‘I’ve got some really nice MDMA. Really, really nice,’ he added in a gravelly, slightly sinister undertone. Unusual, this. It’s not often these days that Trev gives a ringing endorsement like that. Normally, he’s scathing about drugs. Not about the morality or the dangers but about the poor quality. He’s like our local consumer watchdog. Don’t get him started about the local coke, for example. It’s all rubbish, he says. Ask him does he know anybody that’s got any coke and Trev laughs at you. Offer him some and he’s dismissive.
So for Trev to mention that there’s a drug doing the rounds that is ‘really nice’ is really surprising. It isn’t a phrase you expect to hear Trevor use in any context, let alone this one. It sounded to me as if he’d gone a bit soft in the head.
‘MDMA? What’s that? I’ve heard of it,’ I said. ‘It makes you all loved up,’ he explained. ‘It’s really nice. It’s £30. I’ll get some for Friday if you’re coming out.’
After I’d put the phone down, I googled MDMA. I had a vague idea it was similar to Ecstasy. It turned out to be the same thing, only in a crystalline form. MDMA enters the neurons via the monoamine transporters and releases serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. Reported subjective effects are euphoria; heightened libido; a strong sense of inner peace and self-acceptance; feelings of empathy, compassion, forgiveness and love; improved self-confidence. Before it was banned in the US, psychotherapists gave MDMA to their patients as an aid to self-contemplation. Just the ticket, then, for a pint and a game of pool up the Crossed Keys on a Friday night.
The only possible downside to my taking it, as far as I could see, would be sudden death.
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