• MDMA &
    Empathogenic
    Drugs

    Welcome Guest!
  • MDMA Moderators:

What is wrong with the MDMA available today?

Status
Not open for further replies.
From Drugs Data:

Your emails are fucking fantastic. Thanks.

This is crazy interesting to me. I have gotten one of our top analytical chemists interested. I have not brought this up to the lab, since I want to get it summarized fully, with the complete list of standards we need in hand, and ask the lab for their thoughts on how to standardize their procedure (that could involve derivatization) for differentiating between this set of regioisomeric & the generally identio-mass (iso-bari) chemicals if they are present.

I spoke to our senior analytical chemist consultant yesterday and he's interested in digging into this, but is in the middle of launching a brand new lab space with several new employees, so it could take a couple weeks for him to be able to prioritize this.

There's no question, at least on my side, this conversation has evolved and become extremely specific: can our lab differentiate the chemicals you've pointed out from MDMA (3,4-methylene-dioxy-meth-amphetamine).

thanks for all your work on this! Say howdy and thanks to your team!
Click to expand...
 
I wasn't here in the nineties, but I want to add my two cents, even if I'm tired and my english isn't perfect.

Things have changed a lot in 30 years. Clothes trends went by, came back and it's going full circle again. But not only the clothes changed. Apparently the MDMA did too. This thread almost tries to put the old MDMA user from the 90's into some kind of a full-body time capsule and project him in 2019, spoonfeeding him some of today's MDMA and expect a different result. Scientifically speaking, this lacks environment impact, neurotoxicity impact, yet all the 5 theories are focussing on the MDMA.

Let's brainstom on other possible factors. What about another theory saying that we eat differently, or we take different painkillers, we avoid hot/packed environments, we have more control on the actual dosage, we expect more from the drug than in the past. What about something else?

What if I told you the story of Kevin? Kevin used to take MDMA. One day, as he switches to a new MDMA batch, he is greatly disappointed by the quality of the MDMA so he sends it to a lab only to discover it was some 92% MehDMA. Not wanting to waste another month to take another empathogen, he decides to switch to the previous vendor which offers what he thinks is the same good ol' MDMA. He takes it and it actually feels good, way better than the MehDMA. What are the possible reasons this second batch felt like shit? Could it be what's in the MDMA? Could it be the set/setting/environment, etc. We can't really tell. What we can tell is that Kevin thinks he has some valuable piece of information to share on the internet, unlike Tom who maybe took this very same MehDMA and it worked greatly for him, but we will never hear about Tom. Because the whole process of going through a bad MDMA experience and rushing here to report it is actually filtering our sample. Kevin might be a "roll-virgin", and Tom too, or both could be experienced MDMA that it does not make a dent in this filtering process. Hundred of people, or even ten thousands. There are maybe millions of MDMA users, and you can be sure most of them have no concern into sharing their good experiences, but sharing their bad experiences is kind of human, to share it with others, making others avoid doing the same mistakes.

I'm pretty sure the "good old MDMA" did not work for 100% of the users, and not 100% of the time. Those for whom it didn't work for their first times certainly did not pursue their drug adventure, or at least with MDMA, and they are not here 30 years later to talk about how "shitty" the MDMA was back in the days. This is also another filtering process. Someone who doesn't enjoy a drug is less likely to try again the very same drug.

What I'm trying to say here is that, something probably changed. Actually, everything changed. And it's probably that this MehMDA exists, but I'm confident that it's overlooked. The MDMA experience gather both the MDMA and the user, and rulling out half of the team seems kind of wrong. Filtering processes can actually increase the undesirable effect reports ratio. And what about the set/setting? As long as we don't apply a double-blind study with both batches of MDMA that contain yet unknown differences (kind of a stretch this one), then we can't know. And by double-blind, I mean DOUBLE-blind. Results from million-dollar equipments actually can't give us a clue about the psychoactivity of an impurty, it's potency and BBB penetration if it's psychoactive, its neurotoxicity, its range of effects/side-effects and impact on the MDMA's effects...

While you were focussing on the MDMA, I was focussing on the user. Actually, I was focussing on myself first, but what happened next should be interesting enough. I abused the substance and was starting to experience a loss of magic along with extended undesirable side effects from the very same batch. To make it short, I found a paper about NAC to help reverse Methamphetamine induced neurotoxicity in only two weeks (in rats), including in critical brain regions concerned for the MDMA. I literally bought 250g of NAC and took 600mg for a few months, not even waiting a month between rolls (~4 weeks) and taking the same dosage or less than usual, only to gradually see the effects being stronger and stronger to the point it was close to my first time.

