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A Cautionary Tale

by Angela


NOTICE: TO ALL CONCERNED Certain text files and messages contained on this site deal with activities and devices which would be in violation of various Federal, State, and local laws if actually carried out or constructed. The webmasters of this site do not advocate the breaking of any law. Our text files and message bases are for informational purposes only. We recommend that you contact your local law enforcement officials before undertaking any project based upon any information obtained from this or any other web site. We do not guarantee that any of the information contained on this system is correct, workable, or factual. We are not responsible for, nor do we assume any liability for, damages resulting from the use of any information on this site.

The following story is mostly precis'd from Chemistry in Britain, a journal not likely to be familiar to most of the people who post to this group (being Americans)

A chemist in the UK was recently cleared and released after 18 months in goal, for manufacture of 1.5 kg of MDMA. The chemist in question, who described himself as a freelance formulator, had been commissioned to develop a new domestic deodorant. For some reason he thought that 3,4 methylenedioxyphenyl-N-methyl propylamine (MDMPA) might do.

Although he could find no published synthesis, he thought that the compound could be made from saffrole by the same route as MDMA can be made from iso-saffrole. Previously, he had tried isomerisation of saffrole to iso-saffrole for another client, which had apparently failed. In that case he had tested the product using the classic text, Fiegel's 'Spot Tests which showed -ve for iso-saffrole and +ve for saffrole.

Following Shulgin's PHIKAL route for MDMA, and using the the saffrole he already had in stock from the failed isomerisation, he kept forcing the reaction, apparently with some success. At this point he was raided, arrested and charged with manufacture of MDMA. Forensic tests (using NMR) showed beyond doubt that he had made MDMA. Finally, his solicitor contacted a professor at Essex University, who tested the saffrole feedstock with NMR and showed that our hero's isomerisation had indeed worked after all, the material was 70% iso-saffrole and 30% saffrole and STILL tested -ve for iso-saffrole on the standard Fiegel's Test. This test in fact, was so unreliable that it gave a -ve for iso-saffrole, even when pure iso-saffrole was tested! The Appeal Court agreed, the cops wept and the chemist was released albeit without compensation or the return of his equipment.

The professor commented "It was basically a combination of a lack of sophisticated equipment and an inexperienced person trying to do sophisticated chemistry. ...(he)... was working in such an ill-prepared laboratory that the only tests he could do were things like melting point, boiling point and density."

Now, you can draw several morals from this tale, depending on your inclination, but it seems to me that one moral is very clear viz. chemistry aint cookery, there is no such thing as a 'foolproof' synthesis.

Although our illustrious predecessors did wonderful things without them, modern tools like NMR etc. make life very easy (have you ever tried to identify a compound especially an impure one, with m.p., b.p., optical rotation, elemental analysis etc?) If you can't read an NMR spectrum (or you don't have an NMR machine in your kitchen) then you shouldn't try doing experimental chemistry. If you insist on trying, then don't experiment with the results on your friends.

A second point (which any real chemist knows only too well) is that the published 'experts' are quite often mistaken. If you don't know enough to know when to doubt the textbooks, then you shouldn't be messing with what you don't understand.

I'm sorry if this disappoints all you aspiring criminals. If there really was a simple, foolproof way to make MDMA, then there wouldn't be so much crap being sold as E.

 
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