If you buy sodium hydroxide and you live in the US, be very careful who you buy it from. SWIM is not joking about that. He has friends currently in federal prison who extracted DMT for home use by using sodium hydroxide and got busted because they bought sodium hydroxide on-line from a soap supply store. This was used as evidence in court. According to SWIM’s friends they stated in court that buying sodium hydroxide on-line as well as internet sites visited was what triggered a search warrant!

If you want to take your chances that’s up to you.

I think its SWIM duty to warm people about it. SWIM doesn’t want to see anymore people get arrested. All SWIM’s friends are now using sodium carbonate and are getting very good yields.

If you don't believe SWIM, READ THIS FROM A SOAP SUPPLY STORE talking about sodium hydroxide:



At least those sellers warn you upfront. Most sellers don't warn you.

Like SWIM said, you can take your chances if you like, but SWIM isn't going to. Not after seeing friends sent to jail from buying it on-line. SWIM IS NOT JOKING. THIS IS VERY SERIOUS.

YOU SHOULD STOP USING SODIUM HYDROXIDE FOR PLANT EXTRACTIONS IF YOU ARE IN THE US. SWIM IS VERY SERIOUS. IT CAN GET YOU ARRESTED THERE.

All it takes is a sodium hydroxide dealer to report your purchase as being suspicious and that's enough for law enforcement to get a search warrant in some locations in the U.S. Are you willing to take that chance? If they visit your home and even find a trace of illegal drugs anywhere, even in your hair, and they find sodium hydroxide sitting around, you are GOING TO JAIL. Sure, you can fight it in court, and unless they find a good quantity of illegal drugs, you'll probably only get a few years, but is that worth the risk? Having sodium hydroxide in your home, a few solvents, and finding traces of illegal drugs on you or in your home is now enough evidence to convict you of manufacturing illegal drugs in many places in the US.

Never, ever, ever buy anything with a card or check! Buy in reasonable quantities at reasonable frequency, do not look suspicious, be aware of the store's meth-watch policy if one exists, and do not purchase multiple suspicious items together while also trying not to buy them at the same store. Do not buy more than you need or can handle either, organization and efficiency can be helpful in these matters.

The latest edition of, "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories," probably has some good advice in this area.

hey ron, do you know the time it took from purchase of lye to the police arriving?

edit: was there anything else in the picture? distribution? etc? this is very scary.

USA, the new paranoid land
I wonder what will happen when more people will be in jail than outside. A way to reduce global warming for sure...

Carbonate sodium can be made from bicarbonate sodium+water right ?

Someone else but not me just walked into the hardware store and bought some Drain cleaner, the type that's 100% lye... and walked out, no need to bother with online buying... anyone have any idea about buying items on EBAY? To be honest, by my experiences thus far, I can't really say I understand why DMT etc... is illegal in this, or any other jurisdiction at all, it seems like rendering the validity of the law a farse or joke...

I don't know about the time frame.

I was told that in court they said they had also visited a sting operation website that offered information on how to manufacture meth, where to buy supplies for it, etc.

They were not looking to bust them for DMT. But when they arrived they found a small amount of DMT and no meth, and at that point they had to arrest them because DMT is also illegal to manufacture.

Most governments aren’t looking to bust people for DMT made for personal use. They are looking for big time cocaine, meth, heroin, and marijuana dealers and will respond to reports of suspicious behavior that may mean a person is distributing or manufacturing one of those drugs.

To avoid suspicion, many meth manufacturers pay other people to buy small amounts of sodium hydroxide rather than buying a large quantity at once themselves. Law enforcement is starting to catch on to this trick, so now they are starting to look for even small sales that are reported as suspicious. So, beware.

I don’t know of anyone intentionally busted for DMT. In all cases I know of, law enforcement was looking for meth labs based on suspicious sodium hydroxide purchases and found DMT labs unintentionally.

These cases are happening mostly in Texas and Indiana, not in the rest of the US, but this trend is catching on. I think it’s stupid. In Texas you can be arrested for owning lab glass (Texas state code, 481.040)!

If you live in Texas or Indiana you better be vary careful.

Such laws are ridiculous! Especially since DMT is all over the place even in the grass at the local police station!

In some cities in the US you cannot buy sodium hydroxide at any stores, not even the hardware stores. A while back SWIM was in a city in California and visited Home Depot, Lowes and several other hardware stores and none of them had any sodium hydroxide at all. They all sold substitutes only. This is apparently voluntary on the part of the retailers. I don't know of any laws preventing its sale in California.

I think in the US that sodium hydroxide is eventually going to be banned for personal use all because of meth. Fortunately there are many substitutes for lye that aren't suspicious. Sodium carbonate is a pretty strong base and it can easily be made at home from sodium bicarbonate just by baking it in the oven. I can't ever imagine sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) ever being watched or banned. It's used for cleaning, cooking, and all sort of things all the time. That and pickling lime (calcium hydroxide) are probably the safest bases to buy. Pickling lime is actually gram for gram about as strong of a base as sodium hydroxide is, but because of its poor solubility it can’t bring the ph up above 12.4 because it starts precipitating out of solution if any more is added.

