I very highly doubt MDMA is ever manafactured in Australia due to the rarity of Isosaffrole and all the other chemicals that are involved in the very complex synthesis
Safrole, isosafrole and piperonal are available in Australia. Anyone with an account with a chemical supply company can purchase them - at present- without even signing an EUD, and unless the buyer is already under investigation it's unlikely any followup checks will occur. Piperonal is used throughout the fragrance and flavours industry. The inexpensive price/ kg would startle most people, including the fact that for older account holders, no paper work is required. The amounts purchased nationwide are staggering, particularly if one is to think that even a small amount of that may be diverted to producing MDMA. Some might argue that piperonal starting routes require awkward to obtain reactants, but these can also be produced relatively easily from methods found throughout chemical (non-drug related) literature. It's just chemistry afterall. No real mystery if you know the science.
As for a typical MDMA synthesis being complex - far from it. Sure there's more chemistry involved than for the relatively simple procedures involved in pseudo --> meth reduction, but generally speaking, techniques are simple for most routes.
Another point ticktock is also wrong on is the other chemicals bit. Several routes exist for producing MDMA from completely over the counter chemicals. Even safrole is obtainable, as being one of the most common alkenes found in nature, it can be extracted from several indigenous and xenotype plants and trees. Some of these have been well exploited as they are frequently mentioned in scientific, and drug discussion literature.
The biggest problem with MDMA IMO is that, being a simple ring substituted propyl amine, it's almost
too easy for crooks, wannabees, or even curious tinkerers to manufacture. To be as inconspicuous as possible, this means "tricky to get" chemicals would be synthesised from other over the counter (OTC) chemicals e.g. methylamine from hexamine sold as camping fuel tablets. In many cases, techniques involved in reactant-reagent manufacture are as simple as those required for synthesising the drug itself.
What all this means if one is to look at it logically, is that because a market for MDMA is increasing while imports restrictions/detection are preventing a higher percentage of imported pills from reaching that market, more and more crime syndicates will be prepared to make their own locally. MDMA labs have been busted in Australia, but because of the likely fragmenting of larger syndicates, it also means law enforcement will probably have more trouble tracking down smaller producers. One thing is for sure in my books though; If the
market is not reduced at a proportional rate to supply interception, there will still be enough money in it for crime bosses to turn to local production. I'd bet my eye teeth it's already happening.
For the end user, with such a trend, the potential troubles relating to impurities would be increased substantially. IMO increases in local production are also likely to ultimately lead to an increase in the availability of other drugs such as PMA and other ring substituted amphetamines. The reason is simply that once a setup exists for making MDMA via an OTC route, in many instances this can also be applied to other aldehydes and alkene starting materials, several of which are not regulated in the slightest - and would be almost impossible to do so because these are employed in food and flavouring industries where tons of the chemicals are used, and where waste on a large scale is inevitable. Seen in this light, one can realise that opportunity for diversion is enormous.
Whatever your opinions on MDMA and it's potential for harm, there are new dangers awaiting users, not related to the toxicity of MDMA itself, but to the host of side reaction products, and contaminants resulting from multi step synthesis using less than pure precursors, starting materials and reagents manufactured from OTC chemicals. Combine this with the relative ease of switching to another starting material should safrole etc, become unavailable and there's big potential for unprecedented health problems. The list ticktock posted on another thread to highlight these impurities is far from complete particularly when considering those produced by various OTC routes commonly employed in production of MDMA. However, while some may be very toxic, and potential exists for these to be present in sufficient quantities have a nasty outcome, to be fair, some of these chemicals have actually been found to be protective to the liver when exposed to the cholestasis causing toxin, carbon tetrachloride.
Ref:
Protective effects of sesamol and its related compounds on carbon tetrachloride induced liver injury in rats; Ohta S, Suzuki M, Sato N, Kamogawa A, Shinoda M.; Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hoshi University, Tokyo, Japan.
As a final note. Despite the difficulties police face if local OTC production should become the norm, I disagree completely with Haters above statement. In fact I'd suggest, even if you're just a user, that you think about a line from Layercake which I mentioned a few months ago in a thread discussing the intelligence of police:
Know and respect your enemy. It is only very, very stupid people who think the law is stupid