Pink Speed?
- Thread starter Subliminal_jac
- Start date
phase_dancer
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2001
- Messages
- 6,179
Something I didn't mention is that even pure looking clear crystal may contain some proportion of pseudoephedrine, as pseudo and meth aren't as easy to separate as I've perhaps indicated. Distilling the free base or the ketone is the answer, but as the ketone isn't made (hopefully) with this method, its very unlikely distillation would be done, ever.
So to separate pseudo from meth requires either good lab technique ( to clean well) or using an efficient reduction process. When the above method is finely tuned, although it still produces side reaction products, almost all of the pseudo is converted, so there is little in the final meth product. (Sorry runner I've heard of efficiency being > 90% from forensics)
Just to offer a speculative senario for your find, assuming you had both lots of speed via the same route of administration i.e. you ate both, or snorted both etc.
The rock was free of many of the coloured impurities but was composed of a small amount of meth with a relatively large amount of unreacted pseudo.
The yellow stuff was produced more effectively, but wasn't washed properly or at all, or the solvents used were unpure or coloured. What would happen if you washed your speed with yellow/green nail polish remover?
So to separate pseudo from meth requires either good lab technique ( to clean well) or using an efficient reduction process. When the above method is finely tuned, although it still produces side reaction products, almost all of the pseudo is converted, so there is little in the final meth product. (Sorry runner I've heard of efficiency being > 90% from forensics)
Just to offer a speculative senario for your find, assuming you had both lots of speed via the same route of administration i.e. you ate both, or snorted both etc.
The rock was free of many of the coloured impurities but was composed of a small amount of meth with a relatively large amount of unreacted pseudo.
The yellow stuff was produced more effectively, but wasn't washed properly or at all, or the solvents used were unpure or coloured. What would happen if you washed your speed with yellow/green nail polish remover?
Oh... when did I doubt the 90% effeciency of the HI reduction? If done properly with lab grade precursors
and final product steam distilled, i'm sure 90% is quite achievable. Also, presence of unreacted pseudo
is negligable in any case, unlike Birch. This is because pseudo gets converted to iodo-eph straight away.
Also, as opposed to popular belief that the HCl salt is needed for the HI reduction, freebase is quite preferrable actually. It turns into pseudo.HI straight away. That's just my 2c worth on the technical side.
Of course all of these are rumours gathered from the resources on the internet and none of us will ever
really know because attempting any experiments would be quite stupid for obvious reasons.
and final product steam distilled, i'm sure 90% is quite achievable. Also, presence of unreacted pseudo
is negligable in any case, unlike Birch. This is because pseudo gets converted to iodo-eph straight away.
Also, as opposed to popular belief that the HCl salt is needed for the HI reduction, freebase is quite preferrable actually. It turns into pseudo.HI straight away. That's just my 2c worth on the technical side.
Of course all of these are rumours gathered from the resources on the internet and none of us will ever
really know because attempting any experiments would be quite stupid for obvious reasons.
phase_dancer
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2001
- Messages
- 6,179
Oh no!!... Runner I misread your earlier post, sorry 'bout that 
Just quickly on your other points; I think that in reference to any extra pseudoephedrine forming pseudo-I, I would think there is a limit to this depending mostly on the whether the correct molar weight of iodine is used. Although the reaction, as you are no doubt aware, is very forgiving, (bucket chemistry) it has some limitations if reactants forming the acid are too far out from their optimum molar amounts. The thing is, people learn the technique thinking you can get away with less and less of one ingredient, as over 50% yields are possible with as little as a 1:4 of the correct molar ratio (forensics lecturer).
As for using the freebase; certainly it wouldn't be thought to hurt a reaction using excess solvent and reactants....I'm not sure on this as I've read and heard lots to the contrary and as you said, short of these avenues, we will never really know....that's unless a Bl'er get's a job in drug forensics!
Incidentally, I was once given a small amount of meth made with Li/NH3 which was some of the cleanest local stuff I've seen. This product had absolutely no smell etc., was top notch, and left no visible residue when heated gently. Although I never met the cook, I was assured it only had been washed once. Something else which was passed on, was that the cook didn't have to extract the pseudo before reduction. I dunno.....but the product was impressive, so what ever was being done was being done right I guess.
