Leading the wild into the ways of the man…
I took this photo below Caulfield B Block after my tutorials today.
I like the way the construction people cut slopes into the sandy
ground. It kinda aligns with the steps in the backdrop.
I see that the convocation ceremony is today for some people too. It
feels strange watching them mill around with their families in their
graduation regalia. I’ll be doing that soon too since this is my final
semester. I just have one last month left. 🙂
Mmm…vomit @ Roberts Hall
Mmm…urine @ Richardson Hall
The regurgitation stained toilet bowl has been left uncleaned for
almost a week now. 🙂 It looks like the person with poor aiming skills
behind this missed the bowl by a large margin, most of it ended up
towards the side. I think I’ll make this one Picture of the Day. The
second picture is of a clogged up urinal, I thought the color was
interesting and the amount is quite voluminous (as you can see) so I
took a photo of the toilet. I like the Webster’s definition:
In man, the urine is a clear, transparent fluid of an amber color
and peculiar odor, with an average density of 1.02. The average amount
excreted in 24 hours is from 40 to 60 ounces (about 1,200 cubic
centimeters). Chemically, the urine is mainly an aqueous solution of
urea, salt (sodium chloride), and uric acid, together with some
hippuric acid and peculiar pigments. It usually has an acid reaction,
owing to the presence of acid phosphates of soda or free uric acid.
Normally, it contains about 960 parts of water to 40 parts of solid
matter, and the daily average excretion is 35 grams (540 grains) of
urea, 0.75 gram (11 grains) of uric acid, and 16.5 grams (260 grains)
of salt. Abnormally, it may contain sugar as in diabetes, albumen as in
Bright’s disease, bile pigments as in jaundice, or abnormal quantities
of some one or more of the normal constituents.
Yes, I really have nothing better to do. 🙂
This week is Week 10!!!
Week 10! I thought it was Week 11!!! Who told me that it’s Week 11?
Fess up now, I know someone did, or I wouldn’t have got this idea into
my mind. I need to…thank you, coz that really put my ass into gear. :p
Things that have gone wrong (in a good way) because I thought this week is Week 11:
I submitted my GSC2714 Alcohol and Drug Use essay on Monday and
wrote “Sorry about submitting this late, I didn’t realize it was due on
Week 10”. I wasn’t late after all because this week is Week 10!
I actually did my GSC2714 Alcohol and Drug Use presentation today.
Oops…I was scheduled for Week 11, but I thought this week WAS Week 11.
No harm done anyway, there wasn’t anyone else in contention for the
presentation spot and I think I did okay in the presentation even
though I fudged up my lines a bit.
I…uh, drank a lot of coffee because I wanted to stay up late
today to finish my CSE3151 Network Performance assignment that’s due on
Thursday Week 11, which I thought is tomorrow, but it’s really next
week. Duh!
Oh well, at least I got most of my work out of the way. It feels
good to “gain” a week. =D Anyway, I’ve been messing around with the
blog last night and earlier today coz of that gaining a week thing. I
read up about the Movable Type tags and made some changes to the
layout. The things that have changed are:
Recent Comments
I’ve added some tags to display the 8 most recent comments with a link
(Go!) straight to the comments section of the post in question. I did
that using #comments which is somewhat of a hack, sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn’t. Oh well. This is replacing the previous “Recent
Entries” sidebar, which displayed the 5 most recent posts. I doubt
anyone actually uses that since the main page has 14 days back anyway.
Or am I mistaken and there’s people that actually like that navigation
bit? The comments are set to be truncated at 50 characters, so it won’t
take up too much space. The nick of the person who commented can be
clicked to open up a new window to their URL (if they provided one) or
their email if they didn’t. This doesn’t really work well though, when
you click on an older post, it only shows the comments for that post
and if you click on an older month, it shows the 8 most “recent”
comments for that month. However, it works fine on the main page, so I
guess that’s okay.
