Availability of Safrole for MDMA manufacture, alter availability?

[Folley]

It would be interesting if someday we'll see E tards cooking up methylone into MDMA the way crackheads turn cocaine into crack or how heroin addicts in Russia turn codeine into desomorphine (hopefully in a safer way, though )


I wonder how small of a scale it can be done in?

 

[reflux21]

Well besides being poisonous and unstable hydrazine is used to make LSD in a really old, out dated synthesis so it's a bit watched. If you want it you'd have to make that too or get it from a place where the person selling it doesn't care. Probably won't be seeing a bunch of people without chemistry knowledge doing it. I'd imagine it would turn out very bad. You'd probably need to use at least 10g to make it worth doing I'd think but you could scale it down to less than a gram if you wanted to.

 

[scureto1]

That's completly wrong. PMA and PMMA would never be a contaminint when using safrole. If you have a distillation setup chances are you know how to use a vigreux column. PMMA comes when anethole is used instead of safrole.

Check this out - this PMMA question has actually come up before and I researched rock-solid evidence that, yes, PMMA can result from impurities in safrole.

This was pretty interesting to check into. I found some pretty clear answers in these two papers: A study of impurities in intermediates and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) samples produced via reductive amination routes and Basic and neutral route specific impurities in MDMA prepared by different synthesis methods: Comparison of impurity profiles. I think Google Scholar will only let you see the abstracts, unfortunately, and the info with the answers about the PMMA is in the body.

The first paper identified all of the impurities at every step of the process along multiple synthesis routes, and they identified a compound called estragole in commercially/industrially purchased safrole. If you take a look at the structure of estragole in that link, you can see that it is an analog of safrole, and if that compound is put through all of the same processes as one of the common safrole routes to MDMA, it becomes PMMA. Futura quoted a bit above that mentioned anethole. Anethole is what estragole becomes after the first step of the synth route I referred to before.

The paper didn't list the relative amounts and I'm assuming the estragole impurity is only present in very small or trace amounts most of the time, but if a chemist got a batch of safrole that was particularly badly contaminated with estragole, the resulting MDMA could have a serious PMMA contamination.

The second paper did analysis on some MDMA samples produced by a different safrole route and also found traces of PMMA, but there wasn't any elaboration on HOW it got there and it isn't a route I am very familiar with so I don't really have much to add there. Since it starts with safrole and ends up at MDMA, and the ends of estragole and safrole actually participating in the chemistry are identical, this PMMA got here the same was as the PMMA from the other route.

Short answer: safrole conatiminated with estragole can be responsible for accidental PMMA in amounts that may vary significantly from batch to batch.

 

[MrSpeedyG]

Just a theory I came up with, everyone claims that the 90s pills/MDMA had a better and different feeling to them compared to 2000 onwards.

It could be a possibility that the 90s I would assume was made majority from safrole, which as said when it goes through the synth minor impurities such as anethole to end up with small amounts of PMA/PMMA in it and potentially other psycoactive substances in it which then potentiate the MDMA in a minor way... PMMA is a serotonin releaser and being a MAO-A (A I think) it help prevent serotonin breakdown from MAO inhibition... Whether or not it plays a role in why people say MDMA produced from safrole is better than other starting compounds which wouldnt have the impurities that result in PMA well that we won't know, but I think it is a good theory and might explain why.

IIRC didn't the red mortal combats contain trace amounts of PMMA? Obviously I do not suggest to anyone reading this to go combining PMA or any MAOI with MDMA to try potentiate it.

 

[BlueBull]

Just a theory I came up with, everyone claims that the 90s pills/MDMA had a better and different feeling to them compared to 2000 onwards.

It could be a possibility that the 90s I would assume was made majority from safrole, which as said when it goes through the synth minor impurities such as anethole to end up with small amounts of PMA/PMMA in it and potentially other psycoactive substances in it which then potentiate the MDMA in a minor way... PMMA is a serotonin releaser and being a MAO-A (A I think) it help prevent serotonin breakdown from MAO inhibition... Whether or not it plays a role in why people say MDMA produced from safrole is better than other starting compounds which wouldnt have the impurities that result in PMA well that we won't know, but I think it is a good theory and might explain why.

IIRC didn't the red mortal combats contain trace amounts of PMMA? Obviously I do not suggest to anyone reading this to go combining PMA or any MAOI with MDMA to try potentiate it.

Firstly I'm not even sure PMA can be a synth impurity of an MDMA synthesis. As far as I know (though I could be wrong because I've seen wildly varying opinions on this) you'd need another precursor altogether to end up with PMA, though the process of synthesis is the same. Like reflux already mentioned. I know scureto linked some research claiming you could end up with deadly PMA/MDMA mixture if you have safrole contaminated with estragole (the precursor needed to make PMA) but it's a shame you have to buy the article to read it. That seems plausible though but to then end up with MDMA/PMA in high enough amounts to be more than trace amounts your precursor would have to be very very very contaminated.

Secondly even if you end up with minor PMA/PMMA impurities they are normally trace amounts (like with the MK's) and in those doses PMA/PMMA is not/hardly psychoactive and would not give you any noticeable effects. Remember by the way that there were MK's handed in for testing that did not contain those trace amounts so it's unlikely they came from impurities during synthesis. I think more along the lines of cross-contamination. I wonder if a top presser wouldn't know his safrole was that badly contaminated he would end up with deadly pills and if such badly contaminated precursor exists how does this contamination happen? Is it a byproduct of the safrole oil extraction process or something?

I do not posses the knowledge to prove any of this or even understand the synthesis process. I just read a lot of research and discussions about this and am very curious about the subject...

 

[Juvenile]

Hi peeps!

I read here that in 2004 the Australian Federal Police and other authorities burnt a MASSIVE amount of the trees that were being harvested for their Safrol content, (from memory in Cambodia or Indonesia, one of the two) and this is the reason that since then the availability of MDMA and good MDMA pills has dropped. Is this correct? Does anyone know the full story?


WC

I thought the big burning they did was in 2007 or 2008? I cbf looking though their reports but they are here if you want to check.
http://www.afp.gov.au/policing/drug-crime/mdma.aspx

There was quite an MDMA drought 2009-2011, and imo it's still not really back to the level it was in the early 2000s. I think there was more to the drought than just burning of safrole. Shitty fucking RC's like BZP etc being sold as MDMA pills had a lot to do with it too.

This has been discussed a fair bit here:
http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/461588-Reason-for-the-Global-MDMA-Crisis-(GMC)