributors Frank Owen and Lera Gavin actually did the dirty work for a feature in this month's issue of Playboy.
In "Chasing Molly," the pair ran through the history of MDMA from its invention in 1912, its distribution as a social experiment by some university-tenured brainiacs in the '80s and '90s, to today, when it's a popular music trope. But more important, they took the time to actually test the drug. What they found in street samples purchased from reputable Miami Beach dealers wasn't surprising, although it was sort of alarming to read in print. (Hint: lots of meth, cocaine and bath salts; very little MDMA.)
The two conclude:
The molly phenomenon is also a marketing gimmick -- drug dealers rebranding a product that had gotten a bad reputation because it was so heavily cut with other substances. According to the hype, molly is for the cool kids, the discerning consumers who don't mind paying a premium to ensure quality, whereas ecstasy pills are for "e-tards," the dance-floor proletariat who turned MDMA from a hippie tool for inner exploration into another excuse to get trashed on a Saturday night.
They also note Miami's molly seems particularly impure. According to the DEA, the molly that Miami officers seized in 2013 contained "43 different substances, 19 of them so obscure even government chemists couldn't identify them."
So remember when cigarette companies renamed their products to use colors instead of adjectives like "light"? It's kind of like that. Or, possibly, molly was invented by the hip-hop illuminati to sell Miley Cyrus records. Either way, the moral of the story is to probably err on the side of caution and buy an over-the-counter testing kit. Kind of expensive, but so are tickets to Ultra, you know?
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