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Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: turquoisecrayon on October 22, 2012, 01:10 am

Title: Is 84% Purity Good for MDMA?
Post by: turquoisecrayon on October 22, 2012, 01:10 am
I have seen a couple vendors advertise 84% pure MDMA as "very pure". Is this really considered very pure, and is that really a safe level of purity? If you take a 150 mg dose it seems a little scary that 20mg of it could be anything.
Title: Re: Is 84% Purity Good for MDMA?
Post by: gestaltassault2 on October 22, 2012, 01:18 am
84% is as pure as you can get MDMA as a HCl salt...in order for MDMA to come as a solid in the form of crystals or powder it needs to be a salt...the HCl is what holds the MDMA molecules together via ionic bonds...however that extra molecule has a weight of its own so by weight you get 84% MDMA and 16% HCl salt...

it's not a cutting agent...it's just the way chemistry works...
Title: Re: Is 84% Purity Good for MDMA?
Post by: thesearstower on October 22, 2012, 01:28 am
The MDMA you buy is in the hydrochloride salt form . That means that there's an HCl molecule hanging off of every MDMA molecule. The salt form is more soluble in our bodies, and thus easier for us to absorb. The HCl molecule makes up about 16% of each MDMA hydrochloride molecule. Thus, each molecule is 84% pure MDMA and 16%HCl. It's not a cut or adulterant. It's an extra molecule that makes it more human-friendly.

It's kind of like how a chocolate-chip cookie would only really be 90% pure cookie. The other 10% is chocolate chips. (This is a poor analogy.)
Title: Re: Is 84% Purity Good for MDMA?
Post by: gestaltassault2 on October 22, 2012, 01:39 am
The MDMA you buy is in the hydrochloride salt form . That means that there's an HCl molecule hanging off of every MDMA molecule. The salt form is more soluble in our bodies, and thus easier for us to absorb. The HCl molecule makes up about 16% of each MDMA hydrochloride molecule. Thus, each molecule is 84% pure MDMA and 16%HCl. It's not a cut or adulterant. It's an extra molecule that makes it more human-friendly.

It's kind of like how a chocolate-chip cookie would only really be 90% pure cookie. The other 10% is chocolate chips. (This is a poor analogy.)
it's more like 90% chocolate chips and 10% dough....the dough is what holds the chocolate chips together to make a cookie...just as HCl is what holds the MDMA molecules together to make it a solid...

MDMA freebase would be a solution mixed with dichloromethane...in order to separate it from the dicholoromethane you need to do an acid/base extraction which converts the MDMA into a salt which can be filtered from the DCM solution...
Title: Re: Is 84% Purity Good for MDMA?
Post by: paxpax on October 22, 2012, 02:35 am
The MDMA you buy is in the hydrochloride salt form . That means that there's an HCl molecule hanging off of every MDMA molecule. The salt form is more soluble in our bodies, and thus easier for us to absorb. The HCl molecule makes up about 16% of each MDMA hydrochloride molecule. Thus, each molecule is 84% pure MDMA and 16%HCl. It's not a cut or adulterant. It's an extra molecule that makes it more human-friendly.

It's kind of like how a chocolate-chip cookie would only really be 90% pure cookie. The other 10% is chocolate chips. (This is a poor analogy.)
it's more like 90% chocolate chips and 10% dough....the dough is what holds the chocolate chips together to make a cookie...just as HCl is what holds the MDMA molecules together to make it a solid...

MDMA freebase would be a solution mixed with dichloromethane...in order to separate it from the dicholoromethane you need to do an acid/base extraction which converts the MDMA into a salt which can be filtered from the DCM solution...


Not entirely true. DCM is sometimes used to separate MDMA freebase from is final reduction, although not always. Other solvents, those with higher volatility have been used to help speed the drying process. Further, even if MDMA freebase was disolved in DCM a simple vacuum fractional distillation would easily strip the DCM from the MDMA freebase. A caustic oily substance would be left behind, which in itself if fairly unstable and will eventually rearrange itself into a useless goo.

Typically MDMA freebase is dissolved in DCM (or other suitable solvent) and then gassed with anhydrous hydrochloric gas. The gassing "salts" the MDMA to MDMA.HCL and forces it to fall form solution.

To answer the original OP's question. If someone states that they have 84% pure MDMA, what they are referring to is 100% pure MDMA.hcl. We got stuck with this 84% due to lab reporting methodologies. If analyzed under gas chromatography the result would be 16% hcl and 84% MDMA. This would indicate a pure mdma.hcl product which is not really possible. Keep in mind, just because the seller says it is so, certainly does not mean it is so. Even billion dollar pharmaceutical labs typically produce compounds in the 99% range.