pill fuckers at it again

[UncleFester]

I have a friend who likes to check on pill compositions from time to time. It's sort of like his hobby. While checking the latest bunch of gas station ephedrine pills, he became alarmed. His favorite technique no longer worked, in fact it seemed that the pills were specifically designed to attempt to defeat the method he had layed out.
He extracted gas station ephedrine pills by the usual method in SOMM 5 or 6. Grind...soak in toluene...filter and let dry...base with enough NaOH in isopropyl to make a oatmeal consistensy, stir for a few minutes,..then extract with NP solvent of the free base...
Low and behold what surprises he had...
using naptha as the extractant, he just produced a gummy mess which wouldn't extract...but lots of foriegn plastic gum was extracted into the solvent...
using toluene as the extractant, the pill mass swelled and swelled... he found it interesting to discover how long it would take under the hot sun for the swelled solvent mass to evaporate the toluene... it takes a LONG time.
I have relied upon this general method for years, but it is obvious that this generation of pills has circumvented that method. My guess is that they have incorporated microencapuslated pus which releases upon contact with NaOH and just ooozes pus.
My first thought was to replace NaOH with Na2CO3 to see if the pus bags will then burst, but this straight to E idea sounds like a winner. I wonder how long it will take to   design a counter to this procedure...
I'll keep you posted, but I sure liked my old method... as far as I know, the old method still works with grocery store pseudo...but this is coming..
Fester

[dazy]

about those gas station pills! She even posted a question about them somewhere here recently. Swid is almost sure you are talking about the same gas station. Rhymes with mexico....

The last couple of times she used them she got gak. These pills had always been her favorite because of how easy they are to clean. She didn't even mind spending extra on them. Thats a bummer.

Swid is glad you posted about this. She thought it was those pills but wasn't sure because she is inexperienced. She is starting to learn tho.... Thanks for the info!  

[SHORTY]

I have been reading about drug delivery methods and from what i read the pharmaceutical companies are spending billions on new formulations which will have more precise control on drug release into the body as well as reducing side effects.  In the meantime the patents on their past and present formulations are expiring and therefore the generic companies are able to use these methods.  In other words when one of the top name brands is hard to pull, then that same formulation can bee expected to show up in the cheaper pills in the future.  I posted a link to one of the pdf files on this subject not long ago.  Here it is:

http://www.pharmanet.com.br/pdf/drugdelivery.pdf

[Snydley_Whiplash]

[dazy]

What is up with you Snydley? Swid thinks you are following (stalking)her around and picking on her.    Knock it off! Sheesh.

And besides ole snydleyman....did UncleFester appoint you as his voice? Swid is sure that if he wanted to tell her he wasn't concerned with her lame post, he would do so all on his own. You are starting to get on Swid's nerves, and only after 2 posts!    

He might not be concerned, but Swid was. She was real bummed when these pills ended up giving her gak. She could always count on them before. It just so happened this was a subject she was wondering about, so she mainly wanted to post her thanks. Now get off Dazy's ass! 

They all sell the same ephedrine pills? Sure about that? Where did you come from anyway, and why are you stalking Dazy?

You are kind of a funny guy....

[tReePHrOg]

tell you how to get rid of any gakk, crucsh,boil in mixture of xylene acetone,(boil the shit outta them) let settle,
discard most of the liquid,add more xylene acetone,boil again. discard liquid,then add xylene acetone let soak,
discard and dry. then proceed from there. the ephhcl should
not sholuablize in either liquid. but depending on
how many combinations of silicon and cellulose are in them
is how many times you need to soak/boil the mass. What
this thread needs is a solution to de-naturize these gakks
instead of isolating them, denaturize them first then isolate/extract/discard them. The best denaturant I can think of for crapola like these gakks is acetone.
Osmium or Rhodium could prolly bag up some information on povidone/gakk denaturants.

[Glacial_Refluxer]

If the pills contain "ephedrine alkaloids" dont even waste
your time since you can buy a pound of it for the same
price as 1 bottle plus its not so easy to extract ephedrine
from ephedra powder as you might think.

If the pills contain "ephedrine hcl" then your ok, a
distillation or a/b extraction should work.

Useing the STE on cheap sinus pills is still swims favorite
for obtaining OTC starting material.

[UncleFester]

These pills contain ephedrine HCl. I am familiar with the brute force methods using several solvent washes. I prefer to use finesse because brute force uses too much solvent, is wasteful and polluting. That method I had was a nice finesse of the gunk in the pills.
Steam distillation will not work on these pills because they contain a foamer that just won't quit. Gas-X doesn't touch it. My friend may study the emulsifier content of these pills to determine if they can be sidestepped by other means, but the straight to e method has caught my attention. The only thing I don't like about it is that it uses boiling solvents. They are a smell and fire hazard.

