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Shulgins MDMA Doses 84% or 100%?

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futura2012

futura2012

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Been discussing MDMA purity on ED.

Wondering if you can clarify a couple of questions we are stuck on.


When Shulgin reports a 120mG hit of MDMA.

Does he mean he is actually taking 120mG pure MDMA + Acid Bonded Molecule

or

Does he mean he is taking 120mG HCL (only 84% pure)


On the same topic can you clarify when ecstasydata say pill is 120mG. Does this mean the pill is 120mG pure MDMA + Acid Bonded Molecule or does it mean 120mG of MDMA HCL.

The other weird thing about ecstasydata is they say they wont report salts or isomers due to DEA reporting restrictions. If this is the case must we assume 120mG means 120mG of MDMA + Acid Molecule. otherwise if it were say a phosphate pill the data would be inaccurate.

Pills they test in USA have no mG quantity but the ones in Europe do. This question only applies to the European measurements with mGs specified.

Many thanks for your time looking into this :)
 
given that MDMA freebase is also an oil, it's almost certainly a salt, and again, most likely the hydrochloride
 
When Sasha talks about a dose being "120mg" he is assuredly talking about the hydrochloride salt. MDMA freebase is just too much of a mess to handle, and it's rare that you ever see any other counterion other than HCl.

I would expect most reported doses to be "normalised" to the HCl salt dosage, as MDMA freebase is not commonly seen. Either way you could resolve the dispute by simply asking one of the euro labs whether or not they are accounting for the HCl.
 
Is it most commonly HCl 'in the wild'? Meth is usually a sulfate, i understand correctly, in the US, anyway. I think amphetamine is usually sulfate in the UK. not sure about the mainland of the continent.
 
I was under the impression that methamphetamine and MDMA are ususally the HCl. Mescaline and amphetamine are usually sulphate. Amp is sometimes the phosphate too though.

Of course crude "shake and bake" methamphetamine can be any counterion really.

All I know is that most people don't deal with freebase material and so documented doses are usually going to be for some sort of salt. (The Adderall prescribing guide does note the equivalent dose of amp base though).
 
Okay so just so I get this straight.

If I have 84% MDMA HCL and I want to take a classic 120mg dose as described by Shulgin do I take that 120mg or should I bump the dose up to account for the 16% acid molecule?
 
A tiny, tiny, tiny amount of knowledge can be a very, very, very dangerous thing. Oh and confusing too! Cripes.
 
If you want to take a dose of 120mg MDMA like Shulgin, take a dose of 120mg. Shulgin didn't report freebase doses he reported salts almost all the time.

PiHKAL said:
This was dissolved in IPA, neutralized with of concentrated HCl, and then treated with anhydrous Et2O. After filtering off the white crystals, washing, there was obtained 42.0 g of 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) as a fine white crystal
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I don't see why this is so hard. Shulgin lists all of his compounds as either salt or freebase forms. Generally only the tryptamines are ever seen as f/b - all the phens are HCl salts except mescaline I think.

Don't overhtink it.
 
He does in his synth clearly produce MDMA HCL.

But then following on from sekios quote extract he also states:

The actual form that the final salt takes depends upon the temperature and concentration at the moment of the initial crystallization. It can be anhydrous, or it can be any of several hydrated forms. Only the anhydrous form has a sharp mp; the published reports describe all possible one degree melting point values over the range from 148-153 ° C. The variously hydrated polymorphs have distinct infrared spectra, but have broad mps that depend on the rate of heating.
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If he is commenting on the crystals containing various hydrated forms surely this means if he is quoting MDMA HCL then its like saying > I ingested 120mG MDMA HCL + or - however much water is in what ever crystals I might have produced.

This wouldnt make sense to me. Everything else he does seems so quantified.

Does this not mean the 120mG is infact 120mG of MDMA molecule?

given that MDMA freebase is also an oil, it's almost certainly a salt, and again, most likely the hydrochloride
Click to expand...

The issue here is the assumption of HCL. The pills dont always contain HCL. Phosphates and Acetates are rarely reported in pills but they are out there (they are often sniffed out in forensic analysis)(as I understand it GC/MS cannot detect salt ionic bonds). Tartrates are also a reality.

Either way you could resolve the dispute by simply asking one of the euro labs whether or not they are accounting for the HCl.
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Yes good point I will do exactly that.