Boooo you suck @Sqqlut, this is purely anecdotal!

Yes it is, and I even made a thread about it two years. Oops, now some people who lost the magic or where experiencing unpleasant effects are now buying the $0.05 a day magic formula and reporting back. Today 18 of the 20 reports (after a loss of magic) report positive results from NAC. 90% positive results from my (not big enough) sample size, yet the results are here, and offer an affordable and easy method to extend this sample size. This method can't obtain any objective result the same way MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can't be done in double blind. You know when you are rolling... and when you are not. It's kind of difficult for the doctor to foul the patient, and even more difficult for the patient to foul the scientist by getting bigger pupils on command.

I'm not saying that nothing changed with the MDMA, I'm saying that probably a lot of people reporting differences between MDMA batches might be biased by their bad experiences and were"filter-worthy", biased by this MDMA hyperfocus, biased by MDMA induced neurotoxicity, or the many others random things that could add noise to this mess. It's time to "un-noise" this game, get your rose-tinted glasses out of the way and pursue the speculation game, but think out of the box this time!
 
​
​
Rhodium
(Chief Bee)
12-14-03 22:08
No 476826​
hr.gif
MDP3P​
​

It is very likely that all wackers produce MDP3P to some extent, and as the "three methods" in the document you mention are all variations of the O2 Wacker in an alcoholic solvent, they are unlikely to differ. Only when you change the solvent, the catalyst or the oxidant you can expect any changes in product selectivity.​


Only when you change the solvent, the catalyst or the oxidant you can expect any changes in product selectivity.So maybe something so stupid as a solvent they are using is effecting regioselectivity.
 
ThreePointCircle said:
@Glubrahnum should I get a uv filter specific to 254nm? Kinda looks like the cheap filters miss the wavelength
Click to expand...
Not necessarily.
You do not need a bandpass filter on your UV source. A highpass filter is enough.
A highpass filter passes everything ABOVE a certain frequency (or below a certain wavelength).

Q: So what is that certain frequency (or wavelength)? -A: It is the highest frequency (lowest wavelength) that your eyes or camera can see.
For example: my eyes can see up to 780THz (385nm) - yours most likely, too ...but I have no idea how high up the spectrum your camera "sees".
 
Last edited:
Glubrahnum said:
You do not need a bandpass filter on your UV source. A highpass filter is enough.
A highpass filter passes everything ABOVE a certain frequency (or below a certain wavelength).
Click to expand...

A lot of the cheap filters seem to be ZWB2 (e.g., see graph on this product: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ZWB2-Ult...hash=item2ac82f05e8:m:myQ6x-aOxMX1EyY-Gy6cGXw), but that seems to be missing 254nm. Only ZWB1 looks good on that graph but they cost a lot more. A haven't had a good hit on high pass filters yet, but maybe I need to search on a different term.
 
ThreePointCircle said:
@Glubrahnum should I get a uv filter specific to 254nm? Kinda looks like the cheap filters miss the wavelength
Click to expand...

quick TLC primer here for free. I looked at the photos of the plates and there are a couple of simple hints that will make the whole thing a lot easier.

Forget the UV filter thing, total waste of time, the plates should glow green or maybe blue when hit by UV light shorter than 300nm, 254 nm is a line produced by Mercury discharge and any UVB or UVC lamp lets through the short stuff 254nm is the most common short wave line in lamps. If you have a blacklight rather than short UV then TLC plates will not glow. Blacklights are longer wavelength, 365nm is common (again this is produced by Mercury) and usually they have a filter as part of the glass which stops UVB and shorter wavelength more dangerous light. Mineral collectors have UV254 lamps.

F254 plates are what most manufacturers make using various inorganic materials added in the silica which glows when illuminated by short wave UV, things that absorb short wavelength UV like things with benzene rings act like sunscreen preventing the plate near the substance from fluorescing and glowing. Your camera WILL have a UV filter in place and the cut off for that will be around 350nm. It will block everything shorter than that. the photo problem is contrast, the plates are glowing and the spots are glowing less or hopefully not at all but if you have massive smeared spots then the color is not going to be much different. Also photograph the plates in the dark using the glow from the plates.

Don't worry about the camera, worry about your eyes looking at the UV source. It will give you sunburn on the back of your eyes and cataracts on the front of your eyes. Normal safety glasses block most UV below 300nm anyway, special safety glasses do exist. Nobody uses them instead of ordinary safety glasses. But be careful !!

