What is wrong with the MDMA available today?

[LucidSDreamr]

I'm talking about in general not with the mdma synthesis. ...do you want me do go dig up information showing how chiral materials can effect the ee of a reaction?

I never said there is proof existing that this happens with mdma...just that its a possibility because its a known phenomana in other areas of synthesis

 

[Biscuit]

Biscuit, essentially the scenario you just described sounds like there was the dutch presses with it's supposed "very pure" mdma compared to an obviously very impure batch of mdma. (A purple coloration is typically on the lesser pure side of things, not to say I haven't seen purple shards that weren't subjectively good.) This scenario could prove two potential theories, 1.) That impure MDMA is somehow superior to ultra pure MDMA without residual oils. Or 2.) Safrole produced MDMA is somehow superior to PMK-glycidate MDMA. (Did the purple MDxx smell of sass?)

From memory it did smell of safrole but not strongly; I do agree that it looked particularly impure and at least 150mg was needed to really get going. Certainly, the smell was more noticeable than that of the pills.

Otherwise, I agree with basically everything LucidSDreamr said. The answers to these critical questions which we continue to toss around and around and around are easily ascertainable by any analytical chemist with the appropriate equipment and know-how.

 

[Glubrahnum]

Below please find an attached Raman spectrograph of an MDMA sample from 1989.
Unfortunately, I did not illuminate the sample with optical polarizers, so the enantiomeric ratio cannot be read from it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

with respect to point 1), if they did cut the mdma with R-mdma that was left from the past as you suggest 1) wouldn't be able to tell the different if it was due to that or an R/S ratio other than 5050 being formed within the synth.

If there was a published synthesis of MDMA that results in anything other than a 50/50 racemic mix (excluding the use of r-MDA as the base precursor) you would have a point.

Unfortunately, there is not.

 

[G_Chem]

LucidSDreamer,


I'm not trying to be a smartass by saying this, but out of real curiousity could you point in any direction to a known synthesis where chiral impurities form to sway the isomer ratio in one way or another (not for MDMA, just anything really..). This would actually help your guys argument in my mind.


While I will stay open minded about the idea of isomers, I will continue to believe that it's impurities that play a role. I've given enough examples to show that damn near each batch of MDMA can vary from the next based on slight variations in the synthetic process. For now I'll sit back and see if anyone decides to be the hero and finally test the isomer theory..


But.. My last experience was with known safrole produced MDMA, very pure shard that was near 1g which was pretty much clear and upon cracking open the crystal a faint smell of safrole could be detected. Marquis showed purple to near black (spreading the puddle showed purple again). The roll was exactly as I would have hoped for and expected as usual, when it came on I was actually moaning at points and super chatty over every topic under the sun. Lasted a good 5-6 hours with booster just as expected. Afterglow was amazing and despite having alot of family crap on the days following this experience, I was able to function better than normal if anything (usually anxiety is a problem for me with events like this.)


While I do believe MDMA experiences can vary greatly on the same batch, after a few experiences with a certain batch you generally get a feel for what it's about. And there are certain aspects of the experience which don't change too much, the biggest being duration. But also the mongy, anti-social, generally fucked behavior these dutch pills give has just never been something I associate with MDMA. So when I start to see that becoming a common sight for those under the influence of these (in my case imports) I can only think that something has changed.


I actually know a few people who never tried MDMA before, then took a dutch press their first time and didn't like it (having really fucked up, anxiety filled experiences) so swore off it for life. I've NEVER seen that until this issue arose, everyone I've ever known has loved MDMA their first time before this. Then there is also the issue of rising cases of fucked up lasting symptoms, this is happening both here in BL and over on my home forum DF. At first I thought it was down to shitty pipe'd out pills or something but after talking with people who had tested product it has become more and more obvious that it is likely MDMA actually causing these issues. The weird thing is that there wasn't these problems until, again, the dutch product became more and more popular. I could go on but won't..


Once again, the purple coloration given during a Marquis test is due to safrole contamination, I've now tested over 15 different samples and those are the conclusions I've come up with based on what I've seen. However a puddle that stays purple doesn't necessarily mean its good product.


Impurities can have an effect, look around at any of the chemistry forums out there and almost everyone who's synthesized MDMA believes there is differences between product depending on route used. Even Strike thought MDMA varied depending on the solvent used for recrystallization. I can tell you while I prefer as pure as it gets MDMA, many people don't as typically the impurities add a more fucked up "in your face" experience. You have this feeling like you know your on a drug, whereas pure as it gets clean "good" MDMA it's almost hard to tell your on anything. It just feels like something has unlocked your true potential to feel nothing but empathy and love for everyone in this world, you wouldn't know you were on anything if it weren't for the shit eating grin you can' t wipe off or the saucer sized pupils.

