NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/drugs/21271

Text File | 1993-01-23 | 3.4 KB | 76 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Malcolm Gillies)
Subject: Re: impurities in mdma
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Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 04:40:37 GMT
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[e-mail] (Bill Eichman) writes:

>[e-mail] (Malcolm Gillies) writes:

>>
>> Safrole and isosafrole, which are common precursons for MDA and MDMA,
>> polymerise very easily, forming brown tarry crud. This is quite strongly
>> coloured, and even a small amount will stain an otherwise reasonable looking
>> product. Not to mention glassware, hands etc etc.
>>
>> Malcolm

>How does it get into the final product? Attempting to answer my own
>question, I've read enough to gather that these illegal chemicals are
>vacuum distilled at several points to produce a 'pure' product. Perhaps
>the black market chemists are using some other proceedure?

Vacuum distillation is a pain, but can be useful to purify an
intermediate. I doubt that many illicit syntheses would use such
a technique, especially on the final product since there are
simpler ways. The first stage is an acid-base amine
extraction which isolates the crude product from a reaction
mixture. This will generally contain small amounts of synthetic
by-products, including those which will colour the product.
Generally, this product (which would be an oil in the case
of MDMA) would then be converted to a salt, and precipitated
as crystals from an organic solvent. This would still contain
small amounts of impurites, trapped in the crystals, but is
probably as far as most illicit chemists would go.
Coloured impurities may often be removed effectively by boiling a
crude product in a solvent with activated charcoal.
Further purification could be obtained at the cost of a loss
of yield by recrystalisation (one dissolves the product in
hot solvent, then allows it to cool, forming quite pure
crystals) or in an extreme case by chromatography.

>How carcinogenic, or otherwise dangerous, is the 'brown tarry crud'? Is
>it fairly easily filtered out of the body by the kidneys and liver? Once
>polymerized, does the safrole retain is carcinogenic status?

The short answer is nobody knows. But consider that you eat such
compounds frequently - e.g. in burnt toast or BBQ'd steak.
Polyaromatic hydrocarbons do pose a significant risk to
coal workers, for example. Personally, I'd be more worried
about being near cigarette smoke.

>How carcinogenic is that benzene ring, anyway? (this is a side question)

Carcinogenicity is a very complex topic. For example, successive
methylation of benzene decreases its carcinogenicity. It is not the
benzene ring which may be considered carcinogenic, it is the
entire molecule. The carcinogenicity of safrole was established
(at great expense) because it was a food additive. Very few
compounds go through such a procedure unless there is a good
reason. It is impossible to extrapolate the data on safrole
to MDMA or the kinds of impurities which may contaminate it.

>Thanks to everyone for the many answers to my question.

>Later, Bill

Jeremy
[e-mail]