What is wrong with the MDMA available today?

[Kaden_Nite]

I'm mainly curious if the part about "partially split-open methylenedioxy ring systems so you get some methoxy-amphetamine impurities. These tend to make you speedy".[/COLOR]

Doubt it. 3,4-dimethoxy-methamphetamine isn't really a stimulant, and even if it were present, which it probably is not, it wouldn't have any activity in trace amounts.

As for the colour being any kind of guide for which impurities are present or how the MDMA was manufactured, there are too many variables to say brown means this or tan means that.

 

[Kaden_Nite]

methyl mercury

You've mentioned this repeatedly. Any evidence of it showing up in MDMA?

 

[Glubrahnum]

You've mentioned this repeatedly. Any evidence of it showing up in MDMA?

I've detected it only once but not with MDMA. The details are somewhere in this thread

 

[Hilopsilo]

Yes, the chemists would inadvertently synthesize non-racemic MDMA if they received a non racemic precursor such as t-BOC MDMA.

The same would be true if they received non-racemic PMK Glycidate and used a one-step method to synthesize MDMA out of it, without going through the naked PMK step. Such one-step method has not been documented but it was alleged to exist on multiple occasions.

The reason for this is that naked PMK is always racemic (it cannot be chiral), so going through it renders the end product racemic, too.
The classical synth with using Safrole as the primary precursor goes through the naked PMK step, so the end product is racemic.


That is possible when Safrole is converted to MDP2Pol before being converted to MDP2P (PMK) - a common technique.
MDP2Pol can decay to MDP1P upon oxidation in elevated temperatures and MDP1P reductively aminates to e.g. N,β-Me-MDPEA which is a positional isomer of MDMA and very hard to differentiate from the real McCoy.

Some chemists claim that MDP2P degrades to MDP1P when stored for a long time, resulting in the same skewed end product.
The same is claimed for the Glycidates, although it was never confirmed.

The takeaway from this is that with the old Safrole synths nobody was keeping the MDP2Pol or MDMP2P around for a long time before it was converted to MDMA.
The MDP2P (PMK) was used as soon as it was derived from Safrole.

If this were the case, wouldn't MDP1P be detected in the same way MDP2P is often detected?

Also, interesting: https://www.ecstasydata.org/view.php?id=6679

On another note, FWIW was rummaging through my stash and I decided to dump all of the MehDMA left into a single bag so I could get a better smell. And it has that "sassy smell", but it also smells sort of salty or almost fishy. Idk if that means anything at all lol

From some searches:

"if it smells like fish then that's unreacted methylamine and i would steer VERY clear of it, for it to have methylamine smell still then it probably has trace Hg in it too if it was reduced via Al/Hg."

"The fishy smell is most likely from left over methylamine from the synthesis."

 

[Dany657]

Is there a reagent out there that functions similar or like Marquis for identifying acrylamide and or mercury? or at least in a way simple enough that someone without much chemistry knowledge would be able to tell if either of these two poisons are present?

 

[Glubrahnum]

If this were the case, wouldn't MDP1P be detected in the same way MDP2P is often detected?

Yes if it was not subsequently methylated/aminated.

Also, interesting: https://www.ecstasydata.org/view.php?id=6679

N-Methyl-1-phenylpropan-1-amine is unusual in MDMA because it does not have the Methylenedioxy bridge,
I would expect it in a failed Methamphetamine synth.

"if it smells like fish then that's unreacted methylamine and i would steer VERY clear of it, for it to have methylamine smell still then it probably has trace Hg in it too if it was reduced via Al/Hg."

Yes, Methylamine has a fishy odor and it is a methylating / aminating agent.

 

[Glubrahnum]

Is there a reagent out there that functions similar or like Marquis for identifying acrylamide and or mercury? or at least in a way simple enough that someone without much chemistry knowledge would be able to tell if either of these two poisons are present?

I do not know of one for Acrylamide.
There are such reagents for Mercury but I doubt they would react to trace amounts that can still do a lot of damage.

 

[Hilopsilo]

So I think someone mentioned this a couple pages ago, but I really do wonder if whether the MDMA is crushed to a fine powder or not makes a difference. The one unaccounted for variable in my experience, was that the MagicDMA was crushed to a fine powder for everyone that took it, the crappy stuff was in a chunks. For myself, 100mg as the constant dosage of all my rolls, the times I remember the MDMA being on that nirvana level experience it was definitely crushed to a fine powder. Would leaving it in chunks effect how its digested as opposed to a perfectly fine powder that would digest evenly?

