Attached to this post is the full text of an interesting study from '99, which I found floating around the archives of Elsevier, which entails preparation methodologies and testing of multiple colorimetric reagents to be used to test for the presence of drugs in an unknown sample (the majority of these precursors used to make these drug testing reagents are jaw-droppingly cheap, safe and easy to prepare in bulk quantities, using licit precursors--please see attached for more details). I hope that this article may be of use to my peers, as I would much rather prepare 100-1000+ spot tests' worth of a reagent from scratch, instead of having to waste 13-17 USD per teeny tiny overpriced 5ml vial of said colorimetric reagents from overpriced online retailers.

Enjoy,
God

thank you this looks promising

First of all thanks for sharing!

That being said, I don't think this is practical for the average person at all.. How will a common kitchen chemist that buys stuff off hardware stores be able to find and purchase PDMAB, cobalt thyocianate, ammonium vanadate, ferric chloride, molybdic acid, formaldehyde, etc etc ?

The only way to buy those (AFAIK) is off chemical suppliers, and one would spend a lot of money buying (in the case you even have access), because you cant get those in tiny amounts either.

This would only be worth it if you would be testing hundreds of substances, or deciding to be a supplier of reagents yourself.

What is way more practical imo for those that want to avoid overpriced ready-reagents and only test a few samples at a time, is to buy cheap these small 2-4 samples reagent sets that contain multiple reagents adjusted per substance, from suppliers like this one: https://shop.sin.org.pl/...y/drugcheck/kits?lang=en

Hopefully more suppliers follow this idea, so far this guy seems to be the only doing this way.. Its a guy I know from poland, he used some reagent flow charts I created that uses multiple reagents in order to reduce the false positives and adulteration possibilities, and offers these packs for 2-4 samples which is way more adjusted for the common user than buying a single 10 ml single reagent which is way more prone to false positives and also it ends up spoiling because these reagents have a shelf-life

endlessness,

Many of the precursors used (e.g. concentrated H2SO4 & concentrated formaldehyde for Marquis, a 2% Na2CO3 solution for Simon's reagent B, etc.) can be commonly found online and very cheap prices, with the cost of proper protective equipment being cheaper. Many of these chemicals can be easily bought over ebay, Amazon, and similar such suppliers in gross quantities which can generate enough reagents for thousands of tests for years and years and years (if stored under proper conditions).

Although some of the chemicals exhibit toxicity, it is still possible to make reagents involving safer chemicals which are practically unregulated and can be easily made by anyone with (and sometimes without) a background in chemistry.

I wanted to bring community attention to the ease of creating these reagents (PS: if your fresh batch of reagent seems funky, look up synth in literature, execute it, and let the product do its thing for a few days before testing it against an overpriced 5ml bottle of the same stuff via testing multiple samples of differing substances extensively in order to ensure accuracy).

Lack of education aside, most drug users don't have good finances, and many times I have had to serve as a de facto first responder for people who, right before my eyes, went into grand mal seizures, psychosis, stroked-out, as well as having to initiate CPR on some poor bastard who went into cardiac arrest after he did a line of "H" which was in fact a fentanyl derivative, etc. etc. etc. from drugs which they ingested, thinking that a dealers' word is equivalent to a colorimetric test. I want the public to be aware of how to make these reagents (at least the ones involving safer reagents, such as Marquis, Zwikker, Ferric Chloride dissolved in distilled water, Duquenois-Levine, etc.)

My motivation in posting this is in the hopes impoverished, under-educated and poor drug users, risking their freedom & future in order to get high, may be able to be able to find cheap reagents in order to make massive quantities of these reagents in order to test their chemicals, promoting harm reduction via teaching the poor how to make affordable reagents for testing drugs for the presence of toxins, impurities and similar such pestilences.

I am in touch with a few dozen psychonauts in my community, and I'm almost always the one they turn to after obtaining a novel psychoactive substance in order to determine whether or not its pure, safe to consume, and/or cut with a different poison. Unfortunately, I tend to do around 12-20+ tests per sample, if not more (initially 3 spot tests with 3-8 reagents, followed with TLC if anything looks off (e.g. mixed colors from testing reagent.) I am a big proponent of harm reduction and safety when it comes to recreational drug use, and will do all I can in order to make sure that a sample is as advertised. One reagent test is not enough, which is why I tend to go through multiple reagents at a fast rate.