Sticky Posts
I’ve wanted to do this for a while and finally got around to getting it
done. I was planning to add another field in SQL to mark a post as
“sticky”, but Movable Type’s category tags gives the same functionality
without having to modify the database so I used that instead. It makes
things easier by automatically showing all posts that is marked
“sticky” in the sidebar. Veritas has a link to show all of his posts, I
feel that this is appropriate as his posts are very specific (almost
always about substances) and it would be good to have an archive of his
posts without making too many posts “sticky” as that clutters up the
sidebar. I’m not doing that for myself because my posts are more
general, so there isn’t much point in implementing that. There is a
problem with the way the tags work though – clicking on an archived
month will only show the sticky posts that is chronologically behind
that month. Thus, if you click on the first month, you can’t see any of
the sticky posts. Oh well. 🙂
Persistent sidebar
I’ve made the sidebar to be always visible, don’t know how you all feel
about that, but it does make navigation slightly easier and makes the
site more cohesive. I just took the sidebar stuff out and put it into a
template to be included automatically by every page. I read that
there’s an easy way to create an “About me” page based on the Movable
Type tags, but I didn’t bother to go through that, so I’ve changed all
the about pages to PHP so I can just include the sidebar template
easily without having to read up on the tags. Unfortunately, while
doing the sidebar, I lost all the blog links!
I haven’t done backups of the site since the time I changed hosts so I
had to rebuild everything from memory. My bad, I cut the sidebar stuff
out and cut some other thing again before pasting, thus overwriting the
sidebar stuff. 🙁 My memory isn’t really good, I’ve tried to put up all
the links that I could remember but I’m sure I missed quite a few,
because the list looks much shorter than before! I didn’t remember the
exact order too, but anyway, if I linked you before and it’s not here
now, it’s because of the cut and cut fiasco. I can’t remember every
single link I had, my memory is going down the gutter as the days go
by. Sorry about that, please email me if I accidentally left you out.
Aesthetic changes
I made the date bar grey with black text to differentiate the archives
easier. The posts on the main page have a white date bar with grey
text, and all individual and monthly archives shows the grey one so
that it’s easier to see that you’re browsing the archives. I also
changed the banner, so a different banner will load up if you’re
reading the older posts. It’s nothing much, just applied the “Wind”
filter twice and turned down the hue and saturation to make the banner
look “older” and more uh, weathered. That and the grey archives date
bar would give a better visual cue that you’re looking at the archives
instead of the new posts.
That’s basically it. Tell me what you think of the changes, I’ll
love to hear some input regarding the new features. I think the sticky
posts makes the sidebar a bit too cluttered and long, perhaps I should
be more discriminatory in marking a post “sticky”. I already tried to
squash the list by using a small font size and minimal spacing in the
CSS class definition but it’s still fairly long. Anyway, I’ll
appreciate any feedback regarding the changes. 🙂 Thanks!
I’ve recently joined the team of writers at The Weblog Review [theweblogreview.com]. Interesting tidbit: I got a 2.5/5 when my site was reviewed
[theweblogreview.com] on 20/10/2002. Just did my first review
yesterday, and it’s been accepted and posted so I can re-post it here:
Original review for The Weblog Review here: StayPuff [theweblogreview.com].
StayPuff
The first thing that I noticed about StayPuff.net is that it’s not
merely a weblog. The weblog is the main focus of the site, but there
are several other sections (including an intriguingly named
“Experiments” section) in addition the weblog. I was expecting those
sections to be external links, but clicking on them shows that they’re
internal content created by David, the owner of the site.
There are actually 5 authors (including David) listed on the side,
but 3 of the others have blogs of their own, and David seems to be the
only active writer. Browsing through the archives shows that the other
authors average about a post a month. However, David more than makes up
for the lack of the other authors posts with his frequent posts. The
other authors also frequently make comments on David’s blog and vice
versa.
The writing style of David is easy to read and he has a sense of
humour that translates well into text. The posts are varied and can be
anything from news events to David’s personal life. The posts feels
easy to read because of his writing style and that is not something
that many people can do. I genuinely felt compelled to read more due to
the way David structures his entries.
Unfortunately, I could only read up to June 2002, even though the
weblog has been online since May 2001. It appears that David made the
transition to Greymatter on the 22nd of June and clicking on all
entries before that resulted in a “404 – File not found” error.
Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the archives up to June,
and it’s nice to see that the writing style and humour carries back to
the beginning.
The first other thing I clicked on was the Experiments link, and the
title does not disappoint. Inside that section, David describes the
internet experiments which he has conducted. I particularly enjoyed
reading the “Chatting up a chic via e-mail” one, where he posted a
tantalizing profile at an online dating site and compiles the list of
replies that he received. These experiments give the readers a
voyeuristic enjoyment in reading the replies. I was also impressed by
David’s sense of responsibility, in that he did not post the results of
the second experiment, which is about a dubious issue (read it on the
site).