More importantly get the chromatography right get nice spots and the rest will be easy


Get your sample onto the plate in a concentrated spot. there is no point trying to run a sample up a plate if it is smeared all over the starting line and has spread out before you run the plate. Do not use water solution to load the plate it will cause the silica to behave badly. If you must use a polar solvent to load the plate use methanol or ethanol but try not to, both are strong solvents and will spread the sample. Ideally you want to load with a weak solvent.

Use a glass capillary to load the plate, draw up the sample solution using capillary action then touch the plate once, then let the solvent dry, then if you want touch it again and so on.

For the sample you are running get it into the freebase form, dissolve the sample in the minimum amount of water then add ammonia to make it basic, it will go cloudy. then extract with Ethyl Acetate or Dichloromethane or any strong non polar solvent like toluene, hexane and heptane is a weak solvent. Then use the capillary to load drops of the non polar extract onto the plate.
Either do dots or a series of dots in a row each being more touches than the one before more sample. If you are really good you can streak a line horizontally across the plate.
now once it is dry use your UV lamp to check you have a nice small dot. if your dots are bigger than 1-2mm turn the plate upside down and draw a new starting line and do it again. If you let the solvent dry you can dot the same place again and again to get a concentrated starting dot.

if you are using UV visualisation then if you don't use solvents that absorb UV, you can then follow the spots without taking the plate out of the chamber.

Mixtures are almost always better than single solvents. The trick is to have a stronger solvent and a weaker solvent which means you can optimize the mix. hexane is a weak solvent, ethyl acetate is a stronger one, so you can use a mixture of ethyl acetate and hexane, if a spot is too close to the solvent front, do it again with a new plate with more of the weaker solvent in the mixture. You want the spots to be roughly 1/4 to 3/4 up, with nothing stuck at the start and nothing hitting the top. If the spot is sort of streaking, looking a bit like a comet then the issue is the activity of the silica which is not letting go fo the material, with amines add a few drops of ammonia or triethylamine to the solvent mix. Acids almost always streak but adding a few drops of formic or acetic acid will reduce it. obviously you can't have both in a single solvent mix.

Good luck

there are loads of simple TLC guides for undergrads, it is probably worth reading through them for example:
there probably are better guides out there, "TLC for Dummies" kind of thing.
 
ThreePointCircle did most of that. He had low contrast image because his UV light source emits a little in the visible spectrum and that swamps the fluorescence of the plate. The filter is not mandatory but it will remove the visible light emitted by his light source, which will improve the contrast of the image from his plate.
 
​
​

Glubrahnum said:
ThreePointCircle did most of that. He had low contrast image because his UV light source emits a little in the visible spectrum and that swamps the fluorescence of the plate. The filter is not mandatory but it will remove the visible light emitted by his light source, which will improve the contrast of the image from his plate.
Click to expand...
the spots are ill defined, and streaked. poor chromatography gives poor image.

 
vecktor said:
the spots are ill defined, and streaked. poor chromatography gives poor image.
Click to expand...
Yes, his technique is not perfect but that was his first attempt.

His photo of the plate shows a non-fluorescent background that is not black. That is caused by visible light reflecting from the background!
If no visible light was emitted from his UV source, then the background would appear black ...and the contrast of his plate would be proportionally higher.
That is besides the quality of sample preparation, application, ascension duration and his solvent system choice.
 
Last edited:
Sqqlut said:
I wasn't here in the nineties, but I want to add my two cents, even if I'm tired and my english isn't perfect.

Things have changed a lot in 30 years. Clothes trends went by, came back and it's going full circle again. But not only the clothes changed. Apparently the MDMA did too. This thread almost tries to put the old MDMA user from the 90's into some kind of a full-body time capsule and project him in 2019, spoonfeeding him some of today's MDMA and expect a different result. Scientifically speaking, this lacks environment impact, neurotoxicity impact, yet all the 5 theories are focussing on the MDMA.

Let's brainstom on other possible factors. What about another theory saying that we eat differently, or we take different painkillers, we avoid hot/packed environments, we have more control on the actual dosage, we expect more from the drug than in the past. What about something else?

What if I told you the story of Kevin? Kevin used to take MDMA. One day, as he switches to a new MDMA batch, he is greatly disappointed by the quality of the MDMA so he sends it to a lab only to discover it was some 92% MehDMA. Not wanting to waste another month to take another empathogen, he decides to switch to the previous vendor which offers what he thinks is the same good ol' MDMA. He takes it and it actually feels good, way better than the MehDMA. What are the possible reasons this second batch felt like shit? Could it be what's in the MDMA? Could it be the set/setting/environment, etc. We can't really tell. What we can tell is that Kevin thinks he has some valuable piece of information to share on the internet, unlike Tom who maybe took this very same MehDMA and it worked greatly for him, but we will never hear about Tom. Because the whole process of going through a bad MDMA experience and rushing here to report it is actually filtering our sample. Kevin might be a "roll-virgin", and Tom too, or both could be experienced MDMA that it does not make a dent in this filtering process. Hundred of people, or even ten thousands. There are maybe millions of MDMA users, and you can be sure most of them have no concern into sharing their good experiences, but sharing their bad experiences is kind of human, to share it with others, making others avoid doing the same mistakes.