I am planning on investing in some of the less toxic precursors to create large amounts of these otherwise overpriced reagents in order to share samples of these reagents (after extensive testing in order to ensure that they are on par with commercial standards) freely with everyone who would like to have their unknown drugs tested for free, as an act of charity and service to what is commonly known as The Human Condition.





BTW, do you know of any reliable colorimetric reagent tests for benzodiazepines? I am having trouble finding reagents to test for presence of various benzos, and would appreciate some advice regarding this, as I was gypped out of $20 trying to buy a supposed test kit for RC benzos, and am eager to find/create effective colorimetric reagents for RC (& FDA approved) benzo testing, as problem children such as flubromazolam, clonazolam, phenazepam, the etizolam family, diclazepam, pyrazolam, etc. are causing a great deal of people I know to become benzodiazepine addicts ....

TL;DR It's important to have at least some chemical laboratory background in order to make some of these reagents, yet you don't need extensive experience. They can be easily prepared en masse for cheap prices per test (e.g. would one rather pay $15 for one vial of marquis reagent 5ml, or would it be easier and more sensible to pay a little extra for the ACS grade reagents to make this reagent, such that a single test would cost a fraction of a penny in lieu of a fraction of a dollar). I'm pissed at how colorimetric reagent producers are ripping off millions and millions and millions of people around the world in the name of "harm reduction," peddling small aliquots of overpriced reagents to to drug abusers across the world, thus making it cost prohibitive and limiting the ability of the proletariat to effectively, completely, test their drugs in order to ensure that it is what they were told it was, and that it isn't contaminated with other drugs and/or misc. toxins. A drug user's budget shouldn't dictate whether they live or die the next time they haphazardly decide to bomb a gram or so of "molly" at their local nightclub.

Thanks for expanding your thoughts, Godsmacker!

I agree some precursors can be bought easily online, but those you mentioned would only be enough to make marquis reagent and half of Simons. What about all the other more obscure chemicals needed for all the other reagents?

I think such instructions are great for people like you and me, who might do hundreds or thousands of tests. The general poor drug user, though, will not have a couple hundred bucks to invest to make all these different reagents, and then have large quantities of these dangerous chemicals at home, to test thousands of substances when they and their friends only have 3-4 samples a month at most to test. For those people, it is cheaper and more practical to just buy ready reagents. And even better, as I linked (wondering what you think since you didnt comment), are the 3-4 use reagent kits which contain several reagents using a flow chart in order to reduce false positives.

I am glad you also do TLC, but why not do TLC for all substances instead? Often a reagent will react one color and yet it may be a mix of substances.. If you are testing several samples at once its easy to do TLC on all of them at once in one plate, and later do reagent tests on all the ones that only have one spot.

That being said, I totally agree with you regarding the absurdity of the drug market and people adulterating substances and the fact that reagent sellers often sell it way overpriced. Im glad some people sell colorimetric reagents significantly cheaper than average, though, and I hope more such sellers appear. From my understanding talking to some of these suppliers, the material for reagents themselves are cheap, what is expensive is running everything else (labelling, bottling, getting all the necessary permits, running a business, marketing, website costs, the time invested etc etc), so its not so simple to just look at reagent prices and judge them.

I once considered doing what you are talking about, even hired a lawyer to help me out but in the end decided not to set up a business, all these 'extras' were going way over my head and seemed excessive. Of course one can just do it in a less oficial way, though the reach will only go so far too (advantages and disadvantages with everything in life). Now I go to parties with an NGO that finances the work, and we do drug testing for free for users, thanks to donations and finances from local government. Wish more countries would have this same service available, and it does seem it is getting more and more popular and accepted in other places.

Lastly, I hope I didnt sound too negative with my comments, I really am thankful you share information and put energy into helping people out. All the best with your endeavors!

(edit: regarding the benzo tests, a friend was researching into it, I will ask if he came to any conclusions and will post here)

Ebay, Amazon, and Sigma-Aldrich, among with many other independent and reliable ACS grade chemical suppliers offer cheap listings for bulk quantities of most reagents used in the creation of other colorimetric tests.

