spectrometer test results

[hydroazuanacaine]

new light has shed itself on these results. 3 and 4 are mixed up. #4 is 4-ho-met misidentified as psilocin. #3 is 4-aco-dmt actually cut with cement and cellulose, not from a vendor.

i received results from a series of substances tested with a spectrometer (checked first by the Bruker Alpha II (infrared) and then by the MX908 (high pressure mass).

can you help me interpert the odd ones?

list goes: #. machine result -- what i suspected it to be (source)

1. unknown -- this is likely 3-meo-pce (vendor)
2. cocaine -- cocaine (posh dealer)
3. cellulose/cement/tryptamine -- 4-ho-met (vendor) WRONG
4. psilocin -- 4-aco-dmt (a friend) WRONG
5. mannitol/lactose -- crushed suboxone pill (friend) WRONG
6. etizolam -- etizolam (vendor)
7. bromazolam -- bromazolam (vendor)

all vendors are the same vendor, supplied by a giant lab we know.

3. the one i am most curios about is 3, the 4-ho-met. why would it come back as cement? i have ingested the drug and its effects perfectly match that of 4-ho-met.

4. did the 4-aco-dmt degrade into 4-ho-dmt or is this likely a mistake in interpreting the results?

i submitted 9 samples and only got 7 results. i think they did not test a piece of blotter supposedly containing 1cp and i cannot remember the 9th sample.


i am no longer in possession of any of these substances and search of my property would not result in the finding of anything illegal. every sample submitted was the last bit.

 

[S.J.B.]

What kind of spectrometer? And do you have the spectra or just the conclusions?

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

just the conclusions.

"each sample will be checked first by the Bruker Alpha II (infrared) and then by the MX908 (high pressure mass)."

 

[G_Chem]

Just another example of how incompetent these “lab analysts” really are...

What about the “suboxone”? Did you feel anything? You’d know if you had buprenorphine or not.

-GC

 

[sekio]

I can explain a few of these. It looks like they are limiting their results to known library matches and not "thinking like a toxicologist". So they presumably have a big database of many compounds, just not every possible one. If you give it a material that differs in spectrum enough from a known standard you will either get eroneous or "unknown" results from picking the closest known structures to whatever your tested compound happens to be.

This would explain why you get the 4-AcO-DMT as psilocin - there is no entry for 4-AcO-DMT in their database and it is the closest homologue that they can match it to. And presumably they don't have any higher tryptamine analogues so 4-HO-MET is different enough to be regarded as a total unknown. Same with 3-MeO-PCE - no result.

Neither of these analysis methods have a seperation step in them so they will be limited to deteriming the major components of the mixture. A pill that only contains 1% drug or less (Suboxone would surely count, also stuff like thyroid horomone, ergot alkaloids, or clonidine) will therefore appear to be binder. This could be fixed by a rapid solvent extraction of the pill contents but that entails sample handling and labor beyond what the average volunteer drug tester is capable of.

Back when I was doing under-the-table GCMS analysis I would always also provide the actual spectra and the chromatogram as well as the % analysis report - and more than once I would manually correct the % analysis report to give a more coherent readout (i.e. replace IUPAC names with common ones, annotate other possibilites etc) - I wonder how many people would contribute to a GoFundMe to buy me a old GCMS setup for "free" analyses of drugs...

The SWGDRUG produces a database of mass spectra of many unique drugs of abuse, I found it invaluable, and it DOES contain spectra for stuff like 3-MeO-PCP! Maybe you should mention that to your testing organization. No idea if the 908 or whatever fancy-pants machine they use can read the files, but it's worth an ask.

My verdict: A for effort, but minus several hundred points for style. Probably works OK for the standard bulk abusable drugs though - heroin, cocaine, amphetamines. GC-MS with interpretation by a trained/qualified individual (and not just the software doing a quick library match) is still the gold standard.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

thank you so much for the detailed explanation.

i am 100 percent sure the suboxone was from a pharmacy, so your explanation of binder versus active ingredient makes sense. i actually did not even mean to submit that as a sample; it was a baggie i use to package the other samples and the nonprofit tested it on their own accord.

sorry to ask for more, but can you comment on the cement result in the 4-ho-met sample? is it really possibly there is cement in this lab's 4-ho-met? it is the giant lab we all know of for RCs.

 

[sekio]

What kind of cement? Portland cement? I highly doubt it. Even so, that would be what, inorganic calcium and silica, which would be (obviously) insoluble. In fact, sufficiently basic cement compounds might be basic enough to convert a salt to freebase - I have heard of cement/mortar mix being used as a source of lime to extract coca in the bush. Seems very unlikely. Easily disproved by seeing if you can make a clear solution in water. (cement is obviously insoluble).

