Supposedly DOB blotter containing unknown amount.

[Rampelflik]

I've been given some blotter paper from a friend containing what should be DOB. The dosage is unknown. I can get a tab tested but the test will only tell if it is said substance, not how much of it is on there. Is there a way to figure out the dosage...?

 

[Kaleida]

Not to my knowledge, no, but if someone knows something I don't I'd love to hear it.

If we're taking bets, put me down for 1.4 mg.

 

[Solipsis]

No easy way, the lab analysis usually done to achieve that is gas chromatograhy and mass spectrography often after HPLC... for quantitative LSD the mass can work, generally they would use a reference sample (of known purity). I imagine they don't have a reference for just any DOX then...

 

[Rampelflik]

The guy who gave them to me said they're def. active. He tried one a while ago but couldn't describe the effects in detail or exactly tell me how long he tripped.

I just hand in a sample, tell them what it's supposed to be, and they only confirm or deny (and might tell me what it is if it is not what it is supposed to be). I have no knowledge about how they go about the actual testing.

 

[Kaleida]

The most recent post has been removed, sorry. Please refrain from asking questions that will turn this into a substance ID thread or it will have to be closed.

 

[Incunabula]

No easy way, the lab analysis usually done to achieve that is gas chromatograhy and mass spectrography often after HPLC... for quantitative LSD the mass can work, generally they would use a reference sample (of known purity). I imagine they don't have a reference for just any DOX then...

Why would they use GC after HPLC? What's the point? Why not just mount the MS on the HPLC and go LC/MS right off from the start?

Also, I never understood why a lot of drug testing was done on GC, isn't there a huge risk of decomposing the analyte?

Actually, quantifying an analyte is really easy if you have a reference standard, but if you don't, it's actually more or less impossible (to my knowledge) So I don't get how drug testing sites like wedinos, energy control and ecstacydata seem to be doing it with ease. I mean, they definitely don't have an endless supply of reference samples of everything to make calibration curves all the time, especially not if they are NGO.

If I recall correctly, it was The loop in the UK that I read about, who use FTIR with ATR for on site drug testing. It's so cool, they can just put some powder directly on a plate, without any sample preparation, and then seconds later get an IR-spectra that automatically gets compared to a database of 60.000 known drugs. I think it's the same they use at the australian bordercontrol, as seen on TV. ^ lol. This is just qualitative of cause, but still really cool.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'm genuinely interested. Was actually going to post in your "How-is-LSD-tested-quantitatively" thread. (http://bluelight.org/vb/threads/805297-How-is-LSD-tested-quantitatively?) Maybe my questions would have fit better there.

 

[Rampelflik]

If it is DOB on the tabs, and if it is 1,5mg per tab as Kaleida suggested, wouldn't it be possible to lay say 10 blotters in some ethanol to dissolve the DOB, remove the blotters from the solvent, evaporate the solvent and weigh and divide by ten the remaining crystals?

 

[Kaleida]

If that would work it should regardless of how much is originally on it, but I've never tried anything like that so someone else will have to back that up.

 

[Incunabula]

If it is DOB on the tabs, and if it is 1,5mg per tab as Kaleida suggested, wouldn't it be possible to lay say 10 blotters in some ethanol to dissolve the DOB, remove the blotters from the solvent, evaporate the solvent and weigh and devide by then the remaining crystals?

In theory you could, but in practice you probable won't be left with the huge shining crystals that you probably imagine, but rather a fine white dust on the bottom of your evaporation pan, that is going to stick to whatever you try to scrape it up with. It's probably going to get real messy real quick, and there will most definitely be loss of compound, and that's not even mentioning the risk of accidentally dosing yourself.

Obviously, someone will disagree with me, and I'm not saying it's not possible, I just personally wouldn't do it.

The way forward with compounds this potent, is liquid dosing. Then again, what would be the point? They are already dosed for you, you just don't know how strong they are. IMO, the solution is real simple. Just start with a quarter, and see were the effects take you after 3-4 hours. Then you will know how much you need for a full trip the next time. Ingesting a quarter of unknown blotter isn't much of a risk.

Good luck I hope you got some good stuff.

 

[psy997]

Trying to dissolve and evaporate is a bad idea. There's really no way of knowing as far as I'm aware.

 

[Solipsis]

Why would they use GC after HPLC? What's the point? Why not just mount the MS on the HPLC and go LC/MS right off from the start?

Also, I never understood why a lot of drug testing was done on GC, isn't there a huge risk of decomposing the analyte?

Actually, quantifying an analyte is really easy if you have a reference standard, but if you don't, it's actually more or less impossible (to my knowledge) So I don't get how drug testing sites like wedinos, energy control and ecstacydata seem to be doing it with ease. I mean, they definitely don't have an endless supply of reference samples of everything to make calibration curves all the time, especially not if they are NGO.