Just quickly on your other points; I think that in reference to any extra pseudoephedrine forming pseudo-I, I would think there is a limit to this depending mostly on the whether the correct molar weight of iodine is used. Although the reaction, as you are no doubt aware, is very forgiving, (bucket chemistry) it has some limitations if reactants forming the acid are too far out from their optimum molar amounts. The thing is, people learn the technique thinking you can get away with less and less of one ingredient, as over 50% yields are possible with as little as a 1:4 of the correct molar ratio (forensics lecturer).
As for using the freebase; certainly it wouldn't be thought to hurt a reaction using excess solvent and reactants....I'm not sure on this as I've read and heard lots to the contrary and as you said, short of these avenues, we will never really know....that's unless a Bl'er get's a job in drug forensics!
Incidentally, I was once given a small amount of meth made with Li/NH3 which was some of the cleanest local stuff I've seen. This product had absolutely no smell etc., was top notch, and left no visible residue when heated gently. Although I never met the cook, I was assured it only had been washed once. Something else which was passed on, was that the cook didn't have to extract the pseudo before reduction. I dunno.....but the product was impressive, so what ever was being done was being done right I guess.
^^^ you are probably right about pseudo being left if not enough I2 was provided to make HI. I just always assume HI is pre-made and some kind of phos compound is used as a recycling agent. In this case, all pseudo is more than likelly to first be transformed into iodo-pseudo or iodo-meth if you like before a further reduction takes place.
As for the Birch you speak of, the stuff can't really have anything other than meth and unreacted pseudo in it. The pseudo has a characteristic taste when smoked of course, so its easy to tell if its present. I am sure the incident you refer to happened a fair while ago. The lore now is that pills are so gakked up that a fairly in depth extraction is needed. In the old days, some people report, all that was needed was a bucket of ammonia, chuck sodium in, chuck crushed pills in untill blue goes away and wait for meth oil to float to the top. This of course would no longer work, so I am by no means providing any recipes here. Also, must be noted... what cook would ever give out secrets.
These days, when I get a chance to smoke some good meth, (and that's not often - perth drought), I always assume its imported from Asia.
As for the Birch you speak of, the stuff can't really have anything other than meth and unreacted pseudo in it. The pseudo has a characteristic taste when smoked of course, so its easy to tell if its present. I am sure the incident you refer to happened a fair while ago. The lore now is that pills are so gakked up that a fairly in depth extraction is needed. In the old days, some people report, all that was needed was a bucket of ammonia, chuck sodium in, chuck crushed pills in untill blue goes away and wait for meth oil to float to the top. This of course would no longer work, so I am by no means providing any recipes here. Also, must be noted... what cook would ever give out secrets.
These days, when I get a chance to smoke some good meth, (and that's not often - perth drought), I always assume its imported from Asia.
Diacetylus
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
- Messages
- 1,500
Flexistentialist said:
It's funny you should mention that, because I remember reading all over the media and drug-boards, I think it was last year, that police in the U.S.A. were adding a substance to certain precursors (ammonium anhydride?) that were being stolen from farms. Well, apparantly this certain substance makes the user's mouth, or injection site "glow" pink or something.
lil angel15
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2005
- Messages
- 7,828
Nearly 3 years old and you drag it up.......
Fry-d-
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Oct 21, 1999
- Messages
- 4,504
...and the thing you read was about 2 years ago
Interesting News: Adding a product to make Meth use pubically noticable
Interesting News: Adding a product to make Meth use pubically noticable
Diacetylus
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2005
- Messages
- 1,500
^Ahhh, geez, time flies. It feels like only yesterday I was reading that article. Cheers for digging that up. :D
lil angel15
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2005
- Messages
- 7,828
Diacetylus said:
Drugs will do that to you.
Seems like only yesterday I........ Ummmmm...... What was I saying
ive got some pink meth before in WA, and was naturally curious about why is was pink? when i asked the dude i got it off he said that his dealer adds food colouring to the stuff to make it weight more, and hence make more money from the same amount of meth. so probably the reason why it didnt taste as strong is because it isnt.
UnSquare
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 6, 2003
- Messages
- 10,058
Biblical Prop.
