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Why is MDMA such low yield today?

Splatt

Splatt

Ex-Bluelighter
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This was merged into a pretty unrelated thread in Aus DD, so I thought it might generate better disucssion over here.


Besides the fact no cook wants to be a Shulgin and clean stuff 5 times over, and doesn't have a proper lab.
What is the main reason MDMA seems to be so impure and low yields these days?

Without this turning into a synth thread. Do you think MDP2P is still the main precursor these days? Or are people starting from nature, sassafras oil, getting safrole and then doing it from there. Or just aquiring safrole/isosafrole at unknown purity levels. Or do you think cooks still use piperanol as a starting chemical, turning it into nitropropene then using the Al foil method etc.. and turning it into MDA/MDMA? If nitropropene is acquired or synthed it can also be low yield itself. Even the solvents that are used may not be 99%+ pure, and some will be used from store bought products to avoid detection.

Theres so many ways to make MDMA and I reckon if it's not cleaned perfectly, then each different recepie can make the end product different, in either terms of effects because of impurities or toxic byproducts.

I hate to see MDMA rushed as much as Meth/Speed is today, wonder what it will be like in a few years? Needing half a gram like you need of today's 4 hour cooked wet speed/base to have a good night out and having a much worse comedown. If so it means the MDMA in pills may be 100mg, but only have the effects of 20-40mg of MDMA plus the impurity effects, and be adulterated with new cheap, research stimulants. Cathinone analogues and piperazines only cost a few cents really for a dose when bought from a chemical supplier in bulk.

The near and further future of drugs, especially things such as street pills labeled as ecstasy that will always be sold in clubs and events etc. and be a popular drug to buy from dealers scare me a lot, and they scare me a lot even today.
 
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Last MDMA crystal I came across I got lab tested at exactly 75% pure.

Its what most people seem to want, the munted out feeling caused by MDMA in combination with the impurities. No idea what way it was made though, but it has no smell though which is interesting.

Any one know what the most likely starting chemical was to be only 75% pure and has no smell?


It is seconady amine only on Simmons and Robadope, and shows as very fast reaction as MDXX on both mandelin and marquis.
 
The purity of the starting material isn't so much a problem because you can purify it at several different stages... for example if one is making MDMA via the MDP2P route you can vacuum distill the ketone, and THEN do the usual reductive amination with NaBH4 or Al/Hg and methylamine etc.

I suspect people are just being lazy with purifying it or are deliberately cutting the end product... possibly to hide the fact they were too lazy to purify it.
 
Most seems to use safrole/isosafrole as a starting product as it's a lot easier to get ahold of (courtesy of plant sources) than the likes of piperonal (3,4-methylenedioxybenzaldehyde) etc. which all set off alarm bells when enquired about...

and yes, most people synthing it aren't bothered about purity, only about making something that can be converted into filthy lucre. People making it because they're driven by an urge other than money (a la LSD synthesis) are few & far between these days
 
i imagine some of the few people making L these days are very much interested in money as well
starting material almost always safrole. but i imagine the hg/al method isn't used for reduction as it sucks in large quantities. more like catalytic hydrogenation.
 
I'm not so sure about that. Due to the difficulties in synthesizing LSD and the ephemeral nature of the molecule, most synthesis is probably done by skilled academic chemists who are not looking to make a quick buck, but to help people 'pry open their third eye.' In contrast, most street-grade MDMA pills are synthesized by organized crime groups in the EU. I doubt the mafia gives a flying shit about purity or phenomenology; anything to keep bringing in the coldhard.
 
^ Evidenced by the fact that they don't even seem to be putting MDMA in ecstasy pills in the UK (maybe a lot of europe?) these days :\

More impure = more weight = more cold hard cash

Plus it may come down from one source and be cut several times before it even reaches the consumer.
 
