This thread is extraordinary for almost zero signal to noise ratio and it reminds me of the circular LSD purity arguments.
so I'll start with what I know.
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine 3,4-MDMA and 2,3-MDMA are distinguishable by GC-MS, the GC bit does the separating. A DB5 or HP5 MS column which is pretty standard separates the two with the 2,3 isomer eluting first. The EI spectra of the fragments is not identical either.
https://etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/10415/1304/AWAD_TAMER_45.pdf;sequence=1 page 56
This is my experience also with ortho para isomers. Labs identify by retention time AND spectra.
2,3 MDMA would require a 2,3-methylenedioxy precursor. These are commercially available but more expensive than the 3,4-methylenedioxy compounds, if 2,3 methylenedioxy MDMA was around then it is substitution by the chinese manufacturers of the precursors but most of the manufacturers also make the cheaper 3,4 methylenedioxy compounds, so it is very unlikely that 2,3 methylenedioxy is widespread.
Since 2009 2010 most PMK has been made from PMK glycidate and is plain old PMK, just the same as that made from safrole. PMK itself smells similar to but lighter than safrole. People associate the safrole smell with good MDMA experiences and smell is great at evoking memories (of good pills) and contributing to set and setting. If someone was to spray lavender scent and then electrocute you eventually you would subconsciously associate lavender and being shocked, to the point where if you smelled lavender you would become stressed.
PMK glycidate which is itself made from piperonal will disappear in the next few years as the international restrictions on it bite. It will be inevitably replaced by something else (my guess would be one of the really obvious 4 carbon pre precursors) over time but there are clearly large stocks of PMK glycidate in producer areas already. There is not a one step reaction from pmk glycidate to MDMA but there are ways to do it in one pot, how common this is who knows, the current forensic impurity profile fits with reductive amination of PMK with the PMK being isolated. There is another theoretical route to MDMA from PMK glycidate which does not need conversion to PMK, there is no evidence in the forensic literature this route is being used.
PMK glycidate is chiral but the commercial product is a racemic mixture and in any case the PMK it makes is not chiral.
MDMA made by reductive amination of PMK with nitromethane(as an in situ methylamine source) or methylamine is racemic. MDMA made by reduction with a chiral amine is chiral, chiral amines like chiral N-alphadimethylbenzylamine would give chiral N-alphamethylbenzyl MDMA which on deprotection would give chiral MDMA. Nobody is going to do this as chiral alphamethylbenzylamine is expensive and the chiral precusor is used up. There are ways to make chiral amines using chiral catalysts but this is way out of the league of clandestine MDMA cooks.
Significant mercury in MDMA is pretty much a myth
Raman spectroscopy cannot detect parts per million concentration of mercury whether it is methyl mercury halide or dimethyl mercury.
ICP-MS or ICP-OES can detect down to parts per trillion of mercury but I am not aware whether anybody has done this on clandestine MDMA.
Mercury in the form of mercury salts are used to amalgamate aluminium in the reductive amination of PMK this is generally a small scale route. the mercury ends up absorbed onto the aluminium and in the aluminium oxide hydroxide residues and it is in the form of elemental mercury, it is not converted into methyl mercury or dimethyl mercury. Amalgamated zinc has been used occasionally in pharmaceutical manufacture and the levels of mercury carried into the product are negligible.
the grey and brown colouration of impure MDMA means nothing it could be metal oxides, carbon or tar.
There is not commonly cyanide in cocaine either.
t-BOC MDMA and MDPH
There is no conceivable chemistry that can generate MDPH (methylenedioxyphentermine) from BOC MDMA, even the most inept clandestine operator can heat BOC MDMA with hydrochloric acid.
t-BOC MDMA itself is unlikely because it would need PMK or isosafrole to make it.
If there is MDPH methylenedioxyphentermine in circulation it is deliberate but I am highly skeptical quality of the source of the supposed data.
Things that are interesting but unexplained significance.
Pills aren't what they used to be.
in mid to late 2000s the Brabant Dutch manufacturers came up with a pill binder that is really good at binding pills making rock hard lumps but is not as good at allowing the pills to dissolve and disperse. I think it is polyvinylpyrrolidone co-polymer and replaced the earlier gum binders. This seems to be everywhere now. It has a couple of problems, it can bind stuff in solution further reducing availability and it also causes allergies in some people.
Crystals
There also appears to be some kind of bulking agent that can be crystallized with MDMA to make nice crystals which look pretty but are not pure MDMA.HCl I have a good idea what it is but this shouldn't be public information.
Nostalgia will continue to be a big thing in the future and you can't swim in the same river twice meaning that people change much more than the drug does and the river flows on.
MDMA in general now back to being as good as it ever has been, MDMA contents of pills are pretty high up to 100mg which is much higher than the 90s the precursors are plentiful and have been since 2010, perhaps the drugs haven't changed, the users have and the world we live in has.
Pharmaceutical (GMP) MDMA as MAPS have was originally made by the Nichols group, by the reductive amination of PMK just like all the clandestine processes. The only real difference is they distilled the MDMA in the final step it is not complicated.
