Ecstasy tablets contain MDMA, although they usually have a mix of other ingredients too. Pure MDMA remains rare in New Zealand.

Kiwis are paying up to four times what Brits and Americans pay for MDMA or Ecstasy - and they're probably not even getting the real thing.

New data from the Global Drug Survey (GDS) released on Tuesday showed MDMA, also known as Molly, Eckies, and Ecstasy, had a growing base of users in New Zealand, with 13 percent of respondents claiming to have used it in the last year, up from 10 percent in 2015.

About 7000 New Zealanders took part in the survey, which was self-selecting.

New Zealand MDMA use is still far behind the global average in the survey of 30.5 percent. It's likely its high price and low quality contributed to this.

READ MORE:

*Drugs tested covertly at a NZ festival: 57 per cent not what partygoers expected

*ED doctor: John Key needs to do his homework on MDMA​

*Wellington man imported 7.3kg of drug dubbed "bath salts", worth up to $1.4m

When sold as a powder, MDMA's average per gram price in New Zealand is reported at around $308, the highest in the world, and over four times more expensive than the global average price of $71.74, the GDS showed.

Kiwis also reported the quality of MDMA was going down, and that its "value for money" was low.

The only other country which came close to such prices was Australia, where the survey showed the price per gram was just below $250. In 16 of the 20 countries surveyed, the price was below $100.

"My guess is that MDMA is more expensive because most MDMA is domestically produced in Australia or New Zealand; just like almost everything else is more expensive here than in Europe or the US, due to small populations and a small market," economist Luke Chu said.

Supplied "MDMA is of a lower risk than flacca and bath salts and all these other new ones that are out there."

"Since it is illegal, there is no international trade to bring foreign competition to lower the price."

Despite the price disparity, experts suspect most of the "MDMA" is in fact some other cheaper-to-produce drug, such as methalone, methadrone, or alpha-PVP. These drugs are generally known to bring on a rougher high than MDMA, with a "speedy" rather than euphoric effect.

"On a self-reported survey it's very likely that many respondents will have indicated that they have taken MDMA when they were almost certainly using something else," Keith Bedford, the general manager of ESR said. ESR analyse drugs seized at the border and in stings.

"Actual MDMA is comparatively rare," Bedford said.

Director of the NZ Drug Foundation Ross Bell said he did not think people actually knew what they were taking.

"I don't believe anyone in NZ knows what the state of MDMA is."

A new generation of psychoactive substances gained prominence soon after a global MDMA shortage in the late 2000s, which was brought on by greater regulation of a rare tree which produces a chemical critical for its manufacture. Some of these substances were temporarily legal in New Zealand under the psychoactive drugs regime.

Despite the prevalence of other powdered drugs, Kiwis were among the least likely in the world to report they had used "mystery white powder" in the GDS, with only two percent of respondents indicating use in the last year. This category was set up specifically to deal with unclear and new substances.

Bell suspected New Zealanders were reluctant to admit the drugs they had used were in fact not MDMA - even in an anonymous online survey - because they had paid so much for them.

"They don't want to admit that they've been ripped off," Bell said.

DANGEROUS ALTERNATIVES

Yet the other substances being sold as MDMA are likely to be more dangerous.

Wellington emergency doctor Paul Quigley last year called for pure MDMA to be legalised, in order to keep more dangerous substances like alpha-PVP from gaining prominence.

The idea did not appear to gain any immediate traction, but Bell said associate health minister Peter Dunne had not ruled it out.

"MDMA is of a lower risk than flacca and bath salts and all these other new ones that are out there. I thought [Quigley's] argument was sound," Bell said.

GDS respondents indicated that they were in much more danger obtaining MDMA than taking it.

Less than one per cent (0.4) of self-reported MDMA users said they had sought medical help to deal with the effects of the drug, while 4.7 percent reported being "exposed to violence" while buying the drug.

"If you look at what we attempted with the Psychoactive Substances Act, the core argument of that act, which was passed by Parliament, was to regulate the sale of low risk drugs," Bell said.

"The idea would be that people would substitute black market drugs for lower risk legal drugs."

Bedford said that even trusted "brands" of pills could change from one batch to the next.

"We've tested different tablets with the same symbol and the contents have been completely different," Bedford said. "It's a fast moving scene out there."

"You're playing Russian Roulette in buying tablets or capsules sold in an illegal market. Because there really is no quality control on this stuff. You really can have no confidence in what you're buying."

* You can take part in a follow-up mini-GDS survey here.