Although,
as mentioned,
red/pink could mean anythin',
it's always fun to note that
if food dye is used,
the original source,
before they made cheatedness colour dye's
(as my mum tol' me),
(apart from BLOOOOOOD),
is an insect, in Me'h'ico...
It's called Cochineal 'caus -
"Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus)
COCCIDAE, Scale Insect Family
Cochineal is a traditional red dye of pre-Hispanic Mexico. This precious dyestuff was obtained not from a plant, but from an insect that lives its life sucking on a plant. The host plants are the flattened stems (pads or cladodes) of certain prickly pear cacti (platyopuntias, Opuntia), especially the species called nopales. The animal is a scale insect that manufactures a deep maroon pigment and stores this pigment in body fluids and tissues. Early Mixtec Indians required dyestuffs because the color of daily attire was carefully codified to signal social status. They required fast colors, i.e., those that would not fade, and Mixtecs heavily used indigo, derived from native legumes, for blues and cochineal for various shades of red.
Scale insects are lazy creatures. A cactus pad is colonized by a female, who produces some new females that settle around the mother and set up housekeeping. A female inserts the proboscis, a tube, into the pad for obtaining nourishment, and secretes a white, web-like, wax-based material over the area for camouflage and to prevent desiccation. Males are small and live for only a week, just long enough to mate with as many females as possible. Females, which are about one-quarter inch long, are purplish-black inside and silvery outside.
The pigmentation is a bitter, astringent chemical called carminic acid (10% total dry weight), which is extremely effective in repelling potential predators, such as ants; ants find this anthraquinone to be unpalatable. Interestingly, the caterpillar of a pyralid moth (Laetilia coccidivora) eats cochineal scale and stores carminic acid from the scale in its gut, to be used later against its natural enemy ant, Monomorium destructor.
Mixtexs and their successors in southern Mexico farmed cochineal with great skill. They reproduced the plant by planting pads already inoculated with scale; they fertilized the cactus with wood ashes and garbage; they removed competing plants from around the cactus; they kept domesticated animals away by building walls and hedges; they lit fires on cold nights to prevent the insects from freezing; and they even built temporary shelters to shield the insects from heavy rains. Through this process, they also selected for a domesticated form of the scale insect, a form that produce the best dye but was also more susceptible to stress from cold and rain than the wild form.
When Spaniards arrived in Mexico, they were fascinated by the intense scarlet color of cochineal dye, which was brighter and better than anything in the Old World. Upon first observing the dyeing process, Spaniards thought that the pigment was ground from a gray seed, not an insect, and called these grana (seeds). Textiles dyed with cochineal were shipped to Europe and became the rage; in fact, next to gold cochineal was the most desired import commodity from Middle America, and Spain established a monopoly in its trade and placed an embargo on the export of live insects from Mexico. Spain produce huge trade profits from cochineal in agreements with their friends, but enemy England was excluded, and, consequently, England's textile industry also suffered proportionately.
The Spaniards permitted cochineal production to remain in the hands of the Indian population, encouraged by the Dominican monks at the missions. Unexpectedly, small land owners became very wealthy in producing cochineal, and this upset the large land owners (haciendas), who feared competition and social change from a potentially wealthy lower class. Hacienda owners therefore tried to limit propagation of fresh cactus pads, but their efforts were undermined because the export demands were too great and encouraged by viceroys and governors.
After 250 years, the Spanish monopoly on cochineal production was broken when in 1777 a French naturalist smuggled Mexican cactus pads with scale insects to Haiti. Later, pads were transported to South America, India, the Canary Islands, and Portugal. Nonetheless, cochineal textiles were much in demand. For example, in the Southwest United States in the 1800s, the Navajo, who had no red in their original weavings, traded for cochineal-dyed flannel blankets (bayetas) of Spanish soldiers; the bayetas were unraveled, and threads were then reused in Navajo textiles. When used with the mordant nitromuriate of tin, cochineal produced a vivid scarlet color for dyeing silk, thus replacing the traditional European red scale dye call Kermes red (the scale insect Kermococcus vermilis on Mediterranean oak, Quercus).
