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  • AADD Moderators: swilow | Vagabond696

The Smell of MDMA

T

Tantra

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Joined
Nov 10, 2003
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Can anyone please explain what exactly MDMA is suppose to smell like? I've got some pills lined up for the weekend and the smell coming from the bag is so strong it's making me nauseaus - what does this mean?
 
MDMA is smelly like aniseed (licorice) and MDA isnt at all.

stinky nauseating pills is a good sign;)
 
Pure MDMA has NO smell. Any smell present is the result of insufficient purification, or intentional adulteration- often by adding safrole to the final product.

BTW, for those who think smell reflects quality MDMA; Safrole is rated as a carcinogen.



If you don't believe this, try washing some smelly powder with acetone. The smell should be washed away, and the remaining MDMA will be white and practically odorless.
 
phase_dancer said:
Pure MDMA has NO smell. Any smell present is the result of insufficient purification, or intentional adulteration- often by adding safrole to the final product.

BTW, for those who think smell reflects quality MDMA; Safrole is rated as a carcinogen.



If you don't believe this, try washing some smelly powder with acetone. The smell should be washed away, and the remaining MDMA will be white and practically odorless.
Click to expand...

Sourced the following info on Safrole:

Smell
Safrole's smell has been variously described in terms of other molecules. Safrole probably interacts with the same olfactory G-coupled receptors as the volatiles in the anise plant, and this makes sense insofar as some of the components in the oil of anise are structurally similar to safrole. It is accurately described as a candy-shop odour. Go into a place which sells more sugary things than chocolatey things and take a deep whiff. It is also reminiscent of ginger. It has been described as smelling like MDMA, anise, rootbeer, sassafras oil, MDA, mCPP or sodium lactate. Halo-derivatives of
safrole are said to have similar smells to the parent molecule. Safrole is conspicuously absent from the Sigma-Aldrich Flavours and Fragrances catalog. Some useful derivatives of safrole (piperonal "sweet, floral", piperonyl acetate, "cherry, strawberry", piperonyl acetone and piperonyl isobutyrate "fruity, berry") are present, however.

So if MDMA is odourless as you stated, why is safrole compared to its smell?
 
syntech said:
MDMA is smelly like aniseed (licorice) and MDA isnt at all.

stinky nauseating pills is a good sign;)
Click to expand...

Personally, I'm reluctant to put something that smells this bad into my system, particularly as the smell alone is affecting my stomach.
 
Strongly suggest having a look on www.pillreports.com to see if you can find any similar reports. Failing that, perhaps you can give a detailed description (including colour, size etc)? I think you're on a good one with not eating something that smells nauseating!
 
best way really to make sure you've got what you want is testing it! cant go wrong (well - cant go TOO wrong) with a tester.
 
Tantra: if you are going to quote something please give a link or at least a reference to where you got it, so that the person replying can at least see it in context. That said I'm sure phase will have an answer for you, being a very skilled organic chemist and all :)
 
phase_dancer said:
Pure MDMA has NO smell. Any smell present is the result of insufficient purification, or intentional adulteration- often by adding safrole to the final product.

BTW, for those who think smell reflects quality MDMA; Safrole is rated as a carcinogen.



If you don't believe this, try washing some smelly powder with acetone. The smell should be washed away, and the remaining MDMA will be white and practically odorless.
Click to expand...


so.....mdma has no smell at all?????? wow never new that.
so what is the smell? is it the binders or whatever you call the other stuff that goes in pills that smell?
 
Err phase just said. but he used 50 cent words to do it so you may be a little confused.

The smell in MDMA pills is safrole. Safrole is one of the ingredients for MDMA but, this being chemistry, when the reaction happens there should be no safrole left. It's not like baking a cake, where the flour is stil in there. Safrole is converted into MDMA.

Of course no reaction is perfect and a few traces of safrole are left in even the most careful chemist's batch. Ideally at this point the chemist will wash the MDMA to remove any left over safrole, leaving you with only MDMA, which doesn't really smell. Now of course this step is not necessary and when you are cutting corners, as most illegal labs do, it is the first to be left out. This is why all MDMA you have ever come across smells like safrole; it is made illegally and as quickly as possible.

If a purist does go to the trouble of washing their powder they may actually have to add safrole later, as their 100% pure MDMA powder may be derided as fake by "those that know" because it doesn't smell right 8) . This is just another example of the vicious cycle of myth, countermyth and actualisation. But oops, I promised I wouldn't use big words like that.

Is this clear now? What you are smelling is safrole, which either was left over or put in there and is not MDMA.
 
But isn't mdma made out of safrole Phase Dancer? So why would they add it to give it the smell, doesn't make sense. I have heard it is very toxic makes your pupils dilate, etc but only need a tablespoon or so to overdose
 
goodfella: Read my last post.

Tantra: Ta. The key words here are "It has been described as smelling like". The Rhodium chemists make no claim that MDMA smells like anything, only that other people claim that safrole smells like it.

This perception is arse about, as we have just discussed. Safrole does not smell like MDMA, the pure chemical, although most impure MDMA you come across does smell like safrole, because one of the impurities is in fact safrole.
 
for example the lexus pills that were going around australia and still are, they smelt so strong and tasted really strong compared to the usual taste and smell of usual pills. these pills were the best i have ever had they were really strong mdma and when tested they went black straight away and fizzed and bubbled.

so from what has been said after all this what would that suggest.....

sorry if i sound really dumb but i'm really curious and would really like to know
cheers
 
What we are saying is there is no direct link between the smell of a pill and the MDMA it may or may not contain.

In your example a strong intensity pill smelled strongly of safrole. This is two seperate pieces of data: that the pill contained a lot of MDMA and that it also contained safrole. This does not mean that the MDMA smelled like anything.

Don't fall into the trap of bad logic. The classic example is "Dogs are mammals, Socrates was a mammal, therefore Socrates was a dog."

There have been plenty of pills that have had no smell and are incredibly strong. Conversely there have been many pills that smell of safrole and have had no discernable MDMA effects at all. Use good logic, and this data and you do learn something; pill strength has nothing to do with smell.

Remember that safrole has been used in Australian pills to fool Marquis testers, and generally has shown up in ketamine and amphetamine pills. At the Club Health conference I saw Dr Cate Quinn's latest results of the Victorian Forensic labs pill testing. in 2002 there was a big spike in the amount of safrole found in non-ecstasy pills. The figures for 2003 seemed to indicate that this had become much rarer, but still happens.

An interesting admission was that they were also fooled by the safrole, and had to go back re-test many samples because they primarily use Marquis reagent for the majority of their testing.
 
Thanks for that informative response johnboy :) much appreciated, some of my ill-informed friends will be disappointed to learn this though heheh.

While I have your attention, I was just wondering if there was any method at all, apart from the test kit, to determine the quality of a pill?

BTW One of my lab rats has just rated these pills, beige Tridents, an 8-9/10.
 
Originally posted by Tantra
While I have your attention, I was just wondering if there was any method at all, apart from the test kit, to determine the quality of a pill?

By quality, I assume you mean quantity, and you need a lab test (GCMS) to do that.
 
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