I'm pretty sure the "good old MDMA" did not work for 100% of the users, and not 100% of the time. Those for whom it didn't work for their first times certainly did not pursue their drug adventure, or at least with MDMA, and they are not here 30 years later to talk about how "shitty" the MDMA was back in the days. This is also another filtering process. Someone who doesn't enjoy a drug is less likely to try again the very same drug.

What I'm trying to say here is that, something probably changed. Actually, everything changed. And it's probably that this MehMDA exists, but I'm confident that it's overlooked. The MDMA experience gather both the MDMA and the user, and rulling out half of the team seems kind of wrong. Filtering processes can actually increase the undesirable effect reports ratio. And what about the set/setting? As long as we don't apply a double-blind study with both batches of MDMA that contain yet unknown differences (kind of a stretch this one), then we can't know. And by double-blind, I mean DOUBLE-blind. Results from million-dollar equipments actually can't give us a clue about the psychoactivity of an impurty, it's potency and BBB penetration if it's psychoactive, its neurotoxicity, its range of effects/side-effects and impact on the MDMA's effects...

While you were focussing on the MDMA, I was focussing on the user. Actually, I was focussing on myself first, but what happened next should be interesting enough. I abused the substance and was starting to experience a loss of magic along with extended undesirable side effects from the very same batch. To make it short, I found a paper about NAC to help reverse Methamphetamine induced neurotoxicity in only two weeks (in rats), including in critical brain regions concerned for the MDMA. I literally bought 250g of NAC and took 600mg for a few months, not even waiting a month between rolls (~4 weeks) and taking the same dosage or less than usual, only to gradually see the effects being stronger and stronger to the point it was close to my first time.

Boooo you suck @Sqqlut, this is purely anecdotal!

Yes it is, and I even made a thread about it two years. Oops, now some people who lost the magic or where experiencing unpleasant effects are now buying the $0.05 a day magic formula and reporting back. Today 18 of the 20 reports (after a loss of magic) report positive results from NAC. 90% positive results from my (not big enough) sample size, yet the results are here, and offer an affordable and easy method to extend this sample size. This method can't obtain any objective result the same way MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can't be done in double blind. You know when you are rolling... and when you are not. It's kind of difficult for the doctor to foul the patient, and even more difficult for the patient to foul the scientist by getting bigger pupils on command.

I'm not saying that nothing changed with the MDMA, I'm saying that probably a lot of people reporting differences between MDMA batches might be biased by their bad experiences and were"filter-worthy", biased by this MDMA hyperfocus, biased by MDMA induced neurotoxicity, or the many others random things that could add noise to this mess. It's time to "un-noise" this game, get your rose-tinted glasses out of the way and pursue the speculation game, but think out of the box this time!
Click to expand...
Hey there, welcome to the forum and thanks for making the effort to share your thoughts and feelings and experiences on the subject.

I'm not about to try and critique what you have said I only wanted to make one point which springs to mind as I read through your post- I don't believe any where we are really seeing or hearing the same type of discussions about for example LSD, Cannabis, and probably a tonne of similarly popular long known and used psychoactive substances not excluding alcohol and nicotine and God knows what everything and anything.

That obvious and very basic thought just really struck me right now as I read your post. Personally I don't think I can go along with your logic just going by my own generally fairly powerful intuition and experience of substances and psychedelic and empathogenic experiences.

I do personally firmly believe that in this case the problem is is very much today with the actual product more than any other single or combined factors.

Not to say that there have not been huge changes in in the world and society and individuals and humanity collectively consciousness wise in an evolutionary sense.

But I dpnt accept this as explaining why MDMA has managed to ever develop such a reputation and beg such questions to be asked.
If things were less to do with the product and more to do with all of the other variables, like say for argument the MDMA was identicallly good and downright appreciable and spectacular as nobody disputes it once was for so many....

I just cannot see this spotlight and inquiry ever starting up with any sort of actual suspicion about the product itself. I mean, Im sure there would be a greater focus on and better awareness of all the other variables at play. And very valid and useful that would be however the huge distraction is this big elephant of the product itself so strongly suspected by so many just too many for my mind.