While Yes MDMA is MDMA, the temptation to leave any and all impurities possible is too high for a chemist to go out of their way to purify the product. Not saying all chemists are pigs but most MDMA out there will likely have significant enough amounts of impurities to sway the effects.


-GC

 

[Glubrahnum]

For now I'll sit back and see if anyone decides to be the hero and finally test the isomer theory..

I was trying to do just that but I my attachment with the Raman spectrograms did not come through.

My last experience was with known safrole produced MDMA, very pure shard that was near 1g which was pretty much clear and upon cracking open the crystal a faint smell of safrole could be detected.

That would represent a Saffrole contamination. The question is whether this contamination is desirable or not.

Marquis showed purple to near black (spreading the puddle showed purple again).

Marquis reagent is a primitive way of testing phenylethylamines. It is better than nothing but not sufficient for serious chemical analysis/comparison.

I can tell you while I prefer as pure as it gets MDMA, many people don't as typically the impurities add a more fucked up "in your face" experience. You have this feeling like you know your on a drug, whereas pure as it gets clean "good" MDMA it's almost hard to tell your on anything.

Then you should be able to test that theory "organoleptically" by purifying the "mongy" product and seeing if it produces improved effects.

 

[no_id]

I don't take much MDMA but imo there is a possibility of bunk batch existing. And they are probably the majority. I mean, I took let's say 10/15 pills in my life, and one time I got a FUCKING SUPPLY of FUCKING PILLS I mean omg this was impossible to not be euphoric like never on them. You got all with them : euphoria, empathy, love, energy, duration, afterglow, fucked up jaws... Others pills I took before and after was not that great, even when forcing the dose in the upper range.

As of today I'm not fond of MDMA due to all the report of damage on forum, suspicion of neurotoxicity far more advanced than for some other and objectively better drugs (lsd to name one)

 

[Sir Ron Pib]

MDMA died a death but the quality seems to be really good again; got to be the most misrepresented drug. This seems a golden age again but it still happens - think a lot of year in the US was methylone/meph a few years back.

 

[Squatter Jones]

Id take the study, hands down. I have tried crystal/powdered MDMA with great effect. It wasn't white by any means.

 

[G_Chem]

Glubra- Absolutely right that the faint smell coming off the crystal I described in the last post does indicate contamination. But I'm not really sure it's so much the contamination of safrole that causes the difference as it is an indicator of potentially something else that does. I suppose it could but I just don't know..


What I do know is this.. I've seen an analysis of MDMA HCl at the mid 90's % that was so smelly of safrole it could be smelled at a distance through the bag. Pure safrole, and crude sassafras essential oil, are VERY potent smelling oils. We are talking you get the smallest tiniest fraction of a drop in or on something and your smelling it strongly. I remember a friend of a friends roommates brother ruined an entire batch of hash oil from trim, large batch too, because there was the slightest residue left in the flask from a recent distillation. (Not for synthesizing anything of course, and hash oil production is legal here.) Every hit you could taste that horrible taste and gave a headache it smelled so strongly.


So with all that in mind, when a crystal that is clear and colorless and odorless upon initial exam but has the slightest faint hint of safrole upon cracking open. It's my assumption that the amount of safrole present could potentially be in the micrograms.


I read recently on here of a well known ecstasy dealer back in the 90's early 00's that would suck on his pills to tell if they were good or not. While I don't think he was looking for the presence of safrole, I have found it is possible to taste it when you chew down on the crystal. I chew up every MDMA I ever eat since I can't swallow pills, I've tasted every dose of MDMA and MDA I've ever had. You can actually taste the safrole taste amongst the typical MDMA bitterness even when it's barely detectable via smell. Not something I expect people to know, but for those that eat their product too keep a mental tab of the taste and whether there is a hint of sassy-ness present. All the best product I've had, has this taste.