[halfkast]

UncleFester! Stay safe and invisible.

With the STE method, the boiling of the solvents is totally necessary and unavoidable.
The amount of IPA used is critical.
A narrower beaker might also help, but bee more dangerous.

Geezmeister gave me the most excellent explanation of it's clever mechanics that I could ever expect. Geez, can I distribute this explanation privately to this special bee to end this?

Fester I hope your staying safe. Nice to say something to you =)

[geezmeister]

I'm sure Uncle Fester understands the concepts the Straight to E embodies.

I would say that doing it fairly small scale in a large Erlenmeyer flask reduces some of the risks of ignition and that I have less difficulty with this than with doing a simple ker plunking, which I consider inherently more risky a process.

[UncleFester]

When a writer bangs out a book, he enters into a contract with you the reader. After all, you bought it. The contract on my end is if I have an easy outlet like this to let you know about something that effected the content of the book,
I better yell.... this post is my yell. It also my obligation to talk to the readers of my books. I prefer they be single nubile females.

[xboXer]

On the foam, did you try any of the de-foaming products at the local swimpool supply? The jacuzzi de-foamers work alot of times, I use the real concentrated stuff as it only req.s a drop or two. The reason they some times work is that they act on foam that developes when lotions and oils from swimmers mix with the heated polar sol. as it goes through the aireator jets. They are easy to wash out with mek or tone, at the rinse point.

[UncleFester]

Is the jaccuzzi defoamer a silicone like Gas-X? My first impression was that if the foam wasn't broken by simethicone, then it also would ignore other silicones. That was just an impression however, and hasn't been proven by experiment.

[Sandman]

SWIM's guess is after a STE, adding the Ferric Chloride step to an A/B would fix all. SWIM has seen it do wonders in the past.

[Hagbard]

Emulsifiers, surfactents, soaps, detergents, and ions
I remember the circuit bored etcher idea, but never tried it.  People buy water softeners to ensure that their soaps and shampoos lather, and foam.  Hard water doesn't latheras well.  Perhaps hardening water by pouring in some Mg +2 and Ca +2 ions would combat the foam.  Now, one just need to find a beaker of pure +2 ions.

[UncleFester]

I'm sorry for the great delay in following up on this subject. I have always said that give me a day or two and I can crack any pill formulation. This is still the case, it's just that I had no time to myself for the past several months. I was translating a knife fighting manual from Portugese(Brazil source) to English. It was payback for the website they did for me, and now I am guiding it through Pagemaker Program and to publishing and marketing. My life sucks. I have no fun anymore.
To the point, it is the solvent pre-soak that loads up those pus bags for release. If one just takes the gas station ephedrine pills and grinds them and then just directly wets them with a solution of NaOH in 91% ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL, stir for a minute or two and then starts extraction with stirring with np solvent like naptha, they extract just fine. It is the solvent pre-soak, to repeat once again, which primes the gak to puke on you.

[adroit_synth]

So your just wetting the crushed up mass? Then continuing as normal? Could you use sodium bicarbonate instead? I have read that lye activates certain gak formulations (orange I and II).

[spectralshift]

I'm not sure about that UF, a solvent presoak primes just, in fact, the mind for an extended task.

what were your yields like doing it your way?

waxes and glues can leave a lot unexposed to the base.

[auntyjack]

hello uncle fester...sitting here not seeing great results with the tetra trap...damn jelly keeps magically forming...sort of like the blob but without steve mcqueen...anyhow, i just so happen to have some isopropanol, 99% naoh powder and some naptha and i was wondering how one might go about making a 91% iso-hol 9% naoh solution (if that's what you mean) given that a/ the caustic is powder, and b/ i have as much idea about chemistry as your average lamp post...i guess i'm after some way of using educated estimations of said proportions as i have no real measuring aparatus...anyway, have fun and all that...bye for now,
                                                  aj
p.s. do you apply heat in this process?

[adroit_synth]

SWIM has tried STE and STB as well as the full-turps cure, by the directions. He is not so unsuccessful in other areas of chemistry. He has used different brands as well and always ends up with the same result - waxes and/or plastics in the final product. He knows because of the waxy/shiny looking luster. He has seen clean pseudo and it resembles cotton in appearance before recrystalised. He is now at a loss for he has coupled pre-soak with various methods and has seen for a fact that NaOH does activate the orange and pink gaks, eliminating the possibility of an A/B. He would like to use "equivalent" type pills if you know what he means. Anybee have tried and true method on these? Or better yet if someone would be so kind as to PM him with a brand and method that work together he would be thrilled.