If it turns out they are only reporting the amount of MDMA Salt in the pill (which what i read about gcms i think they are) then in the case of alternative salt forms the mG quantity doesnt really tell you much. In a sense the GCMS would then be "fooled"

Another thought I had is Defqons, Green Lacostes, 250 bombs are GCMSed to contain mamouth MDMA doses such as 200mG+. I sometimes wonder if they are adding heavily weighted acid molecules to trick the GCMS labs and measure high MDMA content when infact 200mG might only be 100mG of MDMA molecule if a heavy acid molecule were selected.

MDMA - 193.2 Molecular Mass
Hydrochloric Acid - 36.46 Molecular Mass
Phosphoric Acid - 98 Molecular Mass

If GCMS is measuring MDMA content as the salt combination.

200mG MDMA Phosphate Pill would contain 66% 132mG of actual MDMA molecule
200mG MDMA Hydrochloride Pill would contain 84% 168mG of actual MDMA molecule

if the GCMS could be "tricked" the defqon lab would save 36mG MDMA per pill. As I understand it the salt also produces a different absorption speed and thus a different buzz.

Chemical profiling of MDMA Tablets - Phosphate Pills Detected & Reported

http://www.4shared.com/folder/i3RtojPn/Tablets.html



MDMA Tartrate.



MDMA Tartrate Single Crystal
 
Hmm.. something so ridiculously simple has generated so much conversation.

why are people so stupid?
 
On ED the issue of dose comes up all the time.

The 84% is in constant debate. Over pills, salts, mdma rocks etc.

I was hoping someone might have an answer.

Sekio is right contacting edata will solve the question about their tests.

I guess with shulgin assume 120mG is of HCL but I dont know for sure. The reason shulgin was mentioned because that serves as a reference point to try and clarify.
 
futura2012 said:
If he is commenting on the crystals containing various hydrated forms surely this means if he is quoting MDMA HCL then its like saying > I ingested 120mG MDMA HCL + or - however much water is in what ever crystals I might have produced.
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There's no facile way to account for all possible multiplicities of hydration. At MDMA's low level of potency, its a non-issue for everything but melting point analysis. Assume its the unhydrated HCl salt (as the freebase is a caustic oil).
 
There's no facile way to account for all possible multiplicities of hydration. At MDMA's low level of potency, its a non-issue for everything but melting point analysis. Assume its the unhydrated HCl salt (as the freebase is a caustic oil).
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Thats a very valid point.

What about the GC/MS tests at edata do you have any thoughts on that? particularly if other salts are in some of the pills.

As sekio said contacting then will clear it up but what would be your thoughts?
 
In a GC/MS a drug sample is normaly prepared with a base so that the GC/MS can scan for the freebase which also has a lot lower boiling point as you can not analyze samples with a very high boiling point like MDMA-sulphate which would decompose before evaporating.

Evaporating works for example for methamphetamine-HCl but also im not sure if you could inject methamphetamine.HCl directly onto the GC/MS column.

Plain Amphetamine is normally the sulphate because the hydrochloride is very hygroscopic and not easy to sell/handle/store or even to crystallize.


For calculating the amount fo mdma in a Pill with GC/MS you would normally do the following:

Get a reference from a reliable supplier like Sigma-Aldrich, do a calibration curve (or do all measurements with internal standard doesn't matter)
Take like 10mg of the Pill solve it in water 0.2mL Water then basify and extract with like 0.2mL EE or ether or whatever. Measure it out, calculate the concentration with your calibration curve and now you have the absolute concentration of MDMA in the 10mg. Calculate on the whole mass of the pill and voalia your done. Now you can calculate the amount of mg of MDMA as the HCl salt, the sulpahte salt, phosphate salt whatever doesn't matter the amount MDMA stays the same.

And Im pretty sure Shulgin meant the HCl salt. Anyway it wouldn't be such a problem if you will "overdose" with like 16% you will not die or anything so relax take 120mg and just give a shit about what salt it is.
 
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Rule of thumb: treat all doses for MDMA as the HCl salt unless explicity specified otherwise.

Nobody handles MDMA as a freebase. Every. Single. Synthesis. I have seen has a final HCl/acid salting. (and yeah 99% of the time its hcl).

Torabora is right, GCMS generally analyses drugs as freebase. But there are specific counterion tests you can do to test for the presence of certain salts - for instance silver nitrate will form a clloudy ppt of silver chloride in a HCl salt, and barium salts will ppt out if exposed to sulphate. So it's not like it's "impossible" to get an accurate number.

In the end though - what does it matter? Your MDMA isnt going to be 100% pure and if you can get away with 85% of the "supposed" dose then all the more power to you.
 
this whole thread is pointless as dosing changes over time with tolerance so you can never have the exact same experience as someone else no matter what the dose...

life is subjective
 
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