This is a message from a friend of mine, who holds an MS in Chemistry, as well as an MST:

Regarding the safety of making these reagents versus some of the questionably "safe" methods of making and extracting various compounds and the reagents mentioned in this paper, making these reagents would be far more safe than many procedures such as a simple acid-base extraction on plant matter. That being said, concentrated acids and bases can present some serious safety hazards if not used "responsibly." The end products of making these testing reagents will be exactly like one would get if one simply bought the reagents and would have no difference in hazard. Furthermore, while most of these reagents are for making a 100 mL of them in the paper, one could just easily make far less of them via doing some simple math. With regards to cost, in the short term, the initial cost of getting all of these reagents from any variety of chemical suppliers could be high, the long term cost is much lower than buying testing kits constantly.

Furthermore, concentrated nitric acid, sulfuric acid (which can always be concentrated from more dilute aqueous solutions via various distillation/concentration procedures), and chloroform are the only reagents I can see causing anyone to ask questions. Nitric and Sulfuric acid could cause questions given their usages in manufacturing certain explosives and chloroform could cause questions because it's a great organic solvent. Before using ANY of these chemicals, look up the Materials Safety and Data Sheet since that seemed to be a concern and given you all can read posts here, I am forced to assume you all are indeed literate enough to read those.

While I would prefer NMR, FT-IR, HPLC, GC-MS snf/or LC-MS (ideally GC-MS for small molecules with Molar Masses lower than 400 AMU) , ORD-CD, UV-Vis and/or Raman spectroscopy, as well as many other methodologies of analyzing, elucidating the structure of, and purifying molecules which most kitchen chemists can't afford), over using simple colorimetric reagents, they were how one had to identify compounds back in the old days before chemists, physicists, and engineers had developed those techniques and machines. These machines and methodologies are far beyond the budget of the average Kitchen Chemist.

Endlessness,

No worries! I love intense scientific discussions, both IRL studying with grad students in the chemistry dept and my university, and always like to joust my alchemical scimitar into these kinda discussions. I'm studying various analytical spectroscopic methods of analysis, and am loving it! I love chemistry, and am always eager to discuss and debate and contribute to the community as best as I can. I'm taking three courses on three different concepts of analytical chemistry and inorganic chemistry, and love to think in the mother tongue of Alchemy.


Stay Safe. Stay Sane. Stay well, and pls help me keep this discussion-like chem-fire burning?
Well Wishes,
Godsmacker

You wont find many high grade and rare chemicals on ebay and amazon.

And Sigma-Aldrich and other reputable chemical sellers dont sell to private.
And even if you have a company they will probably ask for permit or similar and reasons why you need them. Also Sigma-Aldrich is so dang expensive you probably are better off buying the reagent.

Marquis is definetly possible to make. But the others I wouldnt bet on making any time soon without special permits or access to a person who could buy chemicals freely.

It doesnt really matter if the chemicals would raise eyebrows.
Its more about that some of these are toxic and are thus regulated heavily and not sold to random persons without proven knowledge of the field.

Yes. Sigma Aldrich are a bunch of stuck-up tight-wads.

However, there are plenty of other ACS-grade chemical suppliers out there, but I haven't the time to track down one yet due to other projects. If you're interested in making your own reagents, please do it safely, wear proper safety equipment (lab goggles are a must for making all of these--splatter isn't your friend), make sure that your precursors are ACS and/or USP grade with certificate of analysis, as trace impurities can ruin a batch, and with proper ventilation


I've worked with just about all of these reagents in my studies in chemistry, and I must state that, compared with other reagents such as grignards and organolithiums, the reagents used to make these drug test solutions are just as safe, if not safer than the excessive amounts of NaOH, solutions of assorted hydrocarbons (i.e. naphtha), CONCENTRATED HYDROCHLORIC ACID and other such flesh-melting reagents commonly employed in mescaline extractions. How and Why is it that the reagents used to create drug test kits are supposedly more toxic than the reagents used in commonplace extractions on the Nexus by hundreds, if not thousands, of other psychonauts on a regular basis????

Each chemical and proceedure carries it's own risk. It doesn't make much sense talking about one being much more dangerous than others if we don't talk about in what way. For example, formaldehyde used in marquis is carcinogenic, while none of the chemicals used in common extractions talked about here is carcinogenic. That being said, carcinogenic compounds are rarely (never?) carcinogenic in acute exposure, only in chronic exposure, so a person using these reagents once in a while shouldn't be problematic in that way, but someone regularly preparing or working with them should def be careful.