I know there is some relation between the serotonin system and the gut, and I was reading something about how salt type effects how its digested and many people were saying different salt types produce different effects and different strength of effects. If the rate of digestion is effected by salt type, then maybe its also effects by how finely ground the MDMA is. Maybe if its in chunks, its digesting slowly/improperly and creating this more gradual and munted high, leaving you in a between place. In fact, just from searching theres plenty of stuff saying that yes, you should crush it to a fine powder as it will have more surface area.

"Its metabolised in a different area of the body then the HCl is. It makes its way deaper into the digestive system before it is neutralized and released. This is the reasoning behind why the Citrate is suppose to be more potent."

"given that the stomach only contains around 5% HCl and the PKA of Citric acid is enough that under those conditions stomach acid will do very little to convert this to the hydrogen chloride salt. This is where the magic lays... it is strong enough to tolerate your digestive system and instead it starts to metabolize it in the small intestines instead..."

Could this also be applied to finely ground versus chunks of HCL? HCL chunks make it further down the digestive track? This would totally make sense with what I experienced with the MehDMA (lots of chunks) because the come-up was waaaaaayyy long and never really "popped off", stuck in this intensely anxious come-up state that just skidded along and never really rolled in the right way (i also got a stomach ache). Whereas the MagicDMA (crushed to a fine powder), it was like I felt nothing, and then in all of 20 minutes I went from 0 to 100 (and my stomach gurgled like CRAZY in the most pleasurable way right at lift off) and it caught me off guard.

this also sort of makes sense considering in the pressed pill days, the MDMA had been crushed to a powder before pressing into a pill, there weren't actual chunks of MDMA in the pressed pills. When crystal MDMA started taking over, "molly", is when a lot of people felt MDMA changed.

On another note, friend of mine acquired two new MDMA samples from different batches that have been submitted to that same lack-luster NMR service. One he had tried himself and said he felt was quite good and close to the MagicDMA, its a very light pink crystal, I've never seen MDMA like this before. The other sample is hilarious (he got it for free for his connection), its literally black and dripping with precursor, you can see droplets in the bag and its just glistening with sticky goo. And MAN does it smell strongly, its certainly MDMA, tests just fine, I don't think I'd take it but interesting nonetheless.

 

[NewTopic]

"Its metabolised in a different area of the body then the HCl is. It makes its way deaper into the digestive system before it is neutralized and released. This is the reasoning behind why the Citrate is suppose to be more potent."

"given that the stomach only contains around 5% HCl and the PKA of Citric acid is enough that under those conditions stomach acid will do very little to convert this to the hydrogen chloride salt. This is where the magic lays... it is strong enough to tolerate your digestive system and instead it starts to metabolize it in the small intestines instead..."

Could this also be applied to finely ground versus chunks of HCL? HCL chunks make it further down the digestive track? This would totally make sense with what I experienced with the MehDMA (lots of chunks) because the come-up was waaaaaayyy long and never really "popped off", stuck in this intensely anxious come-up state that just skidded along and never really rolled in the right way (i also got a stomach ache). Whereas the MagicDMA (crushed to a fine powder), it was like I felt nothing, and then in all of 20 minutes I went from 0 to 100 (and my stomach gurgled like CRAZY in the most pleasurable way right at lift off) and it caught me off guard.

this also sort of makes sense considering in the pressed pill days, the MDMA had been crushed to a powder before pressing into a pill, there weren't actual chunks of MDMA in the pressed pills. When crystal MDMA started taking over, "molly", is when a lot of people felt MDMA changed.

That's not a bad possibility really.
I'll be honest here I used to always take MDMA in caps, for about 7 years until last year when I changed to pills because I thought it hit me harder.

Now what your saying about the acid in the stomach, you could be onto something there and i'll have to read into that a bit more.
What's the citric thing your talking about ? Sorry might have missed this.

I used to think the same, with the crushed vs rocks.
I would always assume that the powder would dissolve quicker and faster.

Since last year with the pills I've been getting sick after MDMA, still not sure what's going on there but the theory behind the hard press pills will make it further into the digestive system, also possible coating on them as well. But what your saying is that, if the acid in the stomach was increased to dissolve the MDMA quickly, when it reached the blood stream it would hit at once, rather then a slow release ?

What about the conversion to MDA ?
Would it be possible that the MDMA is now getting more converted to MDA causing a lack of 'magic' and would taking something stop this converting ?
?

