| Pages:
1
2 |
chemoleo
Biochemicus Energeticus
Posts: 3005
Registered: 23-7-2003
Location: England Germany
Member Is Offline
Mood: crystalline
|
|
New meth formula avoids anti-drug laws
Certainly not good news for the amateur hobbyist...
| Quote: | By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer Justin Juozapavicius, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 24, 7:10 pm ET
TULSA, Okla. – This is the new formula for methamphetamine: a two-liter soda bottle, a few handfuls of cold pills and some noxious chemicals. Shake
the bottle and the volatile reaction produces one of the world's most addictive drugs.
Only a few years ago, making meth required an elaborate lab — with filthy containers simmering over open flames, cans of flammable liquids and
hundreds of pills. The process gave off foul odors, sometimes sparked explosions and was so hard to conceal that dealers often "cooked" their drugs in
rural areas.
But now drug users are making their own meth in small batches using a faster, cheaper and much simpler method with ingredients that can be carried in
a knapsack and mixed on the run. The "shake-and-bake" approach has become popular because it requires a relatively small number of pills of the
decongestant pseudoephedrine — an amount easily obtained under even the toughest anti-meth laws that have been adopted across the nation to restrict
large purchases of some cold medication.
"Somebody somewhere said 'Wait this requires a lot less pseudoephedrine, and I can fly under the radar,'" said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
An Associated Press review of lab seizures and interviews with state and federal law enforcement agents found that the new method is rapidly spreading
across the nation's midsection and is contributing to a spike in the number of meth cases after years of declining arrests.
The new formula does away with the clutter of typical meth labs, and it can turn the back seat of a car or a bathroom stall into a makeshift drug
factory. Some addicts have even made the drug while driving.
The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required.
Using the new formula, batches of meth are much smaller but just as dangerous as the old system, which sometimes produces powerful explosions,
touches off intense fires and releases drug ingredients that must be handled as toxic waste.
"If there is any oxygen at all in the bottle, it has a propensity to make a giant fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri
State Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control. "You're not dealing with rocket scientists here anyway. If they get unlucky at all, it can
have a very devastating reaction."
One little mistake, such as unscrewing the bottle cap too fast, can result in a huge blast, and police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states
have linked dozens of flash fires this year — some of them fatal — to meth manufacturing.
"Every meth recipe is dangerous, but in this one, if you don't shake it just right, you can build up too much pressure, and the container can pop,"
Woodward said.
When fire broke out in older labs, "it was usually on a stove in a back room or garage and people would just run, but when these things pop, you see
more extreme burns because they are holding it. There are more fires and more burns because of the close proximity, whether it's on a couch or driving
down the road."
After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that users smoke, snort or inject. They often discard the bottle, which now contains
a poisonous brown and white sludge. Dozens of reports describe toxic bottles strewn along highways and rural roads in states with the worst meth
problems.
The do-it-yourself method creates just enough meth for a few hits, allowing users to make their own doses instead of buying mass-produced drugs from a
dealer.
"It simplified the process so much that everybody's making their own dope," said Kevin Williams, sheriff of Marion County, Ala., about 80 miles west
of Birmingham. "It can be your next-door neighbor doing it. It can be one of your family members living downstairs in the basement."
A typical meth lab would normally take days to generate a full-size batch of meth, which would require a heat source and dozens, maybe hundreds, of
boxes of cold pills.
But because the new method uses far less pseudoephedrine, small-time users are able to make the drug in spite of a federal law that bars customers
from buying more than 9 grams — roughly 300 pills — a month.
The federal government and dozens of states adopted restrictions on pseudoephedrine in 2005, and the number of lab busts fell dramatically.
The total number of clandestine meth lab incidents reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration fell from almost 17,400 in 2003 to just 7,347 in
2006.
But the number of busts has begun to climb again, and some authorities blame the shake-and-bake method for renewing meth activity.
The AP review of 14 states found:
• At least 10 states reported increases in meth lab seizures or meth-related arrests from 2007 to 2008.
• The Mississippi State Crime Lab participated in 457 meth incidents through May 31, up from 122 for the same period a year ago — a nearly 275
percent increase.
• Several states, such as Oklahoma and Tennessee, are on pace this year to double the number of labs busted in 2008. The director of Tennessee's
meth task force said the pace of lab busts in his state is projected to be about 1,300 for 2009, compared with 815 for all of 2008.
Some states lack a central database to monitor cold medicine sales, so meth cooks circumvent state laws by pill shopping in multiple cities and states
— a practice known as "smurfing" that allows them to stay under restrictions placed on sales.
Traci Fruit, a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, said law enforcement officials are becoming increasingly frustrated because
there's no way to tell who is buying what "unless we go from store to store ourselves and pull up the records."