Concentrated sulfuric acid in most of these reagents is highly corrosive (but so are concentrated NaOH solutions used in DMT extractions). I met one person that went partially blind from some marquis reagent accidental spill, and none from DMT extractions spills (but it is entirely possible and I bet has happened before)

With a few exceptions, these reagents generally dont employ flammable solvents (some formulations of ehrlich/pdmab do for example), but DMT extractions almost always do, so in that sense, DMT extractions are generally more dangerous in flammability in terms.

Whatever process one is doing, it is important to always read up, and take necessary precautions.


Lastly (and unrelated), Im still wondering, Godsmacker, why don't you use TLC in every sample instead of only on a few selected samples? If you already have access to TLC, might as well use it, and its easy enough to run multiple samples on a plate, and later use reagents as a confirmation.

I can get a bit lazy doing multiple tests on the same thing many times in a row, oftentimes guided by your flow charts. I will try to use TLC prior to colorimetric reagent testing on all submitted samples to my self-funded "Lab" from now on.

Stay Safe, Always research the hell out of what you're doing and what you're doing it with, and FFS, please don't become just another statistic....

Godsmacker

I would like to know which eluent solutions/ratios I should use when incubating TLC plates for unknown samples, as well as an a reliable source to obtain RF values for varying compounds when subjected to TLC analysis in your suggested eluent solutions. I am most interested in various substituted phenylethylamines, tropane alkaloids (e.g. scopolamine, cocaine, etc.), novel beta carbolines (as well as alpha/gamma/omega/etc. carbolines), Simple tryptamines (e.g. 4-X*--DMT, 5-*--DMT, alpha--X--tryptamine, N,N--X*X*--tryptamine, etc.), ergoline alkaloids, along many other families of small nitrogenous alkaloids (a small molecule, I am referring to any compound with a MW less than 400 AMU, with X* being a random functional group) with purported and/or proven medicinal qualities (e.g. Quinine), especially those from plant extracts.

I would like to know which eluent solutions/ratios you would recommend I try first if I were testing a sample for the presence of a specific group of compounds (e.g. MDMA testing for phenylethylamine contaminants, using sucrose or lactose, as a reference sample, as its RF values are fairly well known, as well as its test result), as well as suggested broad-spectrum eluents you would recommend I use initially if inspecting a plant extract of an under-researched species (e.g. A. Simplicifolia or a Trichocereus specimen propagated from seed spawned by cross pollination between a PC Pachanoi and a potent Bridgessii cultivar, etc.) for nitrogenous small molecules/alkaloids which possess therapeutic/medicinal and/or entheogenic.psychedelic/psychoactive properties, too. I am hampered by a gross lack of funding (however, I may be getting a UV-light in the all-too-distant future ), and would like to know if you, or other chemists on the forum, may be able to recommend any initial eluent solutions/ratios specified for certain drug classes (as well potential broad spectrum eluent blends for testing extracts from under-researched plants for varying families of molecules of potential interest/value) which would employ affordable ACS-grade reagents which aren't classified as List 1 Chemicals by the DEA. Any/all input from experienced chemists who are well-acquainted with TLC and/or Radial TLC, as well as testing for the presence of varying families of compounds with colorimetric reagents


Thank you for your time and input,
-Godsmacker

Have you looked through the TLC subforum at all? It's probably a good place to start

As snozz said, check that subforum.. For RF calculation, use the github link here: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=71113

You can use any of the substances on the list as a reference standard to find the height/Rf of the other substances with a quite decent accuracy.

We wont have all the substances you mentioned but quite a lot of them (and as long as you have any of the substances in the list + the substance you want to be included, you can help doing tests and adding to that file so the calculator is expanded.

The best eluent used for most of these substances is simply methanol:ammonia (mix 2.5ml 25% ammonia to 97.5ml methanol for 100ml eluent).

As for UV light, if you use the UV-reactive plates (I recommend Merck ones, I tried chinese-made offbrand plates and they suck), they react at 254nm UV, which is UV-C, the same wavelenght these pocket purifiers use: https://www.amazon.com/g...e=UTF8&condition=new . So forget buying expensive UV lights for TLC, just get these 10 buck lights and you' re good to go.

You can also purchase the whole kit (eluent plates lights etc) at lunarlaboratories.com , and soon enough at the polish website I linked earlier.