12-28-03 18:36
No 479558
A friend of mine came up with a few hundred grams of ephedrine which was apparently diverted from a chemical supplier.
A melt point test showed that it was a pure substance that melts consistently at 216 - 217 degrees celcius. There is one article on Rhodium's site that states that this is the d-ephedrine, as the l-ephedrine melts at 220 - 221 degrees celcius.
http://rhodium.ws/chemistry/ephedrineref
The problem is that there is another article on Rhodium's site that claims that the naturally occuring ephedrine (l-ephedrine) melts at 216 - 217 degrees celcius, while making no mention of the d-ephedrine.
http://rhodium.ws/chemistry/comparison.e
Now, the crystals are not needles but rather rectangular crystals, although I would certainly describe them a prismatic.
When they were dreamed up into a Red/HI scenario by someone who has done this many times and yielded 65%, the yield instead came out around 50%. The process was repeated and the same result occured. It also appeared that the quality of the product was less than expected. I had thought that the use of d-ephedrine would result in a l-meth, d-meth mix, with the l-meth being the predominant isomer. This would account for the relative weakness of the end product.
I have used the search engine quite a bit on this issue but it appears that this topic has not been discussed much, likely because few people encounter d-ephedrine. Any thoughts? The only posts I have pulled up have said don't use it.