Cochineal production became an important export from the Canary Islands, where three tons of the powder was produced in 1875. However, there was a setback in the 1870s when synthetic red aniline dyes (from coal tar) were starting to be used instead of cochineal. Aniline dyes essentially replaced cochineal by the early 1900s. Fortunately, cochineal dyeing continued in its homeland, and this pigment began to appear in commercial products of the United States primarily as a food dye, as in pork sausage, pies, dried fish and shrimp, candies, pills, jams, lipstick and rouge, and the brightly colored maraschino cherries. Here too cochineal was replaced by red dye numbers 2 and 40, which are believed now to be carcinogenic, and cochineal is being reconsidered as a safe food dye.
Cochineal dyeing in southern Mexico is now folk art and practiced by the natives. The female insects are hand-picked and dried in the sun, interrupted by periods in shade. The finest form is called silver cochineal (plateada). Also collected are the leaves of a special tree of Oaxaca, the tejuté (Miconia argentea, Family Melastomataceae), which grows in lowland forests near the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Well water is heated in a large aluminum pot over a wood fire while skeins of woolen thread are soaked in a tub of clear, cool water. When the water starts to steam, the dyer throws in several handfuls of dried, crumbled tejuté leaves (the mordant and color intensifier; oxalic acid). Cochineal powder (1/2 pound to 15 gallons of water) is added to the boiling water, and juice from fresh limes (80 per 15 gallons) are also added and stirred in. Then the wet skeins of wool are placed into the pot and boiled for more than an hour. During this time an acrid odor comes from the hot acid in the pot. After soaking in the dye, the skeins are hung to cool on nearby branches and permitted to dry overnight. The next day the skeins are washed in a sudsy water and rinsed thoroughly in a flowing stream, to bring back the intense red color. Then the skeins are dried for two to three days. The resultant color is dependent on the duration of soaking, the amount of the pigment used, and the chemicals added to the boiling water for the mordant process. "
- P'dea
And I got the spellink right!
Although,
as mentioned,
red/pink could mean anythin',
it's always fun to note that
if food dye is used,
the original source,
before they made cheatedness colour dye's
(as my mum tol' me),
(apart from BLOOOOOOD),
is an insect, in Me'h'ico...
It's called Cochineal 'caus -
"Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus)
COCCIDAE, Scale Insect Family
Cochineal is a traditional red dye of pre-Hispanic Mexico. This precious dyestuff was obtained not from a plant, but from an insect that lives its life sucking on a plant. The host plants are the flattened stems (pads or cladodes) of certain prickly pear cacti (platyopuntias, Opuntia), especially the species called nopales. The animal is a scale insect that manufactures a deep maroon pigment and stores this pigment in body fluids and tissues. Early Mixtec Indians required dyestuffs because the color of daily attire was carefully codified to signal social status. They required fast colors, i.e., those that would not fade, and Mixtecs heavily used indigo, derived from native legumes, for blues and cochineal for various shades of red.
Scale insects are lazy creatures. A cactus pad is colonized by a female, who produces some new females that settle around the mother and set up housekeeping. A female inserts the proboscis, a tube, into the pad for obtaining nourishment, and secretes a white, web-like, wax-based material over the area for camouflage and to prevent desiccation. Males are small and live for only a week, just long enough to mate with as many females as possible. Females, which are about one-quarter inch long, are purplish-black inside and silvery outside.
The pigmentation is a bitter, astringent chemical called carminic acid (10% total dry weight), which is extremely effective in repelling potential predators, such as ants; ants find this anthraquinone to be unpalatable. Interestingly, the caterpillar of a pyralid moth (Laetilia coccidivora) eats cochineal scale and stores carminic acid from the scale in its gut, to be used later against its natural enemy ant, Monomorium destructor.
Mixtexs and their successors in southern Mexico farmed cochineal with great skill. They reproduced the plant by planting pads already inoculated with scale; they fertilized the cactus with wood ashes and garbage; they removed competing plants from around the cactus; they kept domesticated animals away by building walls and hedges; they lit fires on cold nights to prevent the insects from freezing; and they even built temporary shelters to shield the insects from heavy rains. Through this process, they also selected for a domesticated form of the scale insect, a form that produce the best dye but was also more susceptible to stress from cold and rain than the wild form.