Not to derail the thread, but LSD is not difficult to make by even someone with a masters in organic synth. If you have the LA, its one step, easy as hell with modern peptide coupling reagents, and some columns. If you have the ET, its a base saponification then one step. sorry to burst the bubble.
 
Ever heard of the 'cold process' for MDMA production? Easy enough for an idiot to perform and scalable. Low quality product results, but then the gangsters only need a trained penguin, not a real chemist....
 
I've never heard of it either, and can't find it online (is it available?). Only mention I see if for methamphetamine production
 
The more steps you have the lower ur % yield is going to be;regardless, if it was economically feasable these criminal chemists would purify their product till the melting point matches the literature
 
^ aka 'cold fusion process' N-methylformamide/ Borohydride reduction, usually in methanol, sometimes in ethanol. The ketone is sometimes smuggled in alcohol. A few years ago, a setup was discovered in Aus where the technique was employed without first removing the ketone from the wine/MDP2P mixture.

BTW, the other popular starting material piperonal is widely used in a couple of industries. Ask any good perfumer how much he uses and it might surprise you. It's nitroethane that would be harder to obtain for most people.
 
^I think it's MDP2P + Methylamine in (m)ethanol + borohydride that all the Dutch people use. MDP2P is NOT controlled in Belgium (or wasn't last time I looked) so the Dutch get it there. BTW, the price of MDP2P is now LOWER than the price of plain P2P over there. Seems like E is out and speed is back in...
 
What is MDP2P used for, cosmetics or something? Or does it have solvent uses?
 
I know some crazy tweaker who has about 20 liters of the stuff (MDP2P) just sitting in his tweaker workshop, and he's not doing anything with it. I don't want to get involved AT ALL, but I'm curious - is that highly valuable?
He always claims the Hells Angels are trying to break in/kill him/steal it/etc, but I just chalk it up to his tweaker paranoia. He told me it was worth $1.1mil, but thats obviously TOTAL bullshit. Any one have any ideas of what that might be worth? PM me if its a burnout to post it in here.
 
johanneschimpo said:
I know some crazy tweaker who has about 20 liters of the stuff (MDP2P) just sitting in his tweaker workshop, and he's not doing anything with it. I don't want to get involved AT ALL, but I'm curious - is that highly valuable?
He always claims the Hells Angels are trying to break in/kill him/steal it/etc, but I just chalk it up to his tweaker paranoia. He told me it was worth $1.1mil, but thats obviously TOTAL bullshit. Any one have any ideas of what that might be worth? PM me if its a burnout to post it in here.
Click to expand...

Well, it's probably worth about a third of that, actually. 20 liters of MDP2P should make a little over 1400 grams of MDMA. Say you manufactured 80mg doses. That's 1800 hits. For $20 apiece, that MDP2P is worth around $36,000.

God knows why I bothered to do the math there. 8)
 
In the Netherlands, 1l of MDP2P is worth about $2000 and 1l of P2P is worth $2500 dollers. That's in the Netherlands, most every chemically minded person I know has some hidden SOMEWHERE.
 
I am sorry Indelibleface, but I think your math is wrong.
If we assume that the density of MDP2P is 1 g/mL (could not find any data on this, but the assumption should be reasonable correct), then 20 L would be equivalent to 20 kg. 20 kg of MDP2P is 20 000 / 178.185 g/mol = 112.243 moles. I am not familiar with the reductive amination of MDP2P but I think it is safe to assume that the yield will be at least 50% -> 0.5 * 112.243 = 56.121 moles of MDMA which will equal 56.121 * 229.71 g/mol (MDMA.HCl) = 12 891.656 g.

If we round that up to 13 000 grams, we have 13 000 / (80/1000) = 162 500 doses at 80 mg each. Quite a shitload in other words.
But I also think it is very safe to assume that the chemist making the MDMA won't get payed $20 a piece, if even $1 a piece. And then you must account for the huge amount of workload involved in converting 20 kg of MDP2P to MDMA and the amount of other expensive chemicals and solvents used.
 
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