We are a very large producer (the largest?) and the stuff is not harmful enough to warrant the prohibition and all of the crime it entails.
Americans can talk about how harmful fake MDMA is and how you can manage risk better if it's legal. But anyone living in Europe, where there's loads of high quality stuff selling for a few euros per dose, and socialising with other users can easily see the harm it does.
It doesn't really matter how bad it is for you since, at the moment, nothing is stopping you from buying and swallowing as much as you can. The ones who will do harm with it when legalized are the same ones who do it now. The legality of it does not do anything to stop harm from being done.
What I do see is MDMA being more and more accepted as a therapeutic tool, given further studies will confirm what the research has told us until now.
“Some people taking MDMA have died following severe overheating and other medical emergencies. Deaths following the use of MDMA usually involve high doses and/or the simultaneous use of other substances. MDMA overdoses and drug combinations can also cause serotonin syndrome, which can be fatal. MDMA-associated deaths may alternatively involve overcompensation of the risk of dehydration by drinking much too much water, which coupled with the fact that MDMA may stop a person from urinating, causing fatally low concentrations of salt.”
Source: https://drugscience.org.uk/drug-information/mdma/
This website contains a lot of information and is well sourced. All in all, compared to other drugs MDMA is quite safe when taken properly and in proper doses. A lot of deaths come from what people think is MDMA but actually isn’t.
“Our findings suggest that even a first low cumulative dose of Ecstasy is associated with decline in verbal memory. Although the performance of the group of incident Ecstasy users is still within the normal range and the immediate clinical relevance of the observed deficits is limited, long-term negative consequences cannot be excluded.“
I’m curious to see if there are, or have been any studies in the long term effects?