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Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: 2marijuanaman on July 03, 2013, 07:13 am

Title: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: 2marijuanaman on July 03, 2013, 07:13 am
Questions in the title... Why is most of the mdma on here around 84% purity anyway? Youd think they could purify it.
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: Lorimer on July 03, 2013, 09:23 am
It's because if you wanted *only* the MDMA molecule, you'd be dealing with an oil & not a very friendly one. MDMA is liquid as a freebase & has a pH of a little over 10 (base = alkaline), so it's somewhere between baking soda & ammonia on the scale of things fun to ingest.  Because it's more user-friendly as a solid, it's generally converted into its hydrochloride salt form - which if you do the molar calculations gives you 84% MDMA and 16% HCl. 

I don't like the 84%  description, though. Even though 16% of the molecule is a salt, and not MDMA, it's still "pure" - the HCl is part of the drug & not a cut. If you want to think of it another way, imagine crack and cocaine. Cocaine in a powder form is a salt, typically cocaine HCl; its freebase ("pure") form, without the salt, is crack.  Calling crystalline MDMA 84% pure makes as much sense as complaining that your 100% pure cocaine HCl wasn't really "pure" because it hadn't been converted into its freebase. . 

 It would be more accurate if those selling 84% MDMA just called it 100% (or 99.5% or whatever they're able to get) pure MDMA HCl, but now there's this *thing* users have about 84% being the "maximum purity" of MDMA in its crystalline form, so people keep using it. 

Maybe that was more than you wanted to know? The tl;dr is that crystalline MDMA is actually MDMA HCl, and 16% of the mass of the MDMA HCl molecule is HCl.
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: dirtybiscuitzz718 on July 03, 2013, 09:30 am
HCL
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: fuckmadagascar on July 03, 2013, 07:46 pm
It's because if you wanted *only* the MDMA molecule, you'd be dealing with an oil & not a very friendly one. MDMA is liquid as a freebase & has a pH of a little over 10 (base = alkaline), so it's somewhere between baking soda & ammonia on the scale of things fun to ingest.  Because it's more user-friendly as a solid, it's generally converted into its hydrochloride salt form - which if you do the molar calculations gives you 84% MDMA and 16% HCl. 

I don't like the 84% thing, though. Even though 16% of the molecule is a salt, and not MDMA, it's still "pure" - the HCl is part of the drug & not a cut. If you want to think of it another way, imagine crack and cocaine. Cocaine in a powder form is a salt, typically cocaine HCl; it's freebase ("pure") form, without the salt, is crack.  Calling crystalline MDMA 84% pure makes as much sense as complaining that your 100% pure cocaine HCl wasn't really "pure" because it hadn't been converted into its freebase. . 

 It would be more accurate if those selling 84% MDMA just called it 100% (or 99.5% or whatever they're able to get) pure MDMA HCl, but now there's thing *thing* about 84% being the "maximum purity" of MDMA in its crystaline form, so people keep using it. 

Maybe that was more than you wanted to know? The tl;dr is that crystalline MDMA is actually MDMA HCl, and 16% of the mass of the MDMA HCl molecule is HCl.

Thanks for taking the time to be thorough and informative. 2marijuanaman wasn't the only curious one.
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: 2marijuanaman on July 03, 2013, 09:29 pm
Thank you lorimer +1
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: thecatinthehat101 on July 03, 2013, 11:18 pm
Wow you are one smart dude. Holly snikies!
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: Lorimer on July 04, 2013, 04:40 am
Thanks all, but the pleasure (satisfaction?) is mine -  the 84% thing drives me nuts & the more people know what it means the better the chances it'll stop being used.

Better to know you're getting 99.5% MDMA HCl than 84% MDMA anyway - in theory 84% MDMA could mean someone handing you a vial of caustic oil cut with some other liquid. (I kinda love the idea of people being dicks about it, too - "You say it's 84% pure? Okay. I'll take it. But that other 16% had better be a hydrochloride salt...") 

And cat - I'm not a dude, but happy to take the compliment anyway. :)
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: Jack N Hoff on July 04, 2013, 04:45 am
Salt 8)
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: valakki on July 04, 2013, 02:50 pm
yeah. salt. like hoff said. nice one bruva! nice tto see non retards on teh forums!! this goes out to yall . keep the fire burnin hotter than hot!
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: P2P on July 04, 2013, 10:05 pm
Thanks all, but the pleasure (satisfaction?) is mine -  the 84% thing drives me nuts & the more people know what it means the better the chances it'll stop being used.