If I recall correctly, it was The loop in the UK that I read about, who use FTIR with ATR for on site drug testing. It's so cool, they can just put some powder directly on a plate, without any sample preparation, and then seconds later get an IR-spectra that automatically gets compared to a database of 60.000 known drugs. I think it's the same they use at the australian bordercontrol, as seen on TV. ^ lol. This is just qualitative of cause, but still really cool.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I'm genuinely interested. Was actually going to post in your "How-is-LSD-tested-quantitatively" thread. (http://bluelight.org/vb/threads/805297-How-is-LSD-tested-quantitatively?) Maybe my questions would have fit better there.

HPLC is for separating substances if there is more than one in there, GC for separating and actual analysis. I guess HPLC followed by MS was meant or alternatively GC/MS.

Afaik not that many drugs would decompose very significantly just by vaporization, and doesn't GC require only very little sample anyway? Not sure if that is one of the advantages or if just MS (I guess after HPLC if necessary) is usually better.

Without reference sample I don't see what you would do besides NMRing, but perhaps there are other ways to piece together the puzzle - couldn't you MS by figuring out mass of ion fragments? Especially if you narrowed it down a lot before that point.

They are using other methods as well nowadays, I think IR might be used - some of those are relatively novel for drug testing in this context, learned that the last time I dropped off a sample (of 2C-T-2).
Oh i only now realize you also mentioned IR, so i guess that makes a lot of sense then.

Trying to dissolve and evaporate is a bad idea. There's really no way of knowing as far as I'm aware.

Agreed, I don't know if you have any idea how annoying less than 10 mg can be to work with, it's way too lossy to accurately determine your dose - for all you know you lost more than half during the process and are then operating under a false sense of security and OD.

I have a sub-mg scale, that wouldn't be the problem, but the process to get the crystals is where the problem is. For this same reason I don't want to extract salvinorin until I have a really big fucking pile of salvia leaves harvested, I don't want to have to scrape together a few mg... especially not since I probably won't attempt it without fashioning something hazmat suit like and sparing no expense to make sure I wash away every spill...
It's quite possible I will never go through for it for accidental ingestion reasons.

 

[Tranced]

I've been given some blotter paper from a friend containing what should be DOB. The dosage is unknown. I can get a tab tested but the test will only tell if it is said substance, not how much of it is on there. Is there a way to figure out the dosage...?

Have you read much.about DOB? Some of the more experienced trippers on here find average doses verging on too much. Personally, its not something I'd take, especially if I didn't know the dose.

I'm not saying you shouldn't, but just be aware of the effects.

 

[Rampelflik]

Thanks everyone!

I was thinking out loud when suggesting the blotter extraction idea. You've got some good points and I see how this can be risky business. I won't attempt it. I'll probably test them sometime in the future, the way Incunabula suggested, by eating a quart of a tab. When that'll be I don't know.

@Tranced: I've read a bit about it. Not very much indeed. And I've only sampled DOC out of the DOx family. I did try DOB-Fly (Edit: I meant Bromo-Dragonfly, not DOB-fly) in the past. How does that one compare to DOB?

 

[Incunabula]

I did try DOB-Fly in the past. How does that one compare to DOB?

Do you mean DOB-Fly or DOB-dragonfly aka bromo-dragonfly? It's not the same. I'm not sure DOB-Fly has ever been openly available.

I haven't tried any of them, even though I actually do have a bit of DOB in my stash. I think you will find it a bit like DOC, but probably more stimulating and maybe a bit longer (But I obviously don't know for sure, also people react differently to drugs, remember that)

Read the DOB PIHKAL entry to get a better idea:
https://erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal062.shtml

Then compare that to the DOC entry, which you have tried:
https://erowid.org/library/books_online/pihkal/pihkal064.shtml

I think you will find a quarter of your blotter, just vaguely stimulating and uplifting, sleep that night difficult or maybe very light. Just guessing of cause, there's no way I could know.

HPLC is for separating substances if there is more than one in there, GC for separating and actual analysis. I guess HPLC followed by MS was meant or alternatively GC/MS.

What confuses me, is that both HPLC and GC just gives you the relative retention times. That's why I don't get why some one would do both. With either LC/MS og GC/MS, the MS data would be used for identification of the analyte, and the chromatographic data would be used for quantification, but as I see it, some kind of reference is needed for that last bit, no matter how you slice it.

Afaik not that many drugs would decompose very significantly just by vaporization, and doesn't GC require only very little sample anyway? Not sure if that is one of the advantages or if just MS (I guess after HPLC if necessary) is usually better.

