WARNING Fake And Possibly Toxic Ketamine Hitting The Marketplaces

Posted by: DeepDotWeb

February 24, 2014

Update: Followup post with addition test results can be found here

An important harm reduction thread was posted yesterday on the hub forums / SR2 forums regarding the analysis of a possibly toxic Ketamine that was found on the marketplace.

read the original discussion on the hub forums on this link: http://thehub7dnl5nmcz5.onion/index.php?topic=1180.0;topicseen

Silk Road Forums: http://silkroad5v7dywlc.onion/index.php?topic=1916.msg544155#msg544155

This is a quote of the post that was published there, this seems like an important information that should be brought to the public attention:

Quote post 1:

Hi all,

I don’t often directly criticize product. I don’t make a habit of sounding alarms. So when I say this I am deadly fucking serious and am quite sure of my facts:

THERE IS FAKE, AND POTENTIALLY TOXIC, KETAMINE STARTING TO CIRCULATE.

I can prove that the K is fake (see below for process, results and pictures). I could only speak about the batch from the vendor I got it from – but from what I’ve been recently told, this may be a general problem as several vendors have received large quantities of this fake product. It most likely originates high up on the chain in the country of manufacture (China). Therefore it is VERY likely that multiple vendors will receive (or have already received) this fake product.

I will go on to describe how to identify it, and how to test to see if your batch is fake (very easy).

1. MY FINDINGS:
———————-

I discovered this issue upon trying what looked like superb K, from a vendor I’ve purchased from before.  The stuff received in December was great. So good, in fact, that it was worth a 4 week wait and a re-order.  But the second batch, sent at the end of January and received a few days ago, was… not great. Not great at all.

I took zero K in that 4 week interval so there was no tolerance issue. And yet an entire 0.5 gram barely – BARELY – had any effect, whereas it should have had me not just k-holed but WELL unconscious.

It did however fuck my nose up badly.

Applied to gums or tongue, a little cooling/numbing effect occurred – similar to, but different from ketamine. There was a VERY strong salty taste, so strong it “burned” like when you lick pure table salt.

A Mandelin reagent test produced an oily sheen which was followed by a glint of orange after 30 seconds, then darkened to black. Weird. Ketamine should go just orange. I cross-checked my Mandelin with my other stock: my reagent was fine.

I decided to analyze further.

ANALYSIS 1:
——————

METHOD:

1. In each of 3 small test tubes, I placed 0.5g “K”.

2. The test tubes were placed in an oven and heated at 75 degrees Celsius for one hour, in order to ensure an anhydrous (water-free) product (water will fuck with our solubilities).

3. I added 3 solvents – 10ml of a different solvent per tube:

a) anhydrous methanol
b) anhydrous isopropyl alcohol
c) naptha

4. The tubes were immediately sealed with chemistry-lab grade polymer test-tube stoppers and then quadruple-wrapped in polypropylene, tightly sealed by elastic bands, to ensure they were waterproof and gasproof.

5. The tubes were then heated gently to their respective boiling points in hot water baths. They were left there for an hour, agitating every 5 minutes, in order to achieve absorption.

Here’s how it should work:

a) Methanol:  Ketamine HCl is classified as “freely soluble” in methanol, which means it will dissolve up to 1-10g in each ml of methanol. I can therefore dissolve 10-100g of ketamine in my 10ml tube.  Sodium chloride is less soluble, (dissolving at 14g/kg of methanol, which as methanol has a molar mass of approx. 32 and thus weighs 1.42g/ml, which means 1kg of methanol is 704ml, which means 0.25g salt will dissolve in 10ml of methanol).

So, the methanol tube will dissolve both ketamine (well) and sodium chloride (badly). If there’s more than 50% salt by weight in the product, I’d expect to see some not dissolve at room temperature. If we heat the tube, more will dissolve but then return as crystal precipitate at the bottom of the tube once it cools to standard room temperature and pressure.

Methanol also won’t dissolve cuts like talc, so they’ll rest as (probably wet-looking) solids at the bottom of the tube. They should be easily distinguishable in appearance from undissolved salt.

b) Isopropyl alcohol:  Ketamine HCl is “soluble” in isopropyl, meaning 10-30ml of isopropyl is needed to dissolve 1g of ketamine. Therefore since there’s only 0.5g of product in the vial, my 10ml of isopropyl should easily dissolve it.

However, sodium chloride is almost totally insoluble in isopropyl (in fact, it’s used to turn < 99% isopropyl into anhydrous isopropyl – just add non-iodized table salt, agitate, let settle, and you’ll get 2 distinct layers, one containing salt+water and the other anhydrous isopropyl). used to “salt” isopropyl to remove water from it, for this very reason).

Therefore, with the isopropyl test we should see all ketamine dissolve and almost all of any salt cut remain undissolved.

c) Naptha: will dissolve ketamine only if it’s ketamine BASE. It will NOT dissolve ketamine hydrochloride. It will also not dissolve sodium chloride.

So if we had pure ketamine HCl, we’d expect:

1. Tube 1 to be completely clear
2. Tube 2 to be completely clear
3. Tube 3 to be unchanged (all crystals at the bottom).

RESULTS:

1.  When heated, Tube 1 dissolved almost all the crystals. When brought back to room temperature, some (about half) of the crystals precipitated back out. This is a positive for a salt cut with ketamine.