People were taking MDMA from the 80s until I stopped in 2005 and I certainly never heard any such discussions and I knew people who had been taking it for well I better a decade really living and breathing the culture.

And why I ask myself are we not having this discussion about LSD? I mean it's pretty much considered to hold identical potential for Magic and transcendental otherworldly transformative experience.

I'm not trying to challenge or rebut you here, simply expressing the basic thoughts which struck my mind just now on this.

@Sqqlut really warm welcome again bro I look forward to reading more contributions from you.
 
Last edited:
If anyone has the post where someone indexed relevant past posts by topic, could you please share it? I just spent forever looking for it and couldn't find it. I looked from June 18, 2018 (pg 51) to June 24, 2019 (pg 97) and also August 15, 2019 (pg 112) to September 23, 2019 (pg 130). I could have sworn it was in the past year, but at least six months back now?
 
@Glubrahnum @vecktor I'm just coming up with my procedure. I'm trying to be as detailed as possible because I lack the experience and don't want to do anything stupid. I hope you can check with procedure. Starting with the sample prep, prior to loading the plate:

1 Dissolve ‘MDMA’ in distilled water (just enough)
2 Add sodium hydroxide to have freebase in solution, ??? mg per mg of MDMA
3 Mix with DCM, ??? ml per mg of MDMA
4 Separate with sep funnel
5 Will have ‘MDMA’ freebase dissolved in DCM
6 This MDMA/DCM solution is applied as a spot to plate with a glass capillary

I've put sodium hydroxide instead of ammonia because that's what I've got. Is that ok? (side note, that stuff is nasty!)

Also, for this bit, I'm unsure how sodium hydroxide and DCM I should use. I get that the procedure is a sub part of the A/B extraction, but I'm dealing with different quantities as its just a sample.
 
Getting the chromatography right is the far more important thing. if that is a standard 50mm x 100mm mini plate then the sample dot is 10mm across! so already the sample is 40 to 50x more dilute on the plate than it should be. Absorbance is proportional to concentration so the spots are going to be weak.

The plate has stuff too far up the plate, and smearing and tailing the upper line the lower spot is also tailing and the origin spot is streaking into the lower spot, this tells me that there is a solubility issue of the sample. loading a salt is not the way to do this because the salt will be slow to dissolve in any non polar solvent. loading a freebase extract and using a weaker solvent mix will give much much better results. MEK can be made weaker by adding heptane or hexane but it is better to use a weaker solvent.

it is also worth remembering that MDMA itself is fluorescent but not in the visible spectrum humans are sensitive to, absorbing at 280nm approx and emitting at 320nm the camera probably can only just see it.

ThreePointCircle said:
@Glubrahnum @vecktor I'm just coming up with my procedure. I'm trying to be as detailed as possible because I lack the experience and don't want to do anything stupid. I hope you can check with procedure. Starting with the sample prep, prior to loading the plate:

1 Dissolve ‘MDMA’ in distilled water (just enough)
2 Add sodium hydroxide to have freebase in solution, ??? mg per mg of MDMA
3 Mix with DCM, ??? ml per mg of MDMA
4 Separate with sep funnel
5 Will have ‘MDMA’ freebase dissolved in DCM
6 This MDMA/DCM solution is applied as a spot to plate with a glass capillary

I've put sodium hydroxide instead of ammonia because that's what I've got. Is that ok? (side note, that stuff is nasty!)

Also, for this bit, I'm unsure how sodium hydroxide and DCM I should use. I get that the procedure is a sub part of the A/B extraction, but I'm dealing with different quantities as its just a sample.
Click to expand...
Because of the small quantities don't use a sep funnel keep it small old school microscale chemistry.
Do it in a small vial or test tube, a 4ml sample vial with a screw cap is ideal, take 100mg of the substance, add enough water 2ml is more than enough shake to dissolve. if it doesn't all dissolve then decant the liquid from the solids, or suck the liquid up into the pipette into a new vial, Now you have clear solution then add concentrated sodium hydroxide 20% solution dropwise with swirling until the pH is >8 the or it goes cloudy. Then allow it to cool to room temperature before adding DCM, then add 1ml DCM shake then allow the layers to separate do it quickly if you use DCM as it is reactive. Use a pasteur pipette or syringe with needle to transfer the lower DCM layer to a new vial and cap the vial, if you use toluene or diethyl ether then the organic layer will be on the top and easier to transfer.
Then transfer the sample using a fine capillary to the plate. if you don't have a capillary small enough then heat the body of an ordinary glass pasteur pipette in a flame until it begins to melt and pull the ends apart, this will give a perfect fine capillary tube, snap it into 3-4 inch lengths and you are done.
hope you get some decent results.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top