Hi All !
Great discussion thread - love the refinements to the base conversion - good attention to purity !
Wondering if there has been any progress in testing or removal methods for getting Levamisole and/or other junk out of cocaine?
(separating levamisole from Cocaine was the old thread but that died before a definitive result was discussed.)
Swim's done a few carefully controlled experiments with multiple inversions and permanganate oxidation but can't find an easy way to test for Levamisole so it's all a bit "in the blind" right now. It can be said that the coke cleans up well and from a decent source there is about 50% recovery with the following method:
(One can estimate the initial purity and as you go along you can assay (by weight and estimated purity) how many milli moles are present at each stage and adapt the reagent quantities accordingly.
1) Invert Cocaine HCl to base with bicarbonate (Typically 1g bicarb per 3g "street coke")
2) wash with clean hot water - cream colored solid
3) dissolve in H2SO4 - clear solution
4) add small qty KMnO4 (dropwise from conc. sol'n) and observe black precipitate. The bright purple KMnO4 solution rapidly fades and the solution clears - if you add waaay too much then it stays purple!
5) separate off the clear solution. I found it better to use a fine pipette to suck up the black precipitate and throw that away than the other way around.
6) neutralize and invert back to base with ammonia.
7) wash with hot water
8) dry - really dry it guys

9) dissolve in anhydrous acetone (prepared earlier)
10) add a small amount (calculated from estimates No moles of cocaine base) HCl - max conc. Aq sol'n.
11) seal to prevent absorption of water vapor from air and allow to precipitate for a few hours.
12) filter precipitate and wash with fresh clean anhydrous acetone
13) dry
Voila - nicely cleaned Cocaine.
SWIM said it was very smooth, strong (line for line) and produced a real coke high - not speedy or panicky - like the good old real coke days.
Notes:
a) assuming you start with HCl form there are 4 phase inversions here and washes at each step so normal contaminants like sugar cuts etc will be gone for sure.
b) if they did not sufficiently oxidise other alkaloids where they first made it then the oxidation step with KMnO4 will finish that for you and the hope was that this would also destroy some of the Levamisole - this is the part that would be really nice to test and know for sure !
c) other anesthetics (benzocaine, lignocaine, ...) will survive just like the cocaine - they're harder to get out...
Has anyone tried something similar?
Does anyone know of an available assay for levamisole?
Thanks !