And your absolutely right on Marquis. But I make that statement simply because it seems to be a commonly talked about topic that the "new" MDMA doesn't produce a purple coloration. I figured it was worth noting, and that the conclusions I've come to based on what I know lead me to believe that safrole contamination is likely the culprit for the coloration. Safrole when tested pure goes purple and stays there. Another tip, I am more of a Mecke guy than Marquis. With the mecke, I can now read purity to some extent based on color reaction. Make sure your Mecke is rather fresh (no more than a year old, fridge kept). A sample with higher quantities of residual oils will go green to blue/black almost instantly, and the green is a darker more "average" green, it's so fast and fizzy that you get all excited it's a strong sample but it's because the oils react quick. A sample of higher purity crystal, will actually react a little slower (still fast mind you) and smoother if that makes sense. Also the biggest indicator is that the reagent goes TURQUOISE then to dark blue/black, and it stays at that color for at least a good 2 maybe 3 seconds which feels like a lifetime compared to the millisecond of green to blue/black when impure. Every sample I've seen tested which produced the Turquoise coloration instead of just green, turned out to be very pure and good product. (Slight safrole contam doesn't seem to effect it, we are talking amber/browner colored and smelly.) Just another tip from someone who's tested FAR too many samples of MDMA in his day. (Becoming less as it seems the government in my area doesn't like testing taking place, they'd rather people just die from nasty drugs I guess..)


-GC

 

[LucidSDreamr]

LucidSDreamer,


I'm not trying to be a smartass by saying this, but out of real curiousity could you point in any direction to a known synthesis where chiral impurities form to sway the isomer ratio in one way or another (not for MDMA, just anything really..). This would actually help your guys argument in my mind.

every single reactions existing in chemistry that is asymmetric on an achiral substrate involves another compound being present which influences the facial selectivity during the establishment of the chiral center....of which there are thousands you can look up yourself.

in those reactions we call those compounds, ligands, chiral catalysts, or chiral auxilliaries. In a reactions where an impurity happens to act as one of these things. you have the same thing happening as what I just said.

see proline catalyzed aldol reaction. just for an example of how chiral material at catalytic concentrations can influence ee of a reaction.

also look at this catalytic cycle for reductive amination

Imagine any chiral material left over from pmk glycidate or chiral by products from the previous steps in the synthesis, coordinating to Rh in some fashion through L.P. to d-orbital donation, at any important step in this cycle involving the substrate.

not hard to imagine that happening if you are ok with the fact that things with LP can coordinate to transitional mmetal catalysts.
Not hard to imagine a chiral ligand scewing the ee of a reaction in a metal catalyzed reductive amination, since this is exactly how asymmetric transition metal catalyzed reductive amination chemistry known in the literature works.

they could also be straight up using a chiral catalyst if they happened to steal a huge amount of it from wherever and thats what they have then chiral impurities are not even required.

someone please explain to me how this is impossible and forbidden by chemistry. Saying that there are not exact publications concerning this happening in the context of mdma synthesis is not a valida answer for the question why is this impossible. (shugenja) i'm not even arguing with chemistry about you because you can't even come up with any actual argument concerning chemistry, your argument against me is basically: "the answer to this is not published and proven, therefore your theory on the answer is impossible"

 

[LucidSDreamr]

crickets....thats what I thought.

 

[Biscuit]

Hooray LucidSdreamer! I agree entirely with what you have said and I tried several times to get that across but you've done a stellar job right there. If those using the glycidate would just purify the PMK manufactured from it, i think it would be fine, but I bet they don't. Plus there is definitely the question of chiral selective catalysts potentially being used in the reductive amination phase.

 

[G_Chem]

Good job man, now was that so hard


Hmmm.. Alright maybe you guys are on to something in that regard. But even then I still believe if this is the case then it has to be the S-isomer being favored. The biggest reason being the duration described.


While we are on the topic of isomers, I'd like to bring up MDA. Quite a few years ago I wrote up a theory on why MDA's effects differ so much, as well as it's duration. It is located on another site and can be found by googling something like "Theory On Differences Between MDA Experiences" or something like that. Essentially this started with my first time trying MDA, I was always told that MDA was a long lasting empathogen but when I finally tried it I found the experience to feel more like a short acting really intense better than MDMA experience which quickly dropped off into a kinda trippy residual stimulation. A subsequent experience with a few different batches were similar in effects.


I went online and started reading through every single MDA experience report I could find. And there seemed to be quite a mixed bag of what people felt. Some people who were really reputable (including one person who is a well known Erowid report author) reported the similar experience of short duration (about 3 hours from initial dosing to feelings of coming down.) While others described experiences lasting 8-24 hours. It just wasn't making sense and the only thing that seemed to fit was the isomers.