There is also an Articles section, which is a list of articles David
and his friends has written over the years. These includes pieces as
varied as “A few pointers to seduce women” to a multi-part road trip to
Albany write-up, which was the first clue that David is an Australian
(I missed the Aussie Blogs webring link at the bottom of the main
page).
There is also a section called David’s People (D.People). It seems
to work like a agony aunt article in that David replies to readers who
write in about various personal problems. Some of them are funny and
some of them are genuinely helpful, but all of them are interesting to
read. The other sections are the guestbook, links, results of the
monthly polls and a gallery – which wasn’t the personal picture gallery
I expected but screenshots of David’s “The Sims” (a computer game)
families.
Regarding the design of the site, I found the clean approach and
black background to be easy on the eyes. I also liked the way the red,
blue and yellow bars seem to have an effect of guiding the eyes down.
That hypnotising effect is probably why I spent so much time reading
the main site. 🙂 However, there is a design decision which I found
strange. The archives of the blog open up in another window and the
formatting of the main site does not carry over into the archives. I
have no problems with this though, since the basic white archive
template is easy to read, but it does detract from the “integrated”
feel of the site. Also, this is nitpicking, but the Main link on the
top navigation bar pops up a new window instead of simply loading it in
the current one. I’m not sure if this is a conscious decision, but I
found this to be distracting as I have to close the new window.
In conclusion, I like the site and I feel that it really deserves a
4.5, but the inaccessible pre June 2002 archives and minor design
issues made me reduce the score to a 4 in compliance with the rating
guidelines. I really recommend that everyone visits this site, as it’s
worthy of that at least, to establish if you like this site enough to
read it regularly. Personally, I’ve already bookmarked the site and
will continue to read it daily.
This site was reviewed on 2003-05-12 by sixthseal.
They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.
sixthseal felt that StayPuff deserved a rating of 4.0
Link to site: StayPuff [staypuff.net].
The site owner’s reply:
Weblog Review
I got this glowing review courtesy of The Weblog Review.
I used to actually be a reviewer on TWR about a year ago and did about
15-odd reviews before deciding I just didn’t have the time to write
such in-depth reviews. StayPuff’s review was amazingly detailed and I’m
pleased the reviewer (which I see was his first review) spent a good
quantity of time looking through the site and gave, what I thought, a
very fair and accurate picture of what we’re all about here.
I urge you to have a read.
PS – The review also gave some very good feedback which I have taken
onboard. I’ve fixed the new open window when you click ‘Home’ on the
top menu, and will fix the archives before June 2002 very soon (damn,
they used to work!). I’ll also add the review to the Articles section.
Posted: 12:00 PM WAST
Original post here [staypuff.net].
Changes: The Articles link of the original StayPuff.net post has been changed to open up in a new window.
Getting methamphetamine in a baggie is…interesting. 🙂 Not to bag
(no pun intended) on my contact, he’s a nice guy, but getting powder in
plastic baggies presents a logistical challenge – how to get all of the
powder out. The properties of powder makes it stick to the side of
plastic, so even after I transfer everything into aluminium foil,
there’s still remnants of powder sticking to the sides. Unless you’re
planning to inject (which I’m not – I only insufflate meth) there isn’t
any easy and hygienic way to get the remnants out that I know of. If
you’re wondering, I flooded the baggie with a bit of water, alkalized
my stomach and swallowed the water + remnants of meth. Yeah, I know, I
know, that’s disgusting, I don’t know where that baggie has been etc
etc. 😉 The risk of doing that isn’t really much though, worst I can
get is a stomach ache. My philosophy is – waste not, want not. Does
anyone have any ideas about how to get powder out of a baggie without
the water method? I’ll love to know, and my stomach thanks you in
advance. =D
P/S – This post describes events in the past and all of the substance in question has already been consumed. I am no longer in possession of any illegal substances!
This is psilocybe subaeruginosa – a species of psychoactive mushroom
that only grows in Australia. I’m glad to have the chance to experience
this particular strain of magic mushroom coz it doesn’t seem to grow in
Malaysia. I read that the dosage of fresh psilocybe subaeruginosa is
much higher than the few small ones we found that day so I didn’t eat
those. However, I have 1.5 grams of dried psilocybe subaeruginosa
courtesy of chemist tip’s (not his real name) generosity.