 

[Glubrahnum]

So I think someone mentioned this a couple pages ago, but I really do wonder if whether the MDMA is crushed to a fine powder or not makes a difference

It will make a difference in the serum absorption rate, but not much.

Dissolve it in a glass of an Orange juice and give it to a Guinea pig to see if you can even perceive any difference.

 

[psy997]

Crystal vs crushed is not going to make a difference. I've done both with the same batch multiple times. Gel caps make more of a difference than that.

 

[Hilopsilo]

It will make a difference in the serum absorption rate, but not much.

Dissolve it in a glass of an Orange juice and give it to a Guinea pig to see if you can even perceive any difference.

Crystal vs crushed is not going to make a difference. I've done both with the same batch multiple times. Gel caps make more of a difference than that.

Fair enough, cross that one out, trying to think outside (or inside) the box here. Can cross out different gel cap types too then since the MehDMA and MagicDMA were in the exact same gelcaps lol.

Also, Glub, was talking to someone who also knows their stuff about MDMA/chemistry/drugs and talked about some things that you and others have brought, he had a few rebuttals that I think are valid:

- The substances that you mentioned that can be mistaken for MDMA using underivatised GC/MS is a bit moot since underiviatised is "pretty much a thing of the past" and "modern analysis techniques will easily detect a positional isomer"
- As for a contaminant to be leftover from synthesis messing with the high, while not impossible; "generally speaking, it would be unusual for a synthetic byproduct to appear and have orders-of-magnitude different potency to the main product because generally speaking they are likely to have similar structures"

I can't say anything about the first one as I simply don't know anything about all that, but the second point honestly makes a lot of sense, why would some byproduct of MDMA synthesis, something closely related to it, be active at some incredibly low dose?

 

[psy997]

MehDMA and MagicDMA being in the same gel caps doesn't necessarily rule out gelatin vs whatever the other type is, actually. We have a conflicting report from indigo that the same batch in different types produced different effects, possibly (he couldn't quite remember). So that one's still on the table. It's, to me, obviously not a main culprit. And, it could be a factor in the mehness of already mehDMA.

RE: small amounts of byproducts causing major effects, it's totally possible. Our systems are very sensitive. Weirder things have happened. It would be a major oversight, in my opinion, to rule that out.

 

[G_Chem]

Haven't been through in awhile..

I find it interesting that clear scentless MDMA is so rare but I believe it. Since I've moved I still can find good mdma easily but it's never the clear scentless shards from back home.

Like lately a lot of my "back home" area has had shards that are so well defined they look like teeth. Imagine a crystal that has almost like a tooth root that grows larger up to this rhomboidal crystal top. I had one I'd take a picture of but I crushed it in my pocket sadly :/

Since 2011 or so, clear shard mdma has been available to me in that area. I'd say since 2011 or so I've only bought mdma that wasn't clear/lightly cloudy a handful of times. I say this because I find it curious how a certain area, not even well known, could have such high quality product available.

Some things to note about the area that could explain the prevalence of high purity mdma. It has some highly regarded universities and has always had great local product even during the mdma recession of 2009. I believe there's lots of highly intelligent chemists that live in that area, and in fact some well known underground chemists have come from here.

I like how, Kaden I think, put it. It's like saying "all socks today are bad." It's this huge generalization for essentially the entire world when product can vary so easily one batch to the next. We do have to remember there's always been "smacky" mdma, but at the same time I'd argue that over the past few years those complaints of sedating mdma has been on the rise.

@Indigo- I've had experiences like that before that just don't make sense. It's the problem with this discussion, people want to say "good mdma" will never let you down but it can..

I may have told this story in here already but incase I haven't. I once had an experience somewhat like yours off very good mdma I had become familiar with. This same mdma was nothing but pleasant many times before:

On this particular night I was rather stressed, had just driven 4hrs to get where I was to be partying that night. I felt off like I had to take a shit but couldn't and decided to eat a bit before dosing to ease my stomach. All I took was 130mg. Once it hit I started vomiting and couldn't stop, zero euphoria and I was tripping like I just dosed 150mg pure MDA.

I've had this type of experience 3 times total over my 14yrs rolling, all 3 on good tested mdma. Each time involved anxiety and some bullshit going on in my life. MDMA can help escape reality once in awhile but it's not great at it. It's fairly dependent on set/setting in my opinion.


I think for now I'm going to just continue to hang and wait to see any more developments. I did dig hard looking for bioassay reports for specific synthesis routes to mdma, and found some but not enough to make any conclusions.

Heres a general rundown of a few methods..

