Ecstasy, along with its dance music soundtrack, is enjoying a resurgence with a new generation of clubbers. Are they responding to the crackdown on legal highs or the fact that the quality of the drug is better than ever?

Twinkly eyes and dilated pupils aren’t difficult to find on a night out. It’s 2am on Saturday morning and in the smoking area of a south London club groups of young people cluster in an alleyway, while muffled house music thuds in the background. Speaking to one group, students in their early 20s, it doesn’t take much prompting for the conversation to slip into the subject of drugs.

“When you’re on a night out it’s what you do,” says Ed. “I first tried ecstasy when I was 16, but it was really at uni when it became more usual.”

“I didn’t take it until I came to uni,” his friend Sarah adds. “Compared to alcohol you feel a lot more in control. People who have never done it might think it’s a big deal, but it’s not any different from getting smashed on drink – except everyone’s a lot nicer. And a lot less gropey …”

Ed nods in agreement: “I don’t see it as a big deal at all.” They disappear into a room full of hundreds of others like them. And if the latest Home Office statistics are anything to go by, countless more across the country are sharing a similar experience. For two years there has been a resurgence in ecstasy use among young people; in the past 12 months it is estimated that more than one in 20 16-to-24-year-olds tried the drug, a 37% increase on the year before, or 95,000 more people. Consumption of other drugs, including cocaine and LSD, has also gone up in this age group, but it is ecstasy that has seen the most significant increase. After years of decline, the drug is back to its highest level in over a decade.

'About half my friends take drugs,' says one clubber. 'It’s not a lifestyle, it’s just a temporary thing,' says another'

No one, from clubbers to researchers, seems surprised to hear this. The clubbers in south London are blase about the news: “Around half of my friends take drugs,” shrugs one. “It’s not a lifestyle, it’s just a temporary thing,” says another.

Of course, a drug like ecstasy will always be linked with dance music – for many, it exploded into the public consciousness with the the second summer of love and the birth of UK rave culture in the late 80s and early 90s. For Seb Wheeler, digital editor at Mixmag, the explosion in dance music over the past three years has played a big role in the spike in ecstasy consumption. Acts like Disclosure – aged 18 and 21 at the time of their first hit, Latch, in 2012 – helped create a sound that has gone on to dominate the charts, introducing a new generation of young people to the electronic music scene.

“When Disclosure started getting big the people going to see them were predominantly young – 18-year-olds really – first-year students who are all getting drawn into clubs by their music,” he says. “And you’ve got this perfect storm of people going out for the first time and being able to get really good pills. They go and do half a UPS [drugs shaped in the logo of the delivery firm] and they’re like: Mind. Blown. And they’ll keep doing it.”

This renewed affinity for ecstasy is being felt across youth culture. “I don’t know if you could call it a new summer of love,” says Wheeler. “But there’s a lot of people getting high, weekend-in-weekend-out, going to nightclubs, festivals and free parties, enjoying rave culture and having a really good time with their friends.”

‘You’ve got this perfect storm of people going out for the first time and being able to get really good pills.’ Photograph: Alamy

London-based dealer Dave has been capitalising on this for six years, selling MDMA (the active ingredient in ecstasy, sold in powder form) to a client list that mainly consists of “creative types” in their 20s and 30s. He can make up to £700 on a good weekend. “Maybe there’s a new wave of people, a new wave of raving … that’s a younger thing,” he says. “But England and young people have just loved pills and MD for a long time. The laws relaxed, we got all these late licence clubs and the war on drugs has never really worked.”

One person who has been closely monitoring the ebb and flow of drug use in the UK is Fiona Measham, professor of criminology at Durham University, who has been conducting studies since the early days of rave. “In terms of ecstasy use, it’s going back to the sort of levels of the 1990s and early 2000s,” she says. “There was a fall around 2008-9 because purity went down, and users responded by taking other things like legal highs. Now we’re back to a situation where there’s actually ecstasy in ecstasy again and people are very happy with it.”