Substance: Psilocybe subaeruginosa (dried)
Dosage: 1.5 grams
I’m consuming the magic mushrooms on an empty stomach (last meal –
20 hours ago). The mushrooms are all caps, without the stems. I chewed
it up real good and held it in my mouth for about 10 minutes. I was
warned that it tastes really bad so I should powder it up or something.
It doesn’t taste bad at all! On the contrary, it tastes rather
delicious! The taste is fragrant and aromatic, it reminded me of
shitake mushrooms. It tastes like dried shitake mushrooms too. I didn’t
have any problems consuming it as is, I liked it actually. Great taste
and texture! 🙂
Trip Log:
felt about 30 minutes later
shadows say a lot about things
in darkness, shadows are amazing. they really do say a lot.
some are spooky, some are nice
visual disturbance = mostly shadows and color inverting (slight)
like suddenly a red thing on a yellow background will become a yellow
thing on a red background. it lasts for a while and then stops and the
starts. goes away when focused hard. only happens in bright light
i find myself attracted to simple things, like a bug flying about,
for half a sec, i seriously considered that it’s dancing to the music
i’m listening to. 🙂 it flies around based on the beat of the music
later:
t+45
mild “darkness” not refering to light here
heightened sensitivity to everything – cold, hunger, pain and aches etc
thought process difinately altered
also more body load
quite high or either i’m imagining it, part of psychedelic experience
prob the latter
weakness in legs, heavynes in head, muscle sore eveywhere
feelsl ike my whole body is sore 🙂 but thats a frequent feeling i
have, mostly after long tweak sessions, just came off one, prob not
related to shroom
“breathing” hallucinations like lsd
🙂
visual distortion like things are breathing
hahaha!
oh fuck i lauged out loud as i saw a cev
now i can’t stop laughing
heheheh
the cev i saw was the pattern of a cupboard – the wood pattern morphing,
its very fucking amazing !!!! the visual effect is very consistant, and its ALWAYS THERE. doesn’t go away if you look away.
nice
it looks like the wood patterns is flowing, like a waterfall, from the
top down. and then up again…no, no ups, its all flowing down, just
looked like it was up at a point, like when you look at wawterfalls.
very consistant and amazing…open eyed visuals, looks like the wood is
constantly morphing and flowing.
only that cupboard behaves that way, i suspect its coz of the pattern,
it makes the visuals very nice. other objects don’t display this level
of visual distortion
alll the wood distortions happened in bright light
amazing closed eyed visuals geometric pattern
thought process altered like lsd, dunno how to descibe this er.. you’re thinking differently when compared to normal reality
veryy visual too, notice the various visual distortions- morphing, breathing etc just to name a few
it feels like lsd
very visual though
i keep getting confused about whether i’m keeping this for myself or for posting
i don’t kno
w if that makes sense
it doesn’t to me 🙂
promotes laughter 🙂
hehehe
like marijuana in that sense
trip ended at 3 hour point (at least most of the effects went away) so i smoked mj and had some beer + food
The most impressive visual of that night was this:
Original:
Simulated:
This doesn’t do it justice though, the effect is continuous, and the
pixilation was smoother and the effect is “transparent”, not like this
blending representation. My Photoshop skills are not sufficient to do
an artist’s depiction of the visual. Sorry. 🙂 But it was a great
visual, the best of the night.
Note: Neither I nor CT possess any mushrooms (fresh, dried or
otherwise). This post describes events that have already happened and
thus is in the past.
My exam timetable doesn’t look too good. I’ll only finish on the
24th, I prefer to have them all crammed together instead of spaced out
like this. I haven’t been updating much lately, sorry about that.
Assignments…
Link of the day: Seized criminal assets ‘lost’ [theage.com.au]
You know, drugs seem to have legs and a mind of its own…I wouldn’t
be surprised if they somehow found their way back into the market. 😉
Amanita muscaria var muscaria (Fly Agaric)
I went for a walk with chemist tip (not his real name) today
and found two species of magic mushrooms! 🙂 The first one isn’t really
considered a “magic mushroom” even though it’s psychoactive – Amanita
muscaria!