Looking at MDA's isomers, the two vary wildly from one another. Much moreso than MDMA. The R-isomer is VERY long lasting and trippy, whereas the S-isomer is very short acting and essentially very close in effect to MDMA. The variations in experiences seemed to match perfectly with the differences between the two isomers. After reading it became apparent that the MDA I was consuming matched MUCH more closely with the S-isomer over racemic.


One particular report that stood out to me which I quoted in the work I talked about above, was from a guy who took MDA in the 80's from what I remember. He said back then it would last 24 hours and they would sit out on the sidewalk all night handing out flowers to strangers and having random conversations. He then describes how any of the MDA he tries nowadays doesn't have that same effect is just bullshit compared what he had back then.


It seems that potentially back then the synthetic route used could have also produced one isomer over the other. And MDA with its more varied effects between the two isomers shows it better than MDMA with less variation between the two.


A few years after putting out that theory I finally tried what I believe to be racemic MDA. And to this day still have some which I dip into occasionally, mainly to spice up some MDMA. I noticed this MDA actually lasts 5-6 hours, sometimes a bit more and is much more in line with everything I've read of MDA before. Very potent empathogen but more rolly, up and down effects, and a trippiness similar to Mescaline. (Not so much visual movements and such, more seeing things that aren't there or vice versa. One time I couldn't see a trash basket I knew was right in front of me til I blinked, another time I woke up right after falling asleep after a roll to a fire alarm going off and thought it was the thermostat and was freaking out on the thermostat trying to make it stop lol.)


The point I'm trying to make with all of that rambling is that it isn't just MDMA which seems to have varied isomer ratios based on synthesis used. MDA has also shown varied experiences which match the two isomers, and each experience out there seems to be somewhere along the spectrum of those two. The only other explanation for the reason MDA used to last 12-24 hours for some people may come down to the popular synth route used in the late 80's early 90's, which also corresponds with a time when people claimed 75mg of MDMA could have them rolling for 6hours solid. (Both the MDA and MDMA lasted longer in those times, and some MDA pills contained 25mg!!! Yet have been talked about as good from the old timers.)


Damn there is just so much mystery surrounding this drug it's unreal. But it's one of the reasons I also love it so much. Deep down I've always had this inkling that while all MDMA should be racemic MDMA, that isomeric excesses can occur. Even before this Dutch debate, it seemed certain batches of MDMA were really stimmy and euphoric while others were trippy and mongy. Now though the differences are quite clear, but again the dutch product doesn't seem to match the profile for R-isomer MDMA so it's one big confusing mess aint it?..


-GC

 

[LucidSDreamr]

^ thanks for the thoughts.

I would add that there has been showing to be genetic variability in in how the body treats different mdma enantiomers, and how it treats mdma in general from person to person.



also, you talk about older synths and a non racemic product, what chiral material was present in these synths as a reagent or contaminant?...I'm guessing the sass plany from which safrole is isolated couldve contained some chiral materials that codistill with the safrole. As I will add that you can't have a non 50 50 S/R product without something chiral being present in the process to begin with.

 

[Limey]

Most popular pill presses have copycats these days. I reckon about 20mg of MDMA to fool the tests.
Also average street MDMA is probably only about 30% pure.
I used to think it was precursors, however I was wrong.

 

[Salemcoyote]

Today 20:43
I agree with Le Junk 100%.

I myself have just tried the orange Teslas, my first time rolling since the 90's, they were tested (purple to black) and it was NOTHING like I remembered. And it's not nostalgia either because my wife is 10 years younger, had never done MDMA, and even she was unimpressed. There is absolutely something wrong with these so called Dutch super pills. Trust me, these were not copycats. I didn't just randomly score them on the street if you catch my drift.

 

[Dresden]

The Darzen condensation ruins it.

 

[MrPorter]

I don't know about 'old school mdma', nor i do know about 'super pills'. I did take a gold bar when they first appeared but i did it in one, a far higher dose than I normally would have and I agree with the lack of empathy, but I found it very very stimmy and didn't have time to be lovey between wild dance moves. Duration of ~6h up and down.


What I do know is that the MDMA I buy online is MDMA, confirmed by 1H NMR, COSY, HPLC-MS, and HRMS, which I recently had access to. As is the cocaine (no NMR).
LCMS showed just one peak for each of these. These techniques give minimal assistance to deciphering exact chirality but the multiplet in MDMA suggests it was racemic with no significant organic impurities.

 

[Glubrahnum]

The Darzen condensation ruins it.

How exactly?