Cocaine Levamisole Removal

[happydaze21]

To all the blow pros......would precip'ing blow to true FB and then returning to HCL remove this bad cut. I'm hearing conflicting info so I wanted to get the boards opinion. As I believe all is now tainted and will not touch with a ten foot pole.

 

[sekio]

No, levamisole is an alkaloid and remains in the freebasing process.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

I don't believe there is a way to remove it at all.

It might be better to find a new/different DOC.

 

[happydaze21]

Thanks for the affirmation. That is what I suspected and stopped using from the street. Any craving for stims is met with 7.5-15mg of addy. At least I can say I have been dewormed if I ever had any tapeworms or such.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

Ingestion of levamisole by humans is very dangerous, its a immuno-suppressant and reduces your white blood cell count. Bad news.

 

[Newbierock]

Couple that with the less than healthy lifestyle of your average cokehead, and you got a recipe for disaster.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

Exactly. I mean, I can understand why they're using it as a cutting agent, and that some people are going to do cocaine no matter what its cut with...but sooner or later the distributors are going to realize its bad for business.

 

[happydaze21]

I wonder what percentage is the levamisole/ product ratio. I assume its 5-10% max if that? Any more any people would be dropping like flies. Wonder if its S. Americans , Mexican cartels or DEA that's actually doing this.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

I doubt the DEA is doing it. They have a habit of just destroying drugs. You're thinking of the CIA

The South Americans are working with the Mexicans (following the fall of the South American cartels and the rise of the Mexican cartels), so its pretty hard to tell. The DEA reports say anything from 70-90% of the all the cocaine tested contains levamisole. I don't know how accurate that number is but I don't think its entirely a scare tactic.

 

[happydaze21]

Yeah the CIA and other unknown intelligence agencies.....although they may be in afghanistan playing with the poppies. My guess is that most product leaves S. America as paste and is salted in Mexico. So it may be the Mexican cartels who are adding this active cut. They seem to be making everything from meth to tar H so its not hard to believe that they are the ones refining this also. Their quick rise to power though orderly and ruthless actions just reeks of help and knowledge from other well developed nations.

 

[Barricade]

Exactly. I mean, I can understand why they're using it as a cutting agent, and that some people are going to do cocaine no matter what its cut with...but sooner or later the distributors are going to realize its bad for business.

I have a sneaky suspicion that is may be the agent which boosts the return when you wash Coke - although not by any means pure I have been coming across coke which gives almost 100pc return and seems to have a shiny aspect to it which I never got with proper coke. Nigerian dealers have referred to it as "magic."
It's relatively new in Ireland, past few years but is becoming increasingly popular. The Coke also does not dissolve properly in water, despite being seemingly of good quality.

It could make sense since the cut comes from high up the food chain.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[Transform]

Interesting comment here from vecktor on using potassium permanganate to oxidise out levamisole.

http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/...from-Cocaine?p=8869518&viewfull=1#post8869518

 

[swim420]

Hi All !

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 !

 

[speedballs_over]

^^ you're going to have to have some lab equipment and decent wet chemistry lab skills to pull this off without significant loss of product. I'd expect about a 60% return based upon recent DEA assays of cocaine and it's adulterants this processes might remove.

Get an ounce, try it on an eight ball and if it works do it by 1/4z batches in case you fuck up. Doing this with just one eight ball is asking for frustration. You'll probably not do well first try. Maybe get benzocaine or lidocaine and try it on that and see if you get a 90% or higher return (calculate properly!) of the compound - without reagents/pharmaceutical fillers / diluants as contaminants. Check pH along the way, you don't want to lose product to incorrect pH levels along the way. Cocaine salts are so highly water soluble and freebase not at all, that this should work well, but you may just make crack out of cut to hell cocaine, calculate a 90% return and actually have the same product you bought. But likely you can get this to work - practice. Be awake, sober and not in a hurry.

Could work very well, I agree. It's just not for small amounts or the unskilled, and without lab grade glassware and stir plate, vacuum filtration, etc it'll be slower and more fine motor skill dependent. Vacuum filtration with lab grade appropriate type filtration papers, along the way is strongly advised! Good luck with this...

 

[swim420]

Hi speedballs !

Yes - it's slow and patience is a real necessity but it did work reasonably well.
Yes glassware and wet chemistry experience are both needed!
Didn't have vac filtration but a heater stirrer and a nice accurate balance really help - it's usually better to work to weight than try to measure very small volumes.

Also assumed a 90% return and calculated exact quantities of reagents needed - and cross checked the yield along the way to adjust each stage to a desired excess.
(eg you can dry and weigh the base and know how many milli-mole you got - the first reduction is kinda scary !)

The main place you need to know the exact quantity is right at the end when using HCl to precipitate cocaine salt back out.
If you add excess it will burn your nose like a mo-fo! Too little and you're just wasting product.
In the other steps a sensible excess (~10 percent) over stoichiometric requirements is just fine.

In the end from a test run of 10g source (a bit less than 1/2 ounce) returned approx 50% which is in line with your guess and actually quite acceptable.
It's an occasional indulgence so the preference is for quality over quantity.... and it was better for sure !

So - are there any other improvements good people have figured out?

- a way to assay for Levamisole - even a commercial test?
It would be very interesting to see a comparison before/after and know if anything we're suggesting actually helps!
It's only a theory at this point that cocaine-sulphate survives oxidation by KMnO4 better than Levamisole...

- some have suggested that during inversion from salt to base, start by adding a small amount (10% of expected total) ammonia and stirring (glass rod) to pull out the the first precipitates (by sticking to the glass rod) and discarding them.
These were described as "white jelly like" rather than the hard precipitate you expect from cocaine-base.
This is based on the theory that these are not cocaine but actually other alkaloids that you don't want anyway.
Maybe Levamisole would also change phase before cocaine? maybe it comes out last and the trick is to use 10% less ammonia than 1:1 stoichiometric amount?

- any other "cleans" that people have tried and found to work?

Maybe it's overkill already?! - 4 phase inversions and and oxidation stage... not too bad. That should pull out any other alkaloids that they didn't bother to oxidise completely in wherever it was made to begin with and there is definitely an observed black solid precipitate at that stage so something is coming out for sure. Just don't know if it's the levamisole or not...

Anyway - thanks for the reply. Happy to go into the exact method used, quantities and observations step by step if you are interested?