Amanita muscaria – mature
Unlike magic mushrooms, which usually refers to the ones containing
psilocybin, amanita muscaria (also called Fly Agaric) contains muscimol
as the psychoactive chemical.
The amanita muscaria we found was growing in singles over a small patch of grass under pine trees.
Amanita muscaria needs to be prepared before eating though. Read more about it here
[erowid.org]. There are a lot of bad reports about this particular
mushroom, but I’m really keen to try it since I haven’t had amanitas
before.
I’ve saw somewhere that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland after his experiences with amanita muscaria.
CT found this – a peeled amanita muscaria cap. Looks like someone has been here before. 🙂
There were heaps of them too, but most are quite old. CT mentions
that they grow at the same place every year because of the symbiotic
relationship they have with the trees.
Psilocybe subaeruginosa
The second psychoactive mushroom we found – Psilocybe subaeruginosa.
I’ve read that this species only grow in Australia and it’s common in
Victoria (Melbourne).
Another one at a different spot
These are the ones that stain blue easily after picking. It was
growing a small patch on rich woodchips and around plants. Most of them
are still really small ones in the early growth stages. We only found 4
small mushrooms, but with the rainy conditions coming up, hopefully the
patch with sprout with abundance! 🙂
CT with the mushrooms
The way that the mushrooms bruise blue when it’s picked is
interesting. The side of the cap is also stained blue. That makes it
easy to distinguish this species from other mushrooms. Oh, and I found
a small slug under ones of the caps. 🙂
I let it crawl on my hand
Trip report coming up really soon. 😉
Mushroom Hunting I is here [sixthseal.com].
Mushroom Hunting II is here [sixthseal.com].
Black and blue (and orange)
I went to chemist tip’s place just now and we interrupted his
girlfriend’s viewing of Die Hard (the movie) to test a couple of
substances. The first test subject is a white MX pill that’s going
around Melbourne lately, word is the pills are good quality MDMA. The
second test subject is the white powder that’s sold as ice.
Substance #1: White MX (pill)
MX pill front – taken on plate
This pill has “mx” imprinted in stylized font on the front. The logo reminded me of the free newspaper with the same name
[mxnet.com.au] that’s distributed around Melbourne, except the “x” on
the pill is in cursive font. The pill is white with colored speckles,
very slightly beveled edges and a single score down the back.
MX pill back – taken on table
Marquis
The pill was scraped with a razor and two drops of Marquis reagent
was applied to it. The result was an INSTANT color change to black. I
was surprised by the swiftness of the reaction, it went purple to black
as soon as the Marquis solution came into contact with the pill
scraping. My apologies for the out of focus reaction photos. The
digicam doesn’t like to focus on liquids.
Test result: Purple/black instantly. MDxA (MDMA and MDA (rare) are the only ones that’s common).
Simon’s
One drop of Simon’s reagent and two drops of buffer solution is
applied to another sample of the pill scraping. Instant color change to
blue indicating a secondary amine (ruling out MDA). MDMA is a secondary
amine while MDA is a primary amine.
Test result: Swift reaction to blue. MDMA.
Substance #2: Ice (powder)
A$250 per gram
Methamphetamine or 4-MAR? Will 4-MAR (4-methyl-5-phenyl-2-amino-oxazoline) test positive as a secondary amine?
Marquis
The powder turned bright orange almost instantly. It kicked the dexamphetamine reaction’s ass in terms of response time. 🙂
Test result: Instant bright orange. Meth(amphetamine). Will 4-MAR react with Marquis? It’s not documented.
Simon’s
The reaction was fast again, straight to blue.
Test result: Instant blue, indicating a secondary amine. Methamphetamine.
Robadope
Tested it with Robadope for fun. It has a strange reaction – turned
grainy black. It’s probably nothing though, this test was not conducted
properly. 🙂 I’m sure that it’s methamphetamine anyway.
Test result: Grainy black (doesn’t mean anything – this test not done properly)
Tell you all a funny thing from last nite. Well, funny to me anyway.
:p It was crashdown day and I had plenty of B&C’s (benzos, beer,
cannabis) and got some food into me after my tweak session. Apparently
the amount of clonazepam I consumed was too much, because 45 minutes
later, realization dawned upon me that I’ve sedated myself silly. 🙂 I
was eating a McChicken burger when suddenly I thought “Hmm…I’m feeling
something soggy in my right hand. Iwonder what that is”. I looked down
and went “Oh!” – realized I was holding the half eaten burger in my
hand. Okay, I took a bite and after a second (while chewing somemore!)