Leuckart reaction- Likely the reason behind the high potency mdma of the early to mid 90's. Seems to create a longer lasting more stimulating experience for both mdma and MDA, as well as have a unusual increase in potency. Likely due to DMMDA and DMMDMA present as an impurity.

Al/Hg- Clean and pure mdma often from this method, zero complaints and likely commonly used from late 1990's to late 2000's.

Bromosafrole- Known to be impure and low yielding. I found one post from the Hive stating the impurities produced in this reaction can cause highly unpleasant symptoms, this method has never been the "go-to" method for producers however so no worries from a consumer standpoint.


I think to make progress on this issue people should start using reagents more and more. It's one of the few tools the layperson has at their disposal so to find patterns and correlations could better help us.

For instance if the good mdma has a slight variation to a few different reagents compared to the bad stuff we could then have a simple test people can use at home. Lab analysis is great but in certain countries it's not easy for people to get that done easily.

Right now here is the two reagent tricks I've got for you. The first is well known; it seems mdma with even minute amounts of residual safrole will turn purple to black on Marquis whereas MDMA with no safrole goes straight to black. (I've personally fekt a difference between these two types of MDMA, but wouldn't consider either better or worse. I'd bet though I'd be talking differently if the purity wasn't great round here.)

The second trick was one I've discovered. I noticed over the years that very high purity product will go a beautiful turquoise color on the Mecke before going dark blue/black. For high purity MDMA the reaction with the Mecke actually goes slower and you see that turquoise for a second or two before it vanishes. Whereas MDMA with a lower purity (often amber/brown colored) will react more violently and go a green/dark green real fast to dark blue/black.

This second trick I've found useful a few times when purchasing something that was more broken down and devoid of crystal structure.

It's these little tips that we need to dive deeper in to, if we can find good correlations that could be our answer.

-GC

 

[Hilopsilo]

I totally feel what you mean about set & setting G_Chem, and thats one of the reasons I think I generally roll harder the second night i take it at a festival; I'm all broken in and comfortable in my environment, I faced all my fear/life issues that have been on my mind already, i can just let go and embrace it more easily. That first night with the MehDMa I was very stressed out after just arriving (bunch of drama upon arriving, got it sorted, but still felt on edge), if it wasn't for every single other person to feel the same way about the stuff, I would have chalked the whole thing up to that (and my jaw dropping to the floor on that last night with the good stuff, "this is on an entirely different level" on repeat in my head the whole night).

I think leftover crap from the synth is the best theory currently, it satisfies both sides of the argument and relies on the fact that different synthesis routes (as you pointed out earlier G_Chem) do produce different sets of byproducts. I think we'd all do well to at least acetone wash our MDMA to remove leftover crap. I'm going to try this on the MehDMA I have left and see if it makes it any better.

Also, went out the other night and probably ~dozen people tried the pink stuff my friend C recently acquired (smells slightly sassy, not oily, crystal grinds into a fine powder with a pinkish hue). Everyone exhibited good effects, full mydriasis and one of them who was new to MDMA (only took ~75mg) called a friend to tell them how good they felt the next day, we told them thats called the afterglow. That same person was also jaw clenching pretty hard that night, but it seems that regardless of the MDMA some people have the jaw thing and others don't. I've NEVER had the jaw thing ever, even when others get it from the same batch.

Also, I believe we've peaked the interest of the drug testing services here, keep bringing them new samples and they're intrigued at how many different forms the drug takes on, from scentless white crystal to a smelly oily black mess. Hopefully they'll start providing us with more info on the samples as they can clearly see its not all the same in appearance, smell or texture.

 

[Dresden]

The grass was greener.
The light was brighter.
The taste was sweeter.
Forever and ever.

-"Division Bell," Pink Floyd.

Welcome to the New Age.
Welcome to the New Age.

--"Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons.

 

[indigoaura]

We have a conflicting report from indigo that the same batch in different types produced different effects, possibly (he couldn't quite remember).

Sorry if I was not clear.

I have reviewed my notes and supplies.

The first time I took the DW MDMA, I personally capped it in my supply of cellulose capsules. I was paying close attention to the dose and had emptied it out of the capsules it came in and put it in new capsules. My capsules are the capsules sold as "vegetarian." This experience was positive, and I did not get sick.

The second time I took the DW MDMA, I kept it in the capsules it was shipped in. I contacted the supplier, and it was confirmed that those capsules were gelatin. This experience was limited, and I became physically sick on the comedown.

Based on my research, there are some chemicals that can cross react with gelatin capsules. I am wondering if some of the byproducts may be interacting with the capsules.