When Spaniards arrived in Mexico, they were fascinated by the intense scarlet color of cochineal dye, which was brighter and better than anything in the Old World. Upon first observing the dyeing process, Spaniards thought that the pigment was ground from a gray seed, not an insect, and called these grana (seeds). Textiles dyed with cochineal were shipped to Europe and became the rage; in fact, next to gold cochineal was the most desired import commodity from Middle America, and Spain established a monopoly in its trade and placed an embargo on the export of live insects from Mexico. Spain produce huge trade profits from cochineal in agreements with their friends, but enemy England was excluded, and, consequently, England's textile industry also suffered proportionately.
The Spaniards permitted cochineal production to remain in the hands of the Indian population, encouraged by the Dominican monks at the missions. Unexpectedly, small land owners became very wealthy in producing cochineal, and this upset the large land owners (haciendas), who feared competition and social change from a potentially wealthy lower class. Hacienda owners therefore tried to limit propagation of fresh cactus pads, but their efforts were undermined because the export demands were too great and encouraged by viceroys and governors.
After 250 years, the Spanish monopoly on cochineal production was broken when in 1777 a French naturalist smuggled Mexican cactus pads with scale insects to Haiti. Later, pads were transported to South America, India, the Canary Islands, and Portugal. Nonetheless, cochineal textiles were much in demand. For example, in the Southwest United States in the 1800s, the Navajo, who had no red in their original weavings, traded for cochineal-dyed flannel blankets (bayetas) of Spanish soldiers; the bayetas were unraveled, and threads were then reused in Navajo textiles. When used with the mordant nitromuriate of tin, cochineal produced a vivid scarlet color for dyeing silk, thus replacing the traditional European red scale dye call Kermes red (the scale insect Kermococcus vermilis on Mediterranean oak, Quercus).
Cochineal production became an important export from the Canary Islands, where three tons of the powder was produced in 1875. However, there was a setback in the 1870s when synthetic red aniline dyes (from coal tar) were starting to be used instead of cochineal. Aniline dyes essentially replaced cochineal by the early 1900s. Fortunately, cochineal dyeing continued in its homeland, and this pigment began to appear in commercial products of the United States primarily as a food dye, as in pork sausage, pies, dried fish and shrimp, candies, pills, jams, lipstick and rouge, and the brightly colored maraschino cherries. Here too cochineal was replaced by red dye numbers 2 and 40, which are believed now to be carcinogenic, and cochineal is being reconsidered as a safe food dye.
Cochineal dyeing in southern Mexico is now folk art and practiced by the natives. The female insects are hand-picked and dried in the sun, interrupted by periods in shade. The finest form is called silver cochineal (plateada). Also collected are the leaves of a special tree of Oaxaca, the tejuté (Miconia argentea, Family Melastomataceae), which grows in lowland forests near the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Well water is heated in a large aluminum pot over a wood fire while skeins of woolen thread are soaked in a tub of clear, cool water. When the water starts to steam, the dyer throws in several handfuls of dried, crumbled tejuté leaves (the mordant and color intensifier; oxalic acid). Cochineal powder (1/2 pound to 15 gallons of water) is added to the boiling water, and juice from fresh limes (80 per 15 gallons) are also added and stirred in. Then the wet skeins of wool are placed into the pot and boiled for more than an hour. During this time an acrid odor comes from the hot acid in the pot. After soaking in the dye, the skeins are hung to cool on nearby branches and permitted to dry overnight. The next day the skeins are washed in a sudsy water and rinsed thoroughly in a flowing stream, to bring back the intense red color. Then the skeins are dried for two to three days. The resultant color is dependent on the duration of soaking, the amount of the pigment used, and the chemicals added to the boiling water for the mordant process. "
- P'dea
And I got the spellink right!
tribesman
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2005
- Messages
- 386
Cochineal is actually making a comeback as a red dye as people are starting to use less artificial and more natural additives.
It is often known as Carmine and additive 120 (thats the number you see on the back of food packets etc).
But as Fry-d- says, I don't think backyard meth cooks are adding this somehow :D
It is often known as Carmine and additive 120 (thats the number you see on the back of food packets etc).
But as Fry-d- says, I don't think backyard meth cooks are adding this somehow :D
smokin' joe
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2003
- Messages
- 764
I'm sick of arguing with people that pink speed isn't more pure than white......
Methamphetamine is white!!!! goddamnit!! the color is in impurity......
Methamphetamine is white!!!! goddamnit!! the color is in impurity......