I thought “Hmm…I’m feeling something soggy in my right hand. I wonder
what that is” AGAIN. This went on for quite a while, until I was too
sleepy to continue eating and stuffed the rest into my mouth and went
to sleep.
Grabbed a chicken schiznal (sp?) burger with bacon and cheese from
the campus center main cafe while walking back from my tutorials. It’s
surprisingly good. Salty. 🙂
You’ve got mail!
EZ Test
[eztest.com]. It’s a set of chemical solutions for testing substances.
The reagents produce different reactions to different chemicals so you
can test for Ecstasy (MDMA), methamphetamine, 2C-B, DXM etc. It’s very
useful to have around for testing pills, although personally I’ve never
had any problems about this in Australia. MDMA pills are sold as MDMA
pills and ketamine/speed pills are sold as such. It is useful to verify
the contents of a pill though, so I usually use a Marquis reagent which
I get at Off Ya Tree, a local headshop.
Inside the package is the EZ Test container and a booklet
That ran out some time ago and I found out that EZ Test has a Australian distributor
[ez-test.com.au] which mails their substance testing kits cash on
delivery, so I ordered a set from them. This is the EZ Test Xtreme,
which has 4 different chemicals – the EZ Test (Marquis reagent),
Simon’s reagent, Robadope and the buffer solution. The Marquis reagent
is probably the most well known for testing Ecstasy pills, but the
other reagents compliment the Marquis solution to provide more
comprehensive results. Hmm…I feel like I’m writing this for a report! 🙂
The EZ Test container – a closer look
Anyway, the Marquis reagent is able to detect MDxA type substances
(eg MDMA, MDA, MDEA), amphetamines (speed), 2C-B (also called Nexus,
pretty rare chemical), and DXM.
A peek inside the container
Simons’s reagent is used to test for a “secondary amine”, which to
my limited chemistry knowledge means the substances that have a longer
chemical name than usual. 😉 These are things like methamphetamine (a
methyl group added to -amphetamine), MDMA and so on. This one is good
for testing meth, it won’t react with amphetamines (primary amine),
only with methamphetamines (secondary amine). Anyway, there isn’t a
burning need to have this around either, since most of the ‘speed’ sold
in Australia is methamphetamine, or so I’ve heard. It’s not that hard
to subjectively differentiate meth and speed (I use speed to refer to
amphetamine) when consumed anyway.
The 4 bottles of reagents
Robadope on the other hand does the opposite of what Simon’s reagent
does. Robadope is used to detect the presence of a primary amine (like
amphetamine). Unfortunately, this test requires quite a lot of the
substance to work. The instructions say at least 1/8th of a pill is
needed to produce a reaction. That’s quite wasteful, but it’s
interesting to have around, if only to test things at random. =D
EZ Test (Marquis reagent)
There is also the buffer solution, which I think (don’t quote me on
this) is used to speed up the reaction times. Either that, or it’s the
“missing link” that’s needed for Simon’s and Robadope to react, perhaps
the solutions are not that stable and won’t keep as long when combined.
Again, I don’t really know what the buffer is for, just that it’s used
with Simon’s and Robadope but not Marquis.
Simon’s reagent
The tests are done in sequence and by inference and extrapolation
(just love this phrase), you can detect whether a
pill/powder/capsule/whatever contains MDxA (MDMA, MDEA, MDA),
methamphetamine, amphetamine, PMA, 2C-B, DXM, combinations (primary
amine – secondary amine like a MDMA/amphetamine combo pill) and even
heroin. Each reagent changes color when it’s exposed to the
recreational substances that it’s able to detect.
Robadope
I don’t know why I’m in a mood for writing something like this, but
anyway. 🙂 Here’s an example, using the EZ Test kit on a dexamphetamine
tablet. I had 2 pills left, which isn’t enough to do anything, so I’ve
left it lying around…until today! Today, I’m going to strike the fear
of God into the little white pills. Or something. I’m tweaking again,
verbal diarrhea and mindless chatter ahoy! =D
Buffer solution
Anyway, if you’ve read my posts, you’ll know that I have a
dexamphetamine script for my…ah, narcolepsy. 😉 I can’t stop with the
wink wink nudge nudge every time I mention this, my apologies, I’m
actually privately gloating about my script. Heh. Okay, enough
silliness, sorry about that.