Historically, rural states like Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas have been hotbeds for meth use because an important ingredient in the traditional
method, anhydrous ammonia, was easily available from tanks on farms where it's used as a fertilizer. But the new formula does not need anhydrous
ammonia and instead uses ammonium nitrate, a compound easily found in instant cold packs that can be purchased at any drug store.
Data from the Justice Department and the DEA data suggest the method could only be in its early stages, and "shake-and-bake" labs have recently been
discovered as far north as Indiana and as far east as West Virginia.
States surveyed by the AP also included: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
New Mexico, Arizona and California.
While many law enforcement agencies are just learning how to spot the new labs, other states are rushing to close loopholes in laws limiting the sale
of meth ingredients.
Mississippi Sen. Sid Albritton, said that state's law — modeled after Oklahoma's — forces buyers to show identification and makes stores keep a
log of cold medicine sales. But the problem in Mississippi is lack of technology to instantly log purchases in a central database.
"You have to understand going in that drugs are an evolutionary process," said Albritton, a former police detective and narcotics officer. "The day
after we pass a law, they are going to look for ways to circumvent that."
|
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_us/us_meth_s_ne...
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
|
|
|
hissingnoise
International Hazard
Posts: 3940
Registered: 26-12-2002
Member Is Offline
Mood: Pulverulescent!
|
|
OTOH, it's clearly not good news for DrugWarriors since anything that highlights the utter futility of prohibition will ultimately lead to its
long-awaited demise.
It's the silver lining!
A side-effect though could turn some young hobbyists into meth experimenters and that would be unwanted. . .
|
|
|
S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
|
|
I think that it is more bad news for people with colds, I doubt that the evolution of regulation of pseuoephedrine is over yet. And anyone who gets
their ammonium nitrate from cold packs, while they are still available, doesn't have to worry about looking like a terrorist bomber...just a meth
cook.
It is the usual lithium reduction but with aqueous ammonium salt and base instead of ammonia; I doubt that the conversion is very good but apparently
it works some.
[Edited on 25-8-2009 by S.C. Wack]
|
|
|
woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8014
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: interested
|
|
They can make ammonium nitrate a regulated chemical, but if they want to do that, then they have to do so with every ammonium salt, e.g. ammonium
sulfate and ammonium chloride. I personally think that this new development does not really affect home chemistry. The chemicals and apparatus needed
for this are too general, the only thing which really can be restricted is pseudoephedrine and it appears that they are doing that already.
|
|
|
pantone159
National Hazard
Posts: 590
Registered: 27-6-2006
Location: Austin, TX, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: desperate for shade
|
|
Quote: Originally posted by S.C. Wack  | | It is the usual lithium reduction but with aqueous ammonium salt and base instead of ammonia; I doubt that the conversion is very good but apparently
it works some. |
I was curious what this all was about. I read these stories yesterday or so, and none of them had any details other than scaremongering. So people are
chunking Li metal into an aqueous NH3 solution in a 2 L bottle??? Ok, that doesn't sound like a good idea.
|
|
|
Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
|
|
From the standpoint of the home chemist this seems to not bode well.
Previous to recent limitations on cold medicine purchases there was a fairly high amount of domestic drug lab busts, lab fires, and consequent bad
publicity. The recent pseudoephedrine limitations knocked this bad press down quite a bit. Of course they kept getting their meth, but most of it
came from the superlabs in Mexico. Now, once this lab-in-a-bottle method spreads nationwide it looks like we are in for some quite bad publicity for
the home chemist.
Yes, stock up on cold packs and lithium batteries before you have to sign for them also. 
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
|
|
|
S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
|
|
Well it's not quite aqueous ammonia, but from what I've read, some water is added to the NaOH and ammonium nitrate and pseudoephedrine and solvent.
Then the lithium is added.
I read that the cold packs are already disappearing, it's been only a matter of time for the ammonium nitrate ones.
|
|
|
JohnWW
International Hazard
Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
| Quote: | By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer Justin Juozapavicius, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 24, 7:10 pm ET
TULSA, Okla. – This is the new formula for methamphetamine: a two-liter soda bottle, a few handfuls of cold pills and some noxious chemicals. Shake
the bottle and the volatile reaction produces one of the world's most addictive drugs.(cut)
Historically, rural states like Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas have been hotbeds for meth use because an important ingredient in the traditional
method, anhydrous ammonia, was easily available from tanks on farms where it's used as a fertilizer. But the new formula does not need anhydrous
ammonia and instead uses ammonium nitrate, a compound easily found in instant cold packs that can be purchased at any drug store.(cut)
From http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_us/us_meth_s_ne... |
That is bad science! Anhydrous NH3 is NOT used on farms as a fertilizer! And with a normal boiling-point of -33.4ºC, the stuff has to be stored under
considerable pressure to keep it liquid at ordinary temperatures. Because of the use of NH3 as an industrial-scale refrigerant gas, the only
agricultural use for it would be on large dairy farms in refrigerators to cool milk awaiting collection by a milk tanker. Only ammonium salts and
nitrates and urea are used as nitrogenous fertilizers.
|
|
|
Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
|
|
Incorrect.