I think you must be right, because I see GC (often with MS) being used for drug testing. It's just because I've been told that LC is what you use for larger organic molecules, while GC is what you'd use for more volatile analytes, that is things that have low boiling points all ready. It is true that GC requires a really tiny amount of sample, but with HPLC it's usually also just like 10-20 microliters per injection, which is nothing. And it can detect really small concentrations, as long as it's inside the area of linearity. Also, there's a limit to how small sample amounts you can work with anyway.

Without reference sample I don't see what you would do besides NMRing, but perhaps there are other ways to piece together the puzzle - couldn't you MS by figuring out mass of ion fragments? Especially if you narrowed it down a lot before that point.

Exactly, but both NMR and MS are still just qualitative methods. You'll know what you have, but not the concentration. I'm still wondering if all those testing sites really have an endless flow of reference samples from sigma-aldrich, lol, or maybe there's something I'm totally missing.

Okay, looking at it a bit more, they all seem to use either LC/MS or/and GC/MS, but actually only check it! in Austria seem to be doing exact quantification, as well as energy control in Spain, who use UV-spectrometry to quantify, but they only have a limited list of compounds they can do this with, which is MDMA, MDA, amphetamine, methamphetamine, cocaine, ketamine, 2C-B, 2C-I and DMT. So I guess the laboratory they use have references of all the compounds.

https://www.ecstasydata.org/about_data_sources.php

 

[Rampelflik]

Do you mean DOB-Fly or DOB-dragonfly aka bromo-dragonfly? It's not the same. I'm not sure DOB-Fly has ever been openly available.

I mean Bromo-Dragonfly. Sorry for the confusion. I shall edit the post.

 

[Solipsis]

remark @ OP: the premise of this thread may be 'advanced' enough to begin with to make this appropriate for NSP even without the discourse on analysis that ensued?

@inc
Yeah tried to clarify that I don't think HPLC would be followed by GC either, that it's indeed just either with MS.

I wasn't aware of as many specifics on HPLC and never did that one. I like the term "headspace sampler by the way" (@ GC)

Not sure if there is a catch-22 if you have no idea whether your sample is relatively pure or not (but hypothetically you do know that you have no reference sample for it, lets say because you have none at all)... but if pure you could NMR (which could give you a rough idea of purity in many cases I think, as long as impurities are quite minor and only produce extra signals and not so much that the whole thing becomes unintelligible), and the actual purity could be done by chromatographing and maybe there is a way to quantify your major constituent... The point being that NMRing doesn't waste any sample at all really, you just dissolve it and hang the slender tube in there.
If you know it's a mixture I don't know if any microscale chromatography like microscale flash allows you to actually recover your major fraction(s) to put into NMR but I assume so? That may mean though that a blotter sample is just way too small but a regular powder sample may be enough. In my experience they fill an eppendorf tube to a certain level, although I assume that they try to account for very fluffy powders in doing so making some of the submissions very wasteful - on the other hand, it's certainly possible that your submission comes back "untestable" anyway if they don't have enough material.

I am not talking about what a testing lab is willing to do just for an analysis of a mystery compound but if every time you go the full monty with it, you get a new reference sample (could also buy those, expensive but may be less expensive than doing it yourself), could be interesting for labs with enough financing.

In my country there are also only a limited number of substances they test quantitatively, it's done by DSM I believe, outsourced by the government and a number of sample submission locations throughout the land.

I have successfully argued with them before that it is a little arbitrary to only allow powder samples of a certain 'volume' but also accept RCs on blotter which amount to much less material. I don't always have a half eppendorf tube to spare, last time I had to give them about half of my modest sample of 2C-T-2 (hard to say how much is in that baggie actually, that thing is a mess), but if I would not test it I wouldn't use ANY of it.. so better to sacrifice.

 

[Incunabula]

Yes, thanks, I think I see what you mean. There's many different methods and apparatuses' that can test a compounds purity without a reference. In that way, being able to analyse and calculate how many percentages of a tablet is MDMA relative to the total weight, by using either LC/MS or GC/MS or somekind of preanalysis column seperation before hand, then having the density in mind, you could actually calculate the exact amount of MDMA relative to the total weight of the tablet.

But with a blotter that doesn't work, because the analyte is extracted from the medium, which is then discarded.

 

[Rampelflik]

remark @ OP: the premise of this thread may be 'advanced' enough to begin with to make this appropriate for NSP even without the discourse on analysis that ensued?

I might be overlooking something very obvious indeed, but what does NSP stand for...?

 

[Solipsis]

Neuroscience and Pharmacology forum here on BL, formerly known as advanced drug discussion (ADD).

 

[maddee2145]

I've been given some blotter paper from a friend containing what should be DOB. The dosage is unknown. I can get a tab tested but the test will only tell if it is said substance, not how much of it is on there. Is there a way to figure out the dosage...?

If it is 5 mm to 5 mm square blotter paper it contain no more than 3 mg. it is imposible to put more.