As you say, bioassay is strongly indicative that your 4-ho-met is not cement. And it is also from a reliable vendor. Bit suspicious it says there's cellulose, but again, easily verified by seeing if it's soluble in water without viscocity or precipitation.

Do you have the option to ask for the specific data files (which should be an IR spectrum and ideally a MS spectrum too)? Those would be key in determining what you have - even if the machine says it's cement a skilled enough operator can compare with known standards and use their noggin.

Alternatively, if you are confident your compound is what it is & it is of reasonable purity, maybe they can add it to their databases incase they run into it later. Same with the 3-MeO-PCE.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i will have to follow up with them tomorrow, as it would be rude this time of night. if possible, i will obtain the data files. and confirm that the "unknown" is powder and not the 1cp. maybe because it was blotter they did not want to put it in the machines? i don't know how these tests work. i will ask them.

is it possible the cement is the result of the sample being delivered in tinfoil? though all samples were, except the suboxone which again i did not even mean to submit. i don't know what color thsolution the 4-ho-met created. obviously clear, once pushed through a .22um wheel filter. i know it isn't cement; i'm wondering if it contains cement. it isn't cement because it makes you see colors that cement would not.

 

[sekio]

I don't think the tinfoil has anything to do with it, tinfoil is normally elemental aluminum, which is not a constituent of any cement I know (usually calcium silicate/carbonate/sulfate and silicon dioxide are common cement ingredients, but I don't make the stuff so that's just an educated guess)

As I understand it, the way those tests work is thusly:

Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy:
A light source shines a pulse of broad-spectrum infrared light through, or at your sample, and the transmitted/reflected light is recieved and convereted into a graph, showing the various frequencies of light and how well the compound absorbs them. From the frequencies/wavelength of light and the "shapes" of the absorbtion bands that are formed, you can make some guesses about functional groups (specific arrangements of certain atoms) in whatever you happen to be looking at. Or you can look at the spectrum as a whole, and use it as a "fingerprint" - which is what I think they are doing.

Mass Spectroscopy
The input sample is either heated, zapped with a laser or electron source, or some other method is used to generate a stream of molecules with electric charges (ions). From there, a detector uses a (usually variable) electromagnetic field to focus the trajectory of any molecule with a certain "mass to charge ratio" to the detector, and a sensitive detector of electrical current hooked to an amplifier. With that setup you can not only see the mass of the molecule in question but usually also it breaks down into smaller ions in a repeatable way, again giving you hints to its structure or the ability to use it as a "fingerprint" in a database search.

The HPMS seems like just a fancy pants way of directly collecting MS data without any special sample preparation. It's not really a susbtitute for a "full" GCMS but it is very much better than a reagent test.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

what about the MX908 (high pressure mass)? is that "fucll gcms," or something else?

i still don't understand how cement is showing up in the 4-ho-met. i do not have any more of it because it is likely not legal where i live, but if i did i would include another sample of it in the second batch of testing to see if this was a fluke (like something on someone's hands, an implement used to handle the substance, something on the counter when it was being put into foil, etc.) or if the world's most popular source of a wonderful psych contains detectable levels of cement.

Just another example of how incompetent these “lab analysts” really are...

What about the “suboxone”? Did you feel anything? You’d know if you had buprenorphine or not.

-GC

i think they did good. concerning the subs, it's suboxone from a pharmacy. without question. it was dust in a bag i was reusing. sekio offered an explanation of how it was not detected. 8mg of bupe in a pill weighing almost 400mg. kind of annoying they tested that but not the blotter. in part my fault. i showed up with a bunch of unlabeled substances, folded up squares of tinfoil, and put in a baggie with suboxone residue in it. i did not know how i was supposed to package them.

what i am most surprised by is they were able to differentiate something as obscure as bromazolam. no, i take that back; i am most surprised by the cement.

 

[vecktor]

these tests FTIR and HPMS are quick and dirty.
Both these tests are the kind of presumtive initial test that for example Customs and Border people use on unknown white powders, when you see idiots in uniforms with star trek tricorders testing they are using HPMS or Raman. The drug testing at festivals is usually FTIR, because even the most incompetent will not screw it up too badly (most of the time.) They have replaced test strips and colour tests a bit but they are very expensive.

with FTIR like the bruker alpha needs the reference spectra in the machine, guess what? "substances of concern" to the police and authorities are in the database, those that are not of concern are not. I haven't looked at the database for about a year but it used to have every flavour of cathinone and benzo under the sun and a load of opioids but a lot of missing psychedelics.

