Silk Road forums
Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: modest mouse on April 28, 2012, 10:28 am
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I was just studying the structures of some common carcinogens and was surprised by an image of a structure closely resembling MDMA. The molecule is safrole, and its a component of sassafras oil, the actual compound converted into mdma during one synthesis.
I want to clarify that I am not aware of studies indicating mdma is carcinogenic, but the common contaminant safrole has been confirmed to cause kidney and liver cancer, and sassafras oil has been banned by the FDA due to the risk from safrole.
The problem is that no synthesis goes to 100 percent completion, meaning left over carcinogenic safrole will be left contaminating the mdma. Many chemists cut corners and dont care or want to remove the additional weight that disappears, etc so they dont wash the product. Some people even associate the smell with high quality or potent batches so they deliberately leave dont wash or will even add extra weight with it sadly. Safrole also causes false positives for mdma during marquis reagent identification so it is often included as an adulterant in pressed ecstasy pills that dont actually contain mdma to appear as if they do with the marquis test.
Safrole has a very strong odor of licorice or root beer, similar to that anise while pure mdma does not have the same characteristic aroma... so this can be used as one indicator of contamination.
Because of the carcinogen risk of contaminated mdma, and especially if yours smells or you are suspicious, I would recommend washing the mdma with a non-polar solvent which should dissolve the safrole but not mdma, in order to purify and remove the majority of the contamination. dry some acetone with baked epsom salt and then dump in your finely chopped crystal, stir and allow to settle, draw off acetone and repeat twice, then briefly dry and you should be left with pure white mdma that wont potentially cause you to develop cancer
be safe. love you all
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int
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Good post and very informative. I take a lot of what the FDA says regarding carcinogens with a grain of salt. IMHO, the real reason it is banned is because it is used to make MDMA. Since when did the FDA give a shit about the general public?!!
If you took all the advice out there regarding carcinogens etc, you would never consume anything!
Just my 2 cents :)