mushi mushi 88 said:
Can't you get safrole from some other plant in India as well...?
Safrole is one of the most abundant allyl benzenes in nature. Sassafras is a often the prefered tree, not only because of the high concentration of safrole (over 80% w/w of root bark oil in some species) but also due to the relative ease of extracting and isolating the safrole when compared to plants which contain compounds with similar boiling points.
The oil is taken from the sassafras tree, a rare species which only grows in the Cardamom Mountains.
The sassafras trees mentioned in this story may be the only ones growing in Cambodia, but sassafras grows all over the world; From Canada, to Brazil, throughout parts of the US and Asia, and even Australia (check out the towns called Sassafras in Victoria and Tasmania). The Tassy species is unrelated to the mainland species, but both are claimed to have some safrole, although it's also said percentages are lower than for other species. Some years ago a friend returned from Tasmania with a switch (small branch) of sassafras. The smell of root beer was instantly recognisable. From the uneducated drug maker's perspective, there's probably enough in these local plants to make extraction worthwhile. However, there are several other Australian natives and introduced species which are reportedly rich in safrole.
toa$t said:
right, but there are other components necessary, thus the safrole oil is only a fraction of the cost of making 245 million pills. I'm sure someone 'forgot' to factor that in.
As an illegal commodity, safrole would be by far the most expensive chemical to procure in the production of MDMA via most synthetic routes starting with the allyl benzene. Some routes do use expensive metal catalysts and a few use novel approaches with arguably more expensive chemicals, but all things considered, unless it can be diverted from legit sources where the price is quite inexpensive, it's otherwise worth big bucks.
One reason why the black market price is so high is due to safrole having few legit uses today. As it's also listed as a probable human carcinogen, and used to make MDMA, it's trade has, by in large, been banned world wide. It's major legit use today is in the production of piperonal. Via the process known as ozonolysis, Japan manufactures several metric tons per day of piperonal from isosafrole (the base catalyzed rearrangement product of safrole). Piperonal is used extensively in the perfume industry and to manufacture piperonyl butoxide, which is used as a synergist for pyrethroid insecticides.
Jimity said:
Completely forgetting the amount of pills lost for a second; the fact they shoved all that carcinogenic shit into the atmosphere if fucking stupid. They claim not to have any other way to get rid of it. Bullshit. Any number of chemical processing plants would be happy to take it and fuck it off.
Yes it is rather silly, however, it may well be that there's some logistical problem with transport and handling in Cambodia. But realistically, it's probably done because it's a good publicity stunt. How many poachers it will scare off, and how many will instead be drawn to the trade, is anyone's guess.
MazDan said:
Excellent.
Now our local producers will have more reason to produce Ecstasy pills that do not contain mdma but instead things such as PMA..............yay, more dead people.
Yes you naughty boy, but you've been told time and time again that drugs are bad. This simply backs up what prohibitionists have been saying all along
dunwich said:
what a waste...appalling. safrole is good for other things besides as an x precursor.
As mentioned, there's relatively few legit uses for safrole these days. It was used as a delousing agent, and can still be found in some lice preparations, although levels are limited to ~0.1% iirc. Once upon a time it was used in root beer, and I believe that was replaced with isosafrole, which means of course some safrole would be used to produce the isomer. It's also of some value to the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, but I'm not sure of how much would be used per annum - probably not all that much.
Now, Bluelight has a no prices policy, so mods, please edit this bit if you think it's inappropriate.
We all know how law enforcement tends to "up the numbers" when estimating the value of seized drugs, but in this case it would seem the haul is large enough that exaggeration wasn't needed in order to impress.
In an ideal world, all chemical processes would be 100% efficient, although that's often far from the case. Depending upon what synthetic route was to be taken, and the care in manufacturing etc, overall efficiencies for synthesizing MDMA from safrole
might approach the 60% mark in an ideal situation i.e. 60% of the staring material is converted to MDMA HCl. But let's say for augments sake it's 50%, which would still require very good lab technique.
To do an accurate calculation, we must work in
molecular weights. So, let's now look at the relative molecular weights for safrole and the hydrochloride salt of MDMA (it's usual form in powders and tablets).
1 mole of safrole = 162.188 g
1 mole of MDMA:HCl = 229.71 g
Using the 50% efficiency model, every mole of safrole will produce 0.5 moles of MDMA HCl.
33 tonnes of safrole = 33,000Kg or 33,000,000g
33,000,000g / 162.188 = 203,467.58 moles of safrole
203,467.58 * 0.5 (process efficiency) = 101,733.79 moles of MDMA
101,733.79 * 229.71 = 23,369,268.9g of MDMA HCl
If, say a gram contained 10 doses (at 100mg each), then that equates to 233,692,689 doses.
At $30 each, that would be $7,010,780,670. In coming up with a figure like approx 7.6 billion, the AFP have probably calculated for a slightly more efficient synthesis. Still, for once it seems they're not exaggerating. Or perhaps it's because they've now got chemists who can do basic math
Edit: spelling, spelling....
