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Seperating Levamisole from Cocaine

I

imgood2drivee

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Joined
Jul 11, 2010
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8
We are all well aware of the mass quantities of Levamisole that are now present in a majority of the world's cocaine supply. As of now, there is no easy way to test for it (until Dancesafe's kit comes out) or clean cocaine tainted with Levamisole.

I stumbled across this thread which briefly discusses the problem at hand, but no manageable solution was offered. I thought this would be a good time to reopen discussion.

Any information that's useful is much appreciated. Thanks :)
 
Dont do it. Find an alternative (if you choose) and when the world's coke is clean you'll have a honeymoon due to less tolerance
 
You could always try the method in this thread. Skip through the basic acetone wash tek to the more advanced once using chloroform and diethyl ether.
 
Testing for levamisole should be possible using the already available sodium nitroprusside (simons reagent) the same reagent that is used to detect Meth and distinguish MDA from MDMA
levamisole should give a red colouration. I don't know what color cocaine gives but it is a tertiary amine and should be different.

some ideas for separation based on the chemistry,

the divalent sulfur in levamisole would not survive treatment with potassium permanganate solution. Cocaine does. if the oxidation product is a sulphonic acid then it is soluble in base whereas cocaine is not if the oxidation product is a sulphoxide then it will be insoluble in toluene which disoolves freebase cocaine.

The sulfur in levamisole will bind to zinc, lead, gold, nickel

I'm sure if some of the people here gave this some more thought there is an easy way to remove levamisole,
first off the method would involve freebasing the cocaine which removes most of the junk and the lactose, but not the levamisole then removing or destroying the levamisole then reconversion to the hydrochloride salt.
 
Ok so I've never done anything other than weed a few times and jwh-018 a few times but I'm kinda a drug geek and need to grow some balls and just do something. I want to try coke but I'm afraid of all the cuts like levamisole hurting me too much but should I just say fuck it and do some coke? I want something like coke as a life enhancer in a sense but it's too shady but MDPV and other legal(ish) chemicals seem to be of much use but full of panic attacks and less than clear headedness or just useless like many people report on Dimethocaine. Hopefully this is enough on topic with cocaine as I don't really know where else to put this post.
 
JacksonsJWH-018 said:
Ok so I've never done anything other than weed a few times and jwh-018 a few times but I'm kinda a drug geek and need to grow some balls and just do something. I want to try coke but I'm afraid of all the cuts like levamisole hurting me too much but should I just say fuck it and do some coke? I want something like coke as a life enhancer in a sense but it's too shady but MDPV and other legal(ish) chemicals seem to be of much use but full of panic attacks and less than clear headedness or just useless like many people report on Dimethocaine. Hopefully this is enough on topic with cocaine as I don't really know where else to put this post.
Click to expand...

Not really ADD material, perhaps you might want to try The Dark Side. I'll see if any mods are interested in moving your post for you to a more suitable thread.
 
raybeez said:
You could always try the method in this thread. Skip through the basic acetone wash tek to the more advanced once using chloroform and diethyl ether.
Click to expand...
Can you say why you think this will work exactly?
vecktor said:
Testing for levamisole should be possible using the already available sodium nitroprusside (simons reagent) the same reagent that is used to detect Meth and distinguish MDA from MDMA
levamisole should give a red colouration. I don't know what color cocaine gives but it is a tertiary amine and should be different.

some ideas for separation based on the chemistry,

the divalent sulfur in levamisole would not survive treatment with potassium permanganate solution. Cocaine does. if the oxidation product is a sulphonic acid then it is soluble in base whereas cocaine is not if the oxidation product is a sulphoxide then it will be insoluble in toluene which disoolves freebase cocaine.

The sulfur in levamisole will bind to zinc, lead, gold, nickel

I'm sure if some of the people here gave this some more thought there is an easy way to remove levamisole,
first off the method would involve freebasing the cocaine which removes most of the junk and the lactose, but not the levamisole then removing or destroying the levamisole then reconversion to the hydrochloride salt.
Click to expand...
Great post, thanks. I'll have to give it a go sometime soon.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned that the Simon's Reagent before. That would be huge.
 
imgood2drivee said:
Can you say why you think this will work exactly?
Click to expand...

Sorry, ignore the ether part, both are insoluble.