2. When heated, Tube 2 did pretty much fuck-all. There’s some small loss of crystals but the vast majority of it remained as crystals, completely undissolved. Again, this is positive for a salt cut. And in fact one can easily see the square salt crystals in the tube under good light.

3. When heated, Tube 3 did absolutely fuck-all. No change in crystals.

These 3 reactions right here indicate, in turn that:

1. There’s at least some cut.
2. Most of it is cut.
3. It’s not ketamine base (I wanted to know just in case. Ketamine freebase is soluble in naptha and insoluble in isopropyl)

I decided to proceed with a second analysis.

ANALYSIS 2:
——————–

METHOD:

Today I did a quick dissolve of 14g “K” in 100ml anhydrous isopropyl alcohol – covered, 2 hours at room temperature in a stirrer on light agitation. I filtered the solution though medium-flow filter paper under anhydrous conditions using gravity as a drip force (no vacuum or suction). I evaporated the resulting clear liquid in a Teflon pan at just below simmering point of the isopropyl (i.e. around 75 degrees Celsius) until almost gone, then removed from heat, let the remainder airdry for 1 hour, then dessicated in a 60 degree oven for 15 minutes. This is way too fast to result in huge crystals but will result in some crystallization, which I was curious to observe.

The result: a mere 0.6g of little rod-like crystals, which are somewhat like ketamine in appearance but not really. Here are pictures I’ve uploaded to pix.ru – please feel free to visit them via Tor; it’s quite safe:

 

I think this is pretty conclusive re: this not being ketamine at all.

As for what this product is; I am still working on it. I suspect MSG (monosodium glutamate) is present, from the rod-like crystals and that familar, kind-of-salty chinese smell. However there’s definitely some other things in there too – including at least one cut that is faintly psychoactive. I am inclined to agree with the assessment of one of the vendors that contacted me: the psychoactive is either a badly-fucked K process resulting in a new compounds, or it’s the drug 4-MEC. That’s a very unusual additive but it could definitely happen… especially if some lab got saddled with a bunch of it and decided to run a scam.

4-MEC does not show those dark colors in both reagent tests, but this doesn’t mean much. Colors would occur if it was mixed with other things that DO react to Mandelin + Marquis – especially dark purple/black. In fact, many organic compounds would go black just from the concentrated sulfuric acid that is a major ingredient in both reagents. Many organic substances degrade to black when dissolved in sulfuric acid, for example human skin, many plastics, or even a piece of paper.

CONCERN:
———-
Since working with this substance over 3 days, and ingesting the extracted products several times, I’ve recently noticed some swelling in the joints at my extremities (i.e. fingers and toes). There is some darkening too, blotchy dark patches over the knuckles that could be interior bruising. There is as yet no pain.

This has to be systemic (I use all safety equipment INCLUDING gloves and fume hood, so it can’t be from simple skin exposure). Obviously this fake product is to be suspected, since I’ve been sniff-testing and taste-testing it. The symptoms would be in line with (say) an anticoagulant effect causing small hemhorrages in joints – since joints move the most, this is a common symptom of anticoagulant activity.

I just hope I didn’t take a dose that’d cause anything ELSE to hemhorrage… there are an awful lot of things that can kill you at the dose range I’ve been testing with :/

Quote post 2:

Hi guys,

Yes, I did indeed post it to the marketplace concerned (it happened to be SR2 but we are talking about vendors and sources that are across all forums).

I will elaborate more on the “how to detect” shortly – I am writing a TEK for this.

Briefly: a good way to check this fake “K” is with 99% isopropyl alcohol – obtainable from most chemists/drug stores/pharmacists. Normal ketamine is soluble in isopropyl alcohol; this stuff is almost entirely NOT soluble.

Pour about 20ml per gram of ketamine into a container, then SEAL the container airtight (or the isopropyl will pull water out of the air and the water will fuck up your test by dissolving everything).  Leave for 30 minutes, shaking to mix it up every 5 minutes. If you like you can also dip the base of your container into hot water to warm the isopropyl and speed the process up – the fake is so insoluble it won’t dissolve even in boiling alcohol.

If at the end of this you have anything except a container of crystal clear liquid: you are dealing with cuts. And if the cut looks almost exactly like the original product: BEWARE.

Brief notes on this fake too:

1. Tastes very salty, like table salt
2. Aftertaste / edge of taste which is kind of chemical, vaguely familiar (MSG?)
3. Very gently cooling/numbing of tongue, lips, gums and nose if applied
4. Dehydrates gums. lips and nose as if you were dipping it in salt… there’s irritation etc.
5. No high whatsoever. There’s a psychoactive in it but at K-bump doses you will just feel the very very tiny edge of it… a sensation that SOMETHING is going on, a very faint tickle, but it’s not K-like.
6. Looks identical to racemic shard K – both rod-like crystals and cubes are visible.
7. Dissolves easily into water and also less easily into methanol.
8. Burn test produces ketamine-like inky red residue and acrid, chemical smoke.
9. Reaction with Mandelin drip test is non-K: instead of orange you’ll get an oily, roiling sheen and eventually a dark grey/purple/black. Later still you may find small specks of orange but these will be a tiny fraction of the covered area (1%) with the rest either black or reverted to Mandelin yellow.

Again, more info tomorrow.

====End Quote====

We will update this post when we will have more information, keep safe.

</div>

Updated: 2014-02-24