[Edited on 8-25-2009 by Polverone]
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
|
|
|
JohnWW
International Hazard
Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
That cannot be correct! The stuff would immediately vaporize if applied to land (except in winter in those relatively few places where temperatures
remain below -33ºC for long periods), and in sufficient quantity it would constitute a poison-gas hazard, although its smell would be sufficient
warning to get away. Unless it is going to be held for immediate reaction with H2SO4 or HNO3 to make ammonium salts for use as fertilizers, but for
ordinary farms that would still be very hazardous, especially in view of the exothermicity of the reactions.
|
|
|
entropy51
Gone, but not forgotten
Posts: 1612
Registered: 30-5-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Fissile
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW | | And with a normal boiling-point of -33.4ºC, the stuff has to be stored under considerable pressure to keep it liquid at ordinary temperatures.
|
I guess by ordinary temperatures, you mean room temperature.
I run reactions in liquid NH3 at atmospheric pressure. The flask is cooled by dry ice and a dry ice-cooled condenser refluxes the NH3. The NH3
doesn't go anywhere.
It can also be stored in a loosely-stoppered Dewar (Thermos bottle) in a hood, at atmospheric pressure. It very slowly boils off.
So liquid NH3 can be stored at ordinary pressures and rather ordinary temperatures (dry ice).
[Edited on 25-8-2009 by entropy51]
|
|
|
S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
|
|
Ha. A quarter of the USA points and laughs.
If you wanted to apply anhydrous ammonia for use as a fertilizer, particularly for corn, how would you do it? That is how it's done. And it is done on
a truly vast scale, by thousands of farmers, safely. Not so safely by meth cooks tapping the "white buffalo".
|
|
|
sparkgap
International Hazard
Posts: 1234
Registered: 16-1-2005
Location: not where you think
Member Is Offline
Mood: chaotropic
|
|
Okay, he made a mistake, we all know that. Let's not rub it in, eh? 
I'm pretty sure they'd only apply the restrictions on pseudoephedrine (OT: phenylephrine really sucks at relieving nasal congestion  ); they'd be nuts to restrict ammonium salts.
sparky (~_~)
"What's UTFSE? I keep hearing about it, but I can't be arsed to search for the answer..."
|
|
|
kclo4
National Hazard
Posts: 916
Registered: 11-12-2004
Location:
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by sparkgap | Okay, he made a mistake, we all know that. Let's not rub it in, eh?
I'm pretty sure they'd only apply the restrictions on pseudoephedrine (OT: phenylephrine really sucks at relieving nasal congestion ); they'd be nuts to restrict ammonium salts.
sparky (~_~) |
The meth sticks by vicks they sell at work much better for relieving nasal congestion. 
|
|
|
Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
|
|
Sorry for continuing off-topic but as a teenager I worked on my uncle's wheat farm during summer "vacations" and did apply anhydrous NH3 to plowed
ground for fertilizer. I was about 17 when I first did this - no safety gear provided, no training other than "...connect the hose here then open
both tank valves. After the transfer, close the valves, then disconnect the hose." The "white buffalo" was parked on a hillside so the transfer was
by gravity. I often saw NH4OH vapors wafting up from the ground during application but never really smelled much from my position on the tractor. I
had no idea that the NH3 was under high pressure.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
|
|
|
not_important
International Hazard
Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
It's not terribly high pressure, 10 bar will keep NH3 a liquid at 25 C. The evaporation from the pressure drop when letting it out of the tank is
enough to cool a lot of the escaping NH3 to below its boiling point at 1 bar.
|
|
|
entropy51
Gone, but not forgotten
Posts: 1612
Registered: 30-5-2009
Member Is Offline
Mood: Fissile
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW | | That cannot be correct! The stuff would immediately vaporize if applied to land (except in winter in those relatively few places where temperatures
remain below -33ºC for long periods), |
So what if it vaporizes?? Ammonia is one of the most soluble of all gases in water. One kg of water dissolves 900 g of NH3 at 0 C. Do you think
there might be some water in the soil? It won't go anywhere and won't poison anybody. As Magpie said, you can rarely if ever even smell it.
|
|
|
hissingnoise
International Hazard
Posts: 3940
Registered: 26-12-2002
Member Is Offline
Mood: Pulverulescent!
|
|
Back on-topic---this 'one-pot-synthesis' will likely prove irresistible to teenage boys of a certain mindset and on a near-global scale.