Measham’s charity, The Loop, conducts tests on drugs as well as offering advice and support at clubs and festivals. They have been present at Manchester’s Warehouse Project since October 2013 and have more recently partnered Fabric in London. Both venues have seen clubbers overdose in recent years; in 2013, 30-year-old Nick Bonnie died at the Warehouse Project, while Fabric nearly faced closure in December after several drug-related deaths. This partnership ties into concerted efforts from both parties to prevent further tragedy – drug testing services in clubs, as well as a rapid alert system to let users know when a dangerous drug is on the market, could save lives.

The average ecstasy tablet contains 100mg of MDMA – five times more than in 2009. The UPS pill can contain 278mg

One thing Measham has learned from testing drugs, however, is that the average ecstasy tablet contains 100mg of MDMA – five times more than in 2009. The UPS pill has been found to contain 278mg – a reasonable dose is considered to be around 75mg.

One reason purity levels have increased is due to a renewed ease of manufacture. The tightly controlled chemicals needed to produce MDMA are PMK or safrole oil. Tons of PMK found in Asia was destroyed in raids in 2009 – another factor in the dip in quality at that time. Now chemists in the Netherlands, where most of the ecstasy consumed in the UK is produced, have found a way to synthesise MDMA from a more readily available analog called PMK glycidate. And with manufacturers seemingly competing to make a more impressive product, pills are coming on to the market containing triple the amount of MDMA of those consumed during the so called “golden years” in the late 80s.

But the culture of drug taking among young people now is different to the original ravers. One of the biggest differences is a willingness to mix different types of illegal drugs. Alcohol is now commonly in the mix. The Home Office report shows polysubstance use has risen from 7% to 9% in the past five years. “I remember going to jungle clubs in the Midlands and anyone who went for the music drank Coke or Ribena,” says Measham, who points out that even the superclub Ministry of Sound had no alcohol licence until 1996, five years after opening. “If people drank beer, you thought they were undercover police trying to fit in.”

One reason for this change is the advent of powder drugs – there are many more powders in circulation and there is more openness to experimentation. Another is price – drugs are currently far cheaper, making them more accessible for younger age groups as well as more amenable for sharing. Even cocaine is now sold in two tiers – £100 for a high-quality gram, £50 for a less pure one – making it available to a wider range of consumers. “Before, a pill was at least £15; people would buy one pill for themselves for the night out,” says Measham. “I remember people at the Hacienda who would take a quarter of a pill and wouldn’t drink, as opposed to: “Give me anything! Give me drugs!”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A drug like ecstasy will always be linked with dance music ... the Haçienda in 1989. Photograph: PYMCA/Rex Shutterstock

Measham has encountered this looser attitude to drugs through her research, such as the guy she recalls wandering around a festival, shouting: “I need stimulant drugs”. Or the young man who snorted a line of powder he found on the floor, which turned out to be ketamine. “He spent the whole Saturday in our welfare tent, with one of our cardboard sick bowls on his head as a hat, sitting in the corner with bubblewrap round him.

“In our interviews we ask people: have you had an unknown powder or pill? And depending on which club or festival you’re at, a significant proportion have. I do research in Vauxhall gay clubs once a year and pretty much everyone says ‘yes’ there. If someone is giving you a line in the toilet, you’d be like, ‘Yeah, why not?’”

One drug that is introducing a new generation into the world of powder drugs is mephedrone (dubbed “miaow miaow” by the tabloids). The research chemical and first (and only) legal high to really break mainstream, it dominated UK media reports between 2008-10, filling the vacuum left in the absence of good quality ecstasy. For Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drugs Survey, the world’s biggest survey of its kind, this is another factor behind the surge in young people consuming drugs. “It would have altered the trajectory of some people’s drug-using careers,” he says. “People who were 17, 18, 19 back in 2009 were one of the few generations that would have had access to a good-quality, cheap stimulant.

“For people who previously maybe wouldn’t have used that kind of drug till their early 20s, the appearance of mephedrone allowed a particular generation to initiate earlier.”