Here is that link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830853/

That article commented, "Low molecular weight PEGs in the fill formulation can diffuse into the gelatin shell and act as plasticizer which limits their use."

I don't know if that is significant to this conversation or not. If gelatin capsules can be "plasticized" by the wrong contents, then maybe the release of the MDMA is SO delayed that only a fraction is actually absorbed.

From now on, I will only be using cellulose capsules.

 

[G_Chem]

@Dresden- Nostalgia's "Radioactive" remix was like the theme song of my 2013 summer, good shit..

@Hilo- I agree we're likely looking at synthesis byproducts to get these answers. I've noticed that over the past year testing services have been reporting synthesis byproducts more and more, and I don't think this is because there's more being found but they are beginning to realize that they may affect the experience.

For example one of the latest MDA analysis on EData has 8x! as much precursor as it does actual MDA. It's becoming obvious that these chemists push the product no matter how it turns out but our testing services are just now picking up on this and adding that bit of info to their final analysis.

I've also noticed a few new odd byproducts/precursors being found which is indicative of some new methods. Definitely something I'll keep an eye on.

And Hilo I'd be very interested to hear how your acetone wash goes. If you can find 99% isopropyl too you could even further purify it via recrystallization. I'm thinking of trying this on some impure MDA I bought as well.

@Indigo- I'm still thinking your second experience could have been set/setting related but hard to know. Slower absorption of MDMA does change the pharmacokinetics, sometimes drastically.. Often it'll feel more MDA like. I'm gonna look back on that experience though and read it over again.



And finally... I tried doing some reagent testing on all the samples I have at my disposal currently. I got like 10 samples in before realizing my reagents aren't fresh enough to make the best comparisons so I'll wait but I did discover one new testing trick that I thought was interesting..

So obviously the best way to test for MDA is via Robadope (a pink/red to indicate MDA/primary amines, no reaction for MDMA/secondary amines) or Simons (no reaction for MDA/primary amines and a royal blue for MDMA/secondary amines) but if you only have the Simons like most people (including myself) it can be hard to determine you have MDA if it's an MDMA/MDA mixed sample.

I found that the Mecke does vary enough on MDA to be useful. With MDMA the Mecke will go turquoise/green to dark blue/black. But with MDA there will be little to no green it will go straight to a dark blue/purple/black color that is similar yet different. Give the puddle a few minutes though and with MDA there will be a reddish outer edge that won't show up with MDMA. It's this reddish coloration a few minutes after initially dropping the reagent that can clearly differentiate MDA from MDMA.

This new technique worked well with MDA samples that also contained some MDMA. (I had one sample that I knew wholeheartedly was at least mostly MDA but Simons went blue, this technique along with a slightly different Mandelin reaction that matched other known pure MDA samples indicated to me I was right.)

Also I believe I saw a slightly browner Marquis puddle to the samples I had which seemed to contain safrole which seems to agree with others assessments. (I've seen pure safrole to test as a purple/brown on Marquis.).

Once I get new reagents I'll go through the collection (most single pills/capsules I've hung on to, probably around 20 dif samples) and document all the color reactions to see if I can find any other clues.

-GC

 

[Hilopsilo]

Got NMR results back for 4 new MDMA samples, including the one that was literally black and dripping in precursor. My friend who submitted them is going to copy paste me the email results as soon as he gets a chance. The black stuff came out as like ~55%, but no other info on the other stuff in it. The person that works at the organization who relays the samples for us has decided to try and figure out why the NMR doesn't give more info, since he is now intrigued by all this.

That black stuff is definitely concerning as it comes out as good MDMA using a test kits, but its clearly not.

 

[G_Chem]

Great job man!

And the interesting thing is that often people describe black nasty impure MDMA/MDA to be just as potent or more potent than their pure counterparts.

Excited to see the results! It's also good to know you've piqued the interest of one of the lab techs that'll help us.

So the black MDMA, was it oily? Any crystals or what consistency? Just curious. My guess is that the chemist had leftover precursor oil and either overgassed during salting or torched his product somewhere along the line. Either way it's disgusting people sell it like that but then again there's a reason why...

If you notice MDMA is a drug that gets sold with more synthesis byproducts than most other illicit drugs on the market. Based on my reading and anecdotal experience it seems that MDMA is still fairly effective when impure depending on the impurities, but I also believe it misses that magic that pure MDMA can take you to.

Back in like 2011-2012 I was preaching about how most impurities took away from that "magic" feel but no one believed me then.

-GC