Despite sounding more like someone's friendly, bubbly Aunt, a Molly is MDMA (methylendioxymethamphetamine) in its purest form-it is the active ingredient in the popular party drug ecstasy, but has since been made available to partygoers as a cheaper, friendlier alternative to E. it had first been synthesized in 1912, and the drug's anxiety-alleviating elements was used as a means for psychotherapy patients to reveal their deepest fears in the 1970's, eventually moving from clinics to European dance floors, an onto the rest of the world, becoming an instant hit.

From a technical standpoint, MDMA binds to serotonin transporters, thereby altering the brain's neurochemistry, resulting in the "party high," with its temporarily heightened perceptions, elevation of mood and extended bursts of energy. In induces euphoria and energy in the user, increasing feelings of empathy and intimacy. Molly users report feeling "very turned on...very happy with the world" under Molly.

However, the adverse effects of Molly has recently taken the spotlight for causing two deaths, and hospitalizing several more partygoers of the Electric Zoo Music Festival, held last week in New York. Molly is also linked for another death at a concert in the House of Blues in Boston, last August.

The name Molly is popularly known to have been derived from "molecule," but has been said to have been a fairly recent rebranding effort, emerging in 2008, and glamorized in several pop songs, from the likes of Kanye West and Miley Cyrus among others.

"Russian Roulette" is what medical officers and drug enforcement officials would rather be calling this designer drug; despite its being marketed as purer form than Ecstasy, which is known to contain several other dangerous drugs like LSD and Cocaine, Molly's ingredients continue to be added to and tampered with, sometimes even completely replaced with simple bath salts, and causing toxic and oftentimes fatal reactions in many users. These synthetic stimulants are said to cause dangerous psychoactive effects such as delusion, panic attacks, suicidal thoughts, seizures-and those are just the short term effects.

Much of the danger stems from its innocuous, ne'er-do-harm name. The comedy film Take me to the Greek features a dangerous cocktail drug harmlessly named Jeffrey, which eventually causes the characters to run amok and burn the VIP room to the ground.