I actually had a similar argument about this recently. I completely agree, and I actually myself used the same reference to cocaine. It's a foolish standard, but it has become the market norm. I believe it is just a gimmick for distributors to show their customers that they are "honest" about the purity of their product. Another funny thing I've seen is that a large percentage (~30%) of the X in the Netherlands is cut with 16% sodium sulfate (the cutting agent of choice, apparently). Perhaps this has something to do with it (a way for distributors to get away with slightly more weight sold), but I am not sure. Either way, I agree with you. MDMA needs to be a normal drug and go back to the 0-100% standard.
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: smogmonster13 on July 04, 2013, 10:42 pm
I, too, have always wondered. But since no one posted any higher purities, I assumed it was something like a salt made up the rest. Thanks for the info.
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: RaFaeL5 on July 04, 2013, 11:11 pm
If you need 16% HCl to have a salt-kind of MDMA,
how come people have written that you can "clean" your MDMA and get more than 84% but still have something that you can ingest (snort, parachute, ...).

Is that just BS, or can you actually go over 84%MDMA and under 16% HCl?
Also, are those % in mol, in volume or in weight?

Thanks for the good and instructive answers
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: Jack N Hoff on July 05, 2013, 12:58 am
If you need 16% HCl to have a salt-kind of MDMA,
how come people have written that you can "clean" your MDMA and get more than 84% but still have something that you can ingest (snort, parachute, ...).

Is that just BS, or can you actually go over 84%MDMA and under 16% HCl?
Also, are those % in mol, in volume or in weight?

Thanks for the good and instructive answers

You can perform an acetone wash on your MDMA and get 100% MDMA HCl (84% MDMA) from it.  Nothing on here is pure MDMA HCl as many vendors claim.  It's marketing.  It wouldn't be that color if it was 100% pure MDMA HCl.  There is still good stuff on here nonetheless.
Title: Re: 84% MDMA... whats the other 16%
Post by: Lorimer on July 05, 2013, 01:44 am
P2P - That makes sense. I think it looks more shady, tho, as it confuses the question of legitimate purity. (Like Jack said, it's totally possible to clean up even quality MDMA - anhydrous acetone washes aren't too difficult to pull off. Altho Jack you're not necessary getting 100% MDMA HCl at that point - acetone won't wash out any amphetamines nor many research chems. :) )

RaFaeL5 - The molar mass of MDMA is 193.3 g/mol, and the molar mass of HCl is 36.5 g/mol. So any MDMA HCl molecule will have a molar mass of 229.8 g/mol, 84% of which will be MDMA - it's just another way of saying you have 100% pure MDMA HCl. The chemical properties of MDMA mean that "cleaning" the HCl from your MDMA salt would mean you'd end up with freebase oil.



One thing I didn't write earlier is that there are other MDMA salts, each w a different MDMA-to-acid ratio. MDMA bromide salts aren't uncommon. MDMA phosphate salts are another option, tho I'm not sure what the ratio would be. (Phosphate anions can exist in more than one ionization form, so you they could create more than one MDMA salt form.)

Honestly I can't think of many reasons why someone outside a lab would care at all about the molecular ratios that make up a given drug compound. If you know what the salt is, knowing the ratio is just a matter of doing the math, and it makes way more sense to say "100% pure MDMA dihydrogen phosphate" than "67% pure MDMA" (the molar mass of dihydrogen phosphate is ~95 g/mol, so an MDMA dihydrogen phosphate molecule is 67% MDMA and 33% dihydrogen phosphate). Just because a dihydrogen phosphate molecule has a greater molar mass than a hydrogen chloride molecule doesn't mean make MDMA HCl is more pure - one is just pure MDMA H2P04 and the other pure MDMA HCl. All is does is confuse the difference between the molecular structure of a substance and whether or not that substance is mechanically (not chemically) mixed up with other cuts.

Or wait. Maybe there is one way the 84% description is useful. Anyone who tells you they have 84% pure MDMA? You can be 100% certain they did not make it themselves. ;)