Talk:Substance purification guide
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This guide is provided for informational and educational purposes only. We do not encourage you to break the law and cannot claim any responsibility for your actions. |
Due to the legal status of most drugs, it is not uncommon for a user to stumble upon adulterated products. This adulteration can lead to dose differences, but also cause drug interactions with sometimes even a deadly outcome. Keep this in mind when dosing any substance. It is highly recommended to get your drugs lab tested, if this is a possibility for you.
Percentages (salts):
The maximum purity of a freebase chemical is always 100%. When in salt form, however, this percentage is different. The explaination is quite simple, shown by this example:
Amphetamine (135.21 g/mol) is sold as the Sulphate (96.06 g/mol) salt, which due to it's double negative charge, can hold 2 Amphetamine molecules in the salt structure. Resulting in a total molecular mass of (2 × 135.21) + (1 × 96.06) = 366.43 g/mol. Therefore, the maximum percentage of Amphetamine is 270.42 / 366.43 × 100 = 73.80%. Methamphetamine (149.24 g/mol) is sold as the Hydrochloride (36.46 g/mol) salt, which can only hold 1 Methamphetamine molecule in the salt structure. Same steps: 149.24 + 36.46 = 185.70 g/mol, 149.24 / 185.70 × 100 = 80.37%.
When dosing a substance, keep in mind this difference in percentage, based on form.
Filtering off adulterants
If you know your drug is cut with something and know what this something is, you can use the physical properties to filter the cuts from the drug. Most commonly used would be solubility in different solvents.
For example, to wash caffeine from amphetamine sulfate, you can use (anhydrous!) acetone, which dissolves caffeine, but not the speed. By simply pouring the mixture on a coffee filter, the ampetamine is left on top and the acetone with caffeine goes through. Let any leftover acetone in the speed evaporate and it's done.
From the top of my head, levamisole can be filtered from cocaine with chloroform, but more easily you can 'clean' cocaine by turning it into freebase (and back if you want.)