'Drugs are a capitalist commodity; people have a finite amount of money and they make choices based on quality and risk'

Mephedrone was outlawed in 2010, making it harder to buy, but it was the revival of higher-purity MDMA – as well as cocaine, which has also been rising in quality over the past four years – which has led to the drug falling back out of favour. “In terms of bang-for-buck and desired effects, I don’t think there’s a single research chemical out there that competes with MDMA,” says Winstock. “Drugs are a capitalist commodity; people have a finite amount of money to get off their faces and they make choices based on availability, quality and risk. And I think they make the right choice.”

According to Winstock, you are far more likely to need emergency medical treatment using synthetic cannabis or research chemicals than you are MDMA, or even cocaine or cannabis. Still, the survey also showed the number of users worldwide seeking emergency treatment on MDMA tripled between 2013-15. This matches the experience of researchers like Measham, who have found the prevalence of high-purity MDMA and pills can still be dangerous. In 2008, people could drop five pills in a night without any problems. Now one pill can send you flying. It is the lag in communicating this to those who take them that is leading to an increase in hospitalisations.

“A message I’m very keen to get across is that purity levels have increased,” Measham says. “The police and public health don’t like to say it because they think it sounds like an endorsement. But then the information doesn’t get out and we have the casualties that we see, particularly of inexperienced users.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A survey showed the number of users worldwide seeking emergency treatment on MDMA tripled between 2013 and 2015. Photograph: Science Photo Library

She’s also keen to challenge the view among ecstasy users that you don’t die from ecstasy, but from the adulterants: “People have been dying from taking way too much MDMA,” she says. “I’ve been doing research for 25 years now and I never expected to be in this situation of ‘mother Measham’ saying: ‘Be careful, don’t take too much ecstasy!’ But it’s just the reality of what we see on the ground; it’s so cheap and so available.”

In the early 90s, the UK – and Manchester particularly – was leading the way in communicating ideas of harm reduction into the dance-drug scenes, with the likes of Russell Newcombe’s “Safer Dancing” campaign. “Now all the funding and services have fallen away,” says Measham. “The new generation have to relearn everything.”

Charities like The Loop and Chill Welfare – the latter founded this year and offering “tea and empathy” at festivals – are vital to filling that gap at a time when more people than ever need clear, unbiased information about recreational drugs. Their “crush, dab, wait” campaign, launched this summer, hopes to encourage powder MDMA users to dose more patiently, taking a dab at a time and waiting for the effects to kick in.

But while the style of consumption and strength of drugs has altered, perhaps the most modern aspect of drug culture in 2015 is the presence of the dark web. Silk Road – the best known of the digital black markets – may be long gone, but more than 40 sites are online in its place, providing relatively straightforward access for anyone with an internet connection to have drugs delivered to their door.

“Among the biggest users of dark web are between 18 to late-20s,” says Mike Power, author of Drugs 2.0: The Web Revolution That’s Changing How the World Gets High. “We’ve got a generation who get everything off the internet – why not drugs?”

'The huge increase in access to these drugs has not been matched by a corresponding public health campaign'

For Power, the dark net markets create the biggest challenge to prohibition and law and order in living memory: something yet to be adequately acknowledged. “The huge increase in access to these drugs has not been matched by a corresponding public health campaign,” he says. “We’re failing these young people as a society by not giving them informed, credible and authoritative information.”

The widespread availability of drugs on the internet, as well as in every facet of society, feeds into the disregard for anti-drugs legislation felt both on and offline. “There’s something incredibly radical about this vast, distributed criminality,” says Power. “It’s like when millions of kids were downloading songs on Napster – how do you legislate when everyone’s breaking the law?”

In terms of cultural significance, it’s too early to say whether this resurgence is a blip in the data, or the beginning of a societal shift. If so, it’s hard to imagine any change in government policy, which continues to take an adverserial approach. For the moment, however, thousands of young people are in the midst of a new drugs landscape, and though it comes with risks, many appear to be negotiating it fairly sensibly and with confidence.

Indeed, back in the club, it’s getting a little too easy to find people who think recreational drug use is fine. “We probably take drugs once a week – MD, coke, LSD,” says Tara, 24. “I never had any issue with it, then took it at 18 and thought, why would you not? It makes you feel on top of the world.”

Names have been changed