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Turning Cocaine to Plastics

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negrogesic

negrogesic

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I just came across this in the Feb 2009 Microgram, and was wondering how they were going about it....

Feb-SFL4-Cocaine-Plastic.jpg


PROTECTIVE PLASTIC COVER (CONTAINING COCAINE) IN COLOMBIA

The DEA Southeast Laboratory (Miami, Florida) recently received a magazine page coated in a thick plastic “protective” covering (see Photo 10); the plastic was suspected to contain cocaine. The exhibit was provided to DEA special agents in Bogota, Colombia (details sensitive). Analysis of the plastic (thickness approximately 1 millimeter, total net mass 14.2 grams) by GC/FID, GC/MS, and FTIR/ATR confirmed 21.5 % cocaine base (equalling 3.1 grams of cocaine base) adulterated with levamisole. Intelligence provided to the DEA special agents indicates that this plastic is being used to coat calendars, photos, and similar items, and is also being added into automobile paints. This is the first submission of this type exhibit to the Southeast Laboratory
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It's got an alcohol group and a carboxylic acid group (well the alkaloid cocaine is derived from, ecognine has), so in theory you could polymerize it by forming long chains of alternating ester linkages; after all nylon is just that applied to amides as opposed to esters. As for actual cocaine being present, probably just thrown into the mix while preparing it. They obviously have some way of breaking it down to constituent components at the item's destination
 
Thanks for the explanation F&B...

The strange thing is that this polymerized cocaine is, "being added into automobile paints"....
 
You could probably just mix the cocaine with a water soluble polymer such as polyvinyl alcohol and it'd set up as a tough transparent film when dry. Just boil it back into solution and acid-base extract the coke back out. Getting it back out of automobile paint doesn't sound as much fun.

Any theories why coke is adulterated with a hog dewormer (levamisole)?
 
^for a laugh maybe, probably there is a surplus locally near the producers (of the coke) and maybe they pass the poisonings on to the end consumer. how thoughtfull

another reason not to buy this overpriced badly made crap from greedy criminals...
 
Let's just be clear that this isn't REALLY plasticized cocaine, this is just cocaine in plastic. While cocaine could theoretically be polymerized, it's unlikely and breaking it back down might cause some unwanted byproducts.
 
if it really was polymerised cocaine then the standard field tests would be negative, this is not the case.the Colombians have been dissolving cocaine in resins for at least a decade, large objects have been made of it, for example entire suitcases, and surfboards.

why don't they convert it into an uncontrolled dervative for the very risky shipping step then convert it back once it is inside the destination country? that would be a LE nightmare.
 
I have a feeling that the chemistry for that would be pretty hectic in terms of preserving yields and not having dangerous byproducts.
 
vecktor, if it is so, then every chemist will have a much harder time in ordering chemicals. The controlled list will cover up everything.
Once a method (any) comes out as a mass production to govt drug wars, every related chemicals are put into control.

Me : Why can't i order NaCl? It's just the plain salt!
Chem. Supplier : You need a permission from .... and ....! it's a controlled substance!
Me : WTF?

lol. this may be exaggerated, but you know what I mean.
 
Isn't Levamisole the stuff that's being used as a cut but is extremely toxic? Seems like it would be a bad idea to adulterate your product like this... but then again I'm not a Colombian coke lord.
 
I don't see how that's related to this thread...... This is about the polymerization (or not) of cocaine.
 
I said about polymerising drugs for smuggling a while ago, either here or the other site. I guess it's just not economical, it's cheaper to just send it pretty much as it is and accept that some of it is going to be 'lost'.
 
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