5 mg dexamphetamine tablets
Back on topic, dexamphetamine is a primary amine, from what I’ve
read, amphetamine is a racemic mixture containing both the + and –
isomers. Those are dextro and laevo and Collin’s English Dictionary
defines it as such:
racemic
adjective
(Chem) of, concerned with, or being a mixture of dextrorotatory
and laevorotatory isomers in such proportions that the mixture has no
optical activity
[ETYMOLOGY: 19th Century: from RACEME (as in racemic acid) + -IC]
racemism
noun
Anyway, the laevo (or levo) isomers of both amphetamine and
methamphetamine isn’t recreational compared to the dextro isomers. I
don’t know if this is true for all -amphetamines, but its true for
(meth)amphetamine. The stuff you get off the street is a racemic
mixture, so looking from a recreational perspective, it’s inferior to
dextro only isomers. In other words, pure dextro (meth)amphetamines
will get you higher than a racemic mixture. Personally, I like
dexamphetamine (dextroamphetamine sulfate) because it’s much more
stimulating that street speed (racemic amphetamine), but I’ll take
racemic methamphetamine over it any day! =D
Dextroamphetamine sulfate – our test subject
I digress. I suspect I’m boring half of you with the background
information and insulting half of you by elaborating on things that you
already know. Nevertheless, I shall continue. 🙂 Oh, and you might have
noticed that I don’t use the word “drug” or “drugs”. I dislike that
term because of the negative connotations that’s associated with it. I
use the term “substances” and “chemicals” instead to refer to
recreational compounds. Okay, instead of digressing again and again and
being self indulgent, I’ll continue to the tests.
Substance: 5 mg dexamphetamine pill (dextroamphetamine sulfate)
Dexamphetamine pill, crushed into powder
The pill is crushed up with a dog tag as if to prepare for
insufflating (snorting). Half of the powder is used for the tests and
the other half was, er…insufflated. The first test is done using the
Marquis reagent. A small portion of the powder is isolated into a
corner of a CD jewel case and two drops of the Marquis reagent is
applied to it.
Test: Marquis Reagent
The pill’s content is already known, so this is just a test for fun
and to show how reagents work. The Marquis reagent will react by
changing color to orange/brown when it detects amphetamine (speed).
Let’s see how it goes in the test.
Yellow as soon as it came into contact with the powdered dexamphetamine pill.
The color started to look orange after a couple of seconds.
It’s noticeably orange now.
Yup, unmistakably orange. Indicates the presence of amphetamine (dexamphetamine = amphetamine).
The reaction settled to become a brown goo after a minute.
Marquis Reagent result: Orange, indicating either methamphetamine or amphetamine.
Test: Simon’s Reagent
Two drops of Simon’s reagent and 4 drops of the buffer solution is
applied to another portion of the powdered dexamphetamine pill. This
should turn blue if there is a secondary anime (methamphetamine) but it
won’t react if it’s amphetamine (primary amine).
No reaction. The red drops are the reagents, accidentally dropped it outside the sample.
Simon’s Reagent result: No reaction, ruling out
methamphetamine. This indicates that it’s amphetamine, from the
positive result from the previous Marquis test.
Test: Robadope
There’s actually no point in doing the Robadope, since the substance
is already known from the two tests. Robadope is mainly used for
testing for combinations eg MDMA/amphetamine combo pill. The Robadope
will proceed nevertheless. 🙂 The reaction will be reddish/purple if it
detects a primary amine (like dexamphetamine).
I fudged up the first test by dropping too much Robadope on too little sample.
Slight salmon color.
The second attempt uses only a single drop of Robadope + 2 drops of buffer on quite a large sample.
Slight reddish tint. It is noticeable to the naked eye (if you squint
really hard), but the colors translated poorly to the digicam. It
wasn’t the shade of red I expected, but that’s probably because the
sample was mostly binders + fillers instead of dexamphetamine. There’s
heaps of binders in a dex pill, which is why snorting is such a chore
that I just eat them after heavy urinary alkalization.
Robadope result: Salmon red tint. This indicates a primary amine – dextroamphetamine.
This is how Ecstasy pill testers work – by cross-referencing reagent results. 🙂