For chloroform though:

Cocaine HCl solubility in chloroform is reported to be 1 gram/12.5 ml solvent in that thread I linked.

Levamisole hydrochloride:

Properties: white or light yellow crystalline powder, odorless, bitter taste with astringency. Soluble in water, methanol, slightly soluble in ethanol, very slightly soluble in chloroform, insoluble in acetone.
 
Not really ADD material, perhaps you might want to try The Dark Side. I'll see if any mods are interested in moving your post for you to a more suitable thread.
Click to expand...

Actually, "Other Drugs" is likely to offer the best information, likely already long-ago posted, obtainable via search.

ebola
 
levamisole = ..and they wonder why kids of today are popping legal highs!?
 
I'm surprised no one else has mentioned that the Simon's Reagent before. That would be huge.
Click to expand...

Simons, being a secondary amine test will also show positive with some other adulterants, at least one or two sometimes seen in this part of the world. A positive with Simons should really be followed up with other reagent tests.

Liebermann's reagent gives a red orange with levamisole, cocaine a yellow. Mandelin gives a gray-green, while pure cocaine shouldn't react, or only produce a very pale pink on standing.
 
phase_dancer said:
Simons, being a secondary amine test will also show positive with some other adulterants, at least one or two sometimes seen in this part of the world. A positive with Simons should really be followed up with other reagent tests.

Liebermann's reagent gives a red orange with levamisole, cocaine a yellow. Mandelin gives a gray-green, while pure cocaine shouldn't react, or only produce a very pale pink on standing.
Click to expand...

phase_dancer said:
Simons, being a secondary amine test will also show positive with some other adulterants, at least one or two sometimes seen in this part of the world. A positive with Simons should really be followed up with other reagent tests.

Liebermann's reagent gives a red orange with levamisole, cocaine a yellow. Mandelin gives a gray-green, while pure cocaine shouldn't react, or only produce a very pale pink on standing.
Click to expand...
Good info, thanks. Apologies for the late response.

Does Liebermann's produce a red-orange for any other adulturants that you are aware of? And it appears that if you wish to purchase a kit prepared by a lab you have to present government ID at many of the police/government online superstores. I looked up the ingredient list and it contains a substance on the Watched Chemicals List which makes me a bit wary of ordering it. Any ideas?
 
would polar, non-polar extract play with the different polaritys of the two substance? or would the levamisole go base as well??? do they have the same properties as going from salts to bases??
 
vecktor said:
Testing for levamisole should be possible using the already available sodium nitroprusside (simons reagent) the same reagent that is used to detect Meth and distinguish MDA from MDMA
levamisole should give a red colouration. I don't know what color cocaine gives but it is a tertiary amine and should be different.

some ideas for separation based on the chemistry,

the divalent sulfur in levamisole would not survive treatment with potassium permanganate solution. Cocaine does. if the oxidation product is a sulphonic acid then it is soluble in base whereas cocaine is not if the oxidation product is a sulphoxide then it will be insoluble in toluene which disoolves freebase cocaine.

The sulfur in levamisole will bind to zinc, lead, gold, nickel

I'm sure if some of the people here gave this some more thought there is an easy way to remove levamisole,
first off the method would involve freebasing the cocaine which removes most of the junk and the lactose, but not the levamisole then removing or destroying the levamisole then reconversion to the hydrochloride salt.
Click to expand...

A sample of cocaine HCl known to be adultrated with ~10% levamisole was tested with Simon reagents A&B from Dancesafe. After a minute or so, an enduring reddish/pink color appeared. Unfortunately the tester did not have samples of pure levamisole or pure cocaine for use as controls.

If I get more information from the tester, I'll post it here.

Thanks to vecktor for putting his big brain toward solving this ugly levamisole problem. If your ideas work, we will have a simple solution for both identification and purification of levamisole tainted cocaine.
 
Yes, but there are problems with the "commercially available" test kit: (1) It's not actually available commercially and never has been, and (2) It's more complicated than a standard reagent test kit in terms of both making and using the kit.

Don't get me wrong -- It's an ingenious idea, for sure. But if Simons reagent works well enough, and I'm not saying it does, then clearly it's the simpler, cheaper way to go. And it's something people can actually get their hands on.
 
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