Ecstasy 3, 4-methylenedioxyamphetamine

Methamphetamine often serves as the parent compound for synthesis of new designer drugs (Bost 1988 Buchanan and Brown 1988). Currently, one of the more popular designer drugs is MDMA, also known as ecstasy. MDMA is the methylated derivative of the amphetamine analog methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), a prototype of the hallucinogenic amphetamine drugs (Bost 1988). MDMA is relatively easy to synthesize... 

ECSTASY" (also known as "XTC" or "E") is the "street" name of one member of a family of amphetamine related drugs which first became popular in the "rave" or modem dance music culture across Europe in the 1980s (Table 1). Its chemical name is 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) closely related drugs include methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA) and methylene-dioxyethylamphetamine (MDEA). The chemical structure of this series of drugs and their relationship to older better known stimulants of abuse, amphetamine and methamphetamine, is shown in Figure 1. 

Henry JA, Jeffreys KJ and DawHng S (1992). Toxicity and deaths from 3, 4-methylenedioxyamphetamine ("Ecstasy"). Lancet 340, 384-387. 

Methylenedioxyamphetamine, or MDA, is a drug closely related to Ecstasy. Merck, a drug company, first created MDA in Germany in 1910. Some people believe it was sold as an appetite suppressant, but many historians consider this a myth. MDMA was produced in 1912. In the years after it was first synthesized, MDMA was largely ignored. That was because of the outbreak of World War I, which forced the pharmaceutical industry to focus on drugs and other chemicals that could aid the war effort. 

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