Low-level smurfing could become ubiquitous on city streets and the problems for LE may increase by some orders of magnitude.
I'd say a tsunami of shit is approaching the fan. . .
It's a crazy, fucked-up world!
|
|
|
Nicodem
Super Moderator
Posts: 4230
Registered: 28-12-2004
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
I'm surprised that so many members bought this story. Generally, if something is written as propaganda, it most likely is propaganda. I have no idea
as to what agenda this bullshit is supposed to serve, neither do I care since I do not live there. Yet, once you have cops claiming that some meth
cook developed a recipe where you get more meth than you put pseudoephedrine in the reaction, then you know you are in the realm of science fiction,
or just fiction.
Also, there is no way a Birch reduction would work with ammonium nitrate or aqueous ammonia. The prerequisite property of the solvent in the Birch
reductions is in that it can at least temporarily solvate electrons and at the same time being a protic solvent. Clearly anything containing water or
any acid such as ammonium nitrate is out of the play.
| Quote: | The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required.
...
After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that users smoke, snort or inject. |
Yeah right! You just throw the pills in a bottle, you do the "shake-and-bake" thing, you open the bottle and out comes meth, ready for use. They did
not even bother to make their fairy tale appear serious.
Maybe they are using this primitive propaganda just to get meth cooks to injure themselves by mixing lithium with ammonium nitrate. 
|
|
|
Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline
Mood: Waiting for spring
|
|
Or it could be a vicious circle of ignorance. Some tweaker wants easy meth, shakes up pills with some other chemicals in a bottle, then the placebo
effect convinces him it worked when he tries the product (one reason I've always been suspicious of the unblinded 'bioassay'). He passes the tip along
and since nobody conducts blinded trials or real analysis the procedure keeps spreading.
When law enforcement finds meth heads making 'meth' this way, why bother to analyze the product when it could only diminish their ability to
prosecute, punish, and make a case for greater funding? Like the tweakers, they are happier believing that it really produces meth.
I tried searching for this method on Google Scholar, wondering if any forensic scientists have tried to reproduce it, but found no relevant hits.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
|
|
|
unionised
International Hazard
Posts: 5126
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: UK
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
What I can't understand is why the press think that method is new.
It's while back that I was looking at methods of meth. (and other street drug ) production and that was on the list.
(Incidentally I was being paid by a UK govt department to do the research on behalf of a UK police force in case anyone is wondering)
|
|
|
S.C. Wack
bibliomaster
Posts: 2419
Registered: 7-5-2004
Location: Cornworld, Central USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Enhanced
|
|
Several members at WD, notably including several but not all staff, think that it works, to some extent, when done in a certain way. I think that the
concept is that the lithium floats on the solvent, and only enough water was added to get the ammonium nitrate and NaOH reacting. Ammonia in situ.
Naturally any water should be bad, and the average member does no analysis of even the simplest kind ever. The relevant 22 page thread is titled
"Novel Dissolving- Metal Reduction Schema". This predates the story by some time.
|
|
|
starman
Hazard to Others
Posts: 318
Registered: 5-7-2008
Location: Western Australia
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
..."some addicts have even made the drug while driving".... Wow thats
impressive!
Whats next? LSD whilst blindfolded and hancuffed on a tightrope?
Chemistry- The journey from the end of physics to the beginning of life.(starman)
|
|
|
Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
|
|
Didn't German troopers also make meth in their helmets during WWII? Or is that also BS?
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
|
|
|
Sedit
International Hazard
Posts: 1939
Registered: 23-11-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: Manic Expressive
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by S.C. Wack |
Several members at WD, notably including several but not all staff, think that it works, to some extent, when done in a certain way. I think that the
concept is that the lithium floats on the solvent, and only enough water was added to get the ammonium nitrate and NaOH reacting. Ammonia in situ.
Naturally any water should be bad, and the average member does no analysis of even the simplest kind ever. The relevant 22 page thread is titled
"Novel Dissolving- Metal Reduction Schema". This predates the story by some time. |
That threed in question is quite possibly the source of this story to begin with. The idea behind that threed is not a true birch reduction but the
synthesis of Lithium bronze insitu to act as the reducing agent. There is a threed here as well that speaks of Lithium bronze synthesis and I have
been quite interested in the chemistry for sometime yet reluctant to bring any discussion of it here due to lack of sources and the fact that the
targeted compound mostly discussed is unfavorible. Lithium bronze IIRC can act as a superbase able to deprotanate DMSO and if it is synthesised and is
stable under these conditions then its uses would far exceed any soda pop meth factory many times over.
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2 |
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