The high pressure MS is the same, the spectra it produces doesn't match normal MS spectra such as the NIST database so only reference spectra for that type of machine are useful for ID,
Far from being equivalent to GC-MS, The mx908 is a repurposed chemical weapons detector designed for morons, it is not a forensic or analytical tool. I have seen one at work and was highly unimpressed, it didn't ping when it should have, bad news if it is a highly toxic chemical weapon, not so important with drugs or explosives.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

are you all suggesting that these testing systems are not worth utilizing?

i found that the bromazolam being legit instead of just being some common mass produced benzo like etizolam or flualprazolam of value.

i would like to continue to utilize the resource if of value. if not, what accessible and affordable resource is?

 

[vecktor]

are you all suggesting that these testing systems are not worth utilizing?

i found that the bromazolam being legit instead of just being some common mass produced benzo like etizolam or flualprazolam of value.

i would like to continue to utilize the resource if of value. if not, what accessible and affordable resource is?

no I am not saying that at all, I am saying they are quick and dirty and designed for (and usually operated by) morons so treat the results accordingly. If it is free or cheap then it is worth it because it most likely will pick up dangerous adulturants such as fentanyls in fake medicinal opioids. Beyond that it is guidance only.

FTIR
if the drug is not in the database = no hit most people cannot interpret an IR spectrum without a reference, especially a poor quality one from ATR so it will match to nearest match whatever that is but the machine has no intuition.
if the drug is impure FTIR will not see the fact it is impure, it is a noisy test, and the samples often produce poor quality spectra.

High Pressure MS and ion mobility MS
same problem, plus it suffers badly from ion suppression and matrix effects so sometimes it will just not see something at all which you know is there which is why I am leery of it. The demo I saw failed to see a known OP simulant which if it was for real would have killed you.

there are still no tricorders that work reliably and accurately out outside of Star Trek.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

can we help them build their database if i label the samples i know for sure (e.g. 3-meo-pce and 4-aco-dmt) or is that just fantasy talk as well?

of course one can only be so sure.

 

[vecktor]

can we help them build their database if i label the samples i know for sure (e.g. 3-meo-pce and 4-aco-dmt) or is that just fantasy talk as well?

of course one can only be so sure.

how are you sure it is what you say it is?
In theory they may add the results to their own database, they can have their own database so the results would be: hit against unverfied, non certified reference.
Ask them.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

well sounds like it's impossible to be100 percent sure unless you synth it yourself, but there are some where i'm 99.9 percent. i will ask. thanks.

 

[Xorkoth]

I sent some samples to what I believe to be the same organization with the same testing procedures as you did, based on location and such. My samples were for very rare things and they did not have a reference sample... none of them came back accurate (I later got them GC/MS analyzed and confirmed they are what I thought they were). I wrote back to my friend who is involved in that organization to let them know that reference spectra they got for those substances are accurate for what I claimed them to be, hopefully they can add them to their database. I posted my spectra results that my friend screen shot on here, and was told that there's no way to really positively identify something they don't have a reference spectra for already.

Basically for the drugs most people are going to try to identify, it's a quick cheap way of verifying. But for unusual things it's useless until they can build up more information.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

I sent some samples to what I believe to be the same organization with the same testing procedures as you did, based on location and such. My samples were for very rare things and they did not have a reference sample... none of them came back accurate (I later got them GC/MS analyzed and confirmed they are what I thought they were). I wrote back to my friend who is involved in that organization to let them know that reference spectra they got for those substances are accurate for what I claimed them to be, hopefully they can add them to their database. I posted my spectra results that my friend screen shot on here, and was told that there's no way to really positively identify something they don't have a reference spectra for already.

Basically for the drugs most people are going to try to identify, it's a quick cheap way of verifying. But for unusual things it's useless until they can build up more information.

You sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

well we are going to help them build that info. or at least i am. strange we are using the same organization, as i believe we live in different cities. maybe you simply like that the service is free. are you mailing them in? are you talking about CRA, @Xorkoth?

 

[Xorkoth]

We do but I have a good friend in your city (from BL actually - also I grew up in your city) who is training to become a psychedelic therapist and is involved with the organization that developed the quick test spectra devices. It might not be the same organization but I believe it is. Honestly I forget what the name of the organization is, I only did it through my friend, I mailed him some sample and he had them run them, give their results, and then took phone pictures of the spectra readout and sent them to me.