As a matter of course, my friends take quite elaborate steps to put layers between their extractions and any law enforcment. Do we need a new thread on this? There are some neat tricks but I didn't want to tip the law off on what was being done. My friends use unwitting or witting and trusted intermederies to purchase supplies, only use cash, never buy on line, never use their own personel cumputer even when writting on the nexus, extractions are done in hired premesis under false names, again all paid in cash.

There was an old thread here refering to making your own sodium hydroxide. I can't find it now. Maybe someone can remind us how to make it again.

fucking DEA what if you were using sodium hydroxide to clean your drains? SWIM does this all the time instead of buying draino or whatever.

It seems like SWIM did some things wrong when buying supplies. Let's hope that he won't get him in trouble. Thanks fpor the heads up.

I found the post, originally from that "mine of information", Quantumbrujo. It seems so insanley simple nobody should ever have any problems ever again obtaining lye. Can you ever imagine a world where car battries and table salt were suspicious items?

How to easily make sodium hydroxide

Here's how: put two bowls side by side fill each one with a super-saturated salt solution(NaCl).Use rock salt(any pharmacy)cause table salt is iodized.Bridge the two bowls with a rag or towel that's wet with the same saturated solution(to cunduct electricity from one bowl to the other)put the positive of a car battery charger with carbon or graphite rod connected to it in one bowl and the negative also with carbon or graphite rod in the other one.Power up,you'll see bubbles coming off the carbon rods.I don't remember if it's the positive or the negative,but one of the two is chlorine gas(very toxic so do this outdoors) that's the salt losing the chlorine atoms and they're being replaced by oxygen and hydrogen(OH) that are binding to the sodium giving you NaOH and what was a salt solution is now a lye solution.evap it and collect your lye crystals .Leave the power on till no more bubbles come off the rods by the way.It's as easy as that

Thanks magic clown. I can finally bake some pretzels again:

it seems to SWIM, that the best way to avoid suspicion when buying lye online is to actually make soap with it. if suspicision was raised and a search warrant issued, wouldn't suspiscion be quelled by a house filled with homemade soap? organized crime calls this a front. is there a specified legal limit of lye a person can buy? how do soap companies get around meth-making suspiscion? anyhow, soap making sounds like a interesting hobby.

Maybe I should always have some of my homemade pretzels at hand.

Is this to do with the stupid FBI / US Goverment tap on ALL isp's?

They actually make soap...


The DEA doesn't CARE if you order any amount of lye under a kilo. The companies don't care either since it's their BUSINESS. Honestly, the DEA knows that NaOH isn't really a precursor to meth and won't hunt you down for buying some lye. Now, maybe if you buy some red phosphorous and some iodine, then a few kilos of NaOH and maybe some conc. HCl you may raise some suspicions. Ordering 500 grams of lye from an online chemical supply company isn't going to set off any red flags. It's probably as equal as buying some muriatic acid from Lowes, or some acetone in nail polish. The DEA can't possibly monitor everyone buying list 2 chemicals. If you exercise any amount of common sense you will be fine.

exactly what i'm saying. if the DEA thought you were in the business of making soap they wouldn't have much of a case. same thing with real soap-makers who perhaps have been harrassed for buying lots of lye and red flagged chemicals for legal uses.

is there something inherently illegal about extracting chemicals from plants via a/b? I mean could swim argue that the lye, vm+p naphtha and muratic acid found in a search were used to extract ONLY legal alkaloids? like green tea > caffeine or better yet mint > menthol. its better to have a cover than going out and extracting something that will land you in federal prison. if they found no evidence of spice or meth, how could they hold you? knowing the gov they would still try their damnest. ;/

In the US, owning all the legal equipment and solvents doesn't mean anything (unless you’re in Texas). Even owning a chemical book showing how to make illegal drugs isn't enough evidence. They need to find illegal drugs to tie it all together. Or they have no case.

However, to get a search warrant for illegal drug cases is a different story. They don’t need any evidence at all. All they need is “probable cause” and this can be based on hearsay! If the judge rules that the “probable cause” is adequate then he/she can issue a search warrant. No evidence at all is needed. It’s completely up to the judge reviewing the “probable cause”.

In one case I know of, someone got arrested because a visitor of theirs reported to the police that they had liquid ammonia at their house and were using it to make drugs. This was enough for a warrant. DMT was found, and the guy is now in jail.

It is not fair. People need to stand up and stop this type of thing from being allowed.

one may purchase beakers and grad cylinders in Texas, but mantles, rheostats, three-neck flasks, erlenmeyers, hirsch funnels, soxhlets, and any other specialty glass (that may be used to make a certain highly sensationalized drug) needs to be registered with the DPS. there's an actual form SWIM downloaded, but never bothered to fill out. it's just another stupid tax and means of keeping tabs on people

So swim was wandering around Home Depot in Toronto, Canada, browsing the solvents as she is wont to do and ended up in the garden section looking for tree stump remover (made of K2NO3); cause swim used to be a pyro and wondered if this was still available in this paranoid age?

Well, swim remembered her sons' piano teacher had mentioned a tree root clogged sewer that had backed up into his basement and noticed a large bucket of sewer clog remover next to a smaller container of septic tank clog remover.
It turned out that both were sodium hydroxide flakes ... even though all the drain cleaners in the store were not.

As the saying goes, "when one door closes, another opens"

Pay cash and the nasty narks won't know.