^ Have you read the other thread that I linked on the page before though? There is a greater amount of scientific discussion about the various possibilities on that thread. I won't attempt to repeat all of that on this thread too. In that thread I suggested a couple of explanations for why a non-racemic mixture of MDMA might be produced from the glycidate even though this should not occur because perfectly good MD-P2P is capable of being produced from the glycidate - as you quite correctly identify. The other thing I said in the thread is the possibility that the glycidate is a red herring and the manufacturers have switched to a new catalyst which just happens to be stereoselective.
I am aware of the Rhodium article you mentioned - thank you for raising it. There is no issue arsing with chirality in that example because it is assumed that the chemist is going to properly purify the MD-P2P produced. If this is not done, which is where I believe the problem must lie, then where does that leave us?
I found another page on Rhodium's site which may well be instructive -
https://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/mda.hey.html:
- In the first part of the experimental section, "3,4-Methylenedioxybenzyl Methyl Ketone" (aka MD-P2P), it is clear that the method to isolate and purify the ketone is fairly involved, requiring multiple steps and even refluxing and vacuum distilling with copper powder! I wonder how many large scale manufacturers even have copper powder in their labs. A review of the website selling the glycidate and the manner in which they spruik how easy it is to turn this "legal" substance into a "ketone", implies to me that not all of these steps are being suggested and therefore are unlikely going to be followed. I just don't see the large scale manufacturers going to such trouble; if this is indeed correct, then given all that is produced in the glycidate --> ketone transformation, can anyone confidently rule out the possibility that any subsequent reductive amination to MDMA might just favour the production of one isomer over the other.
I am the first to admit that everything that I and others have stated about this matter are simply theories, although they are theories which are based on a large body of evidence - pharmacological, chemical, specific known facts such as the mega dutch labs switching to this precursor, and the continual supply of anecdotal information which seems remarkably consistent. At the end of the day, the sudden massive increase in the dosage of MDMA contained in so many of these pills speaks loudest of all and rest assured the manufacturers aren't going to be doing it just because they want to give the customer a better deal at the expense of their own bottom line.
As a person with knowledge of matters relating to chemistry and law enforcement, it frustrates me to no end that there hasn't been anyone to date who knows a government forensic chemist or the chemists who perform the work for ecstasydata.org, who could be requested to determine the enantiomeric ratio of a few test samples, tests which would prove once and for all whether any of this is correct or not.
This type of testing is routinely done and not difficult for those labs set up to do it. Determining the D:L or S:R ratio of seized quantities of amphetamine, methylamphetamine and MDMA is often a necessary component of police investigations into drug manufacture and/or distribution, where being able to chemically match different batches of seized drugs with others or with the lab that produced them, provides vital evidence in any prosecution of this nature. No it isn't done for every lab test for every drug that is seized. But believe me it is done every time the police need the chemists to conduct this chemical comparison exercise for any cases where such evidence is deemed important.
To give you an idea about how superficial our knowledge is in this area, mine included and I have a degree in it, take a look at this incredible journal article which considered a multitude of different ways in which chiral and non-chiral amphetamine could be produced, with the vast majority being routes that most people, even with an interest in drug chemistry, would never have heard of. What is clear is that there are many methods for making a non-racemic mix of amphetamine from precursors which, on first blush at least, would be assumed to only be capable of manufacturing racemic amphetamine:
http://www.nwafs.org/newsletters/SyntheticAmphetamine.pdf.
I trust providing a link to this journal article, which in a published scientific journal, does not offend the guidelines. Frankly, the chemistry discussed in here is so complicated that even someone with a degree such as myself, couldn't possibly take it and suddenly start cranking out amphetamine etc. However, the point is well made, that even if there was only a quarter of this number of potential routes to make MDMA, the possibility of making chiral MDMA from new precursors which are being reacted in all sorts of possible ways that are anyone's guess, seems not only possible but probable.
