For educational purposes only. If you live in an area of the world where it is illegal to manufacture a certain compound or be in possession of its precursors, just don't do it.
Negative reinforcement. That's how our parents used to give their warnings. "Don't ride your bike too fast." "Don't put stuff in the wall sockets." "Don't play in the road." I don't know about the lot of you, but this only compels me to want to put things in the wall sockets, so here's to getting electrocuted together.
Who dunnit?..
The government's drug war has been running strong since the Reagan years and some of us, including myself, have spent extended bids in their cages as a result of non-violent or coercive acts, like the usage or manufacture & sale of recreational drugs. The content of this article, if used in ways contrary to the laws of the aforementioned party, will result in your incarceration. Since we are all consenting adults here, I won't tell you what to do with your life, but I will say that I don't advocate taking the risk. As much as I could rant on about the politics of it all, the purpose of this article is for (insert disclaimer) educational purposes only, and to teach you how most clandestine labs start. Many of which start with the curiosities of intelligent individuals with the desire to make large sums of money in a short period of time. No chemist required and no education required.
My experience... no experience at all...
My very first and last lab started running in the last quarter of 2013. There was snow on the ground in central Michigan. I was able to save $1200, which would allow me to buy all of the glass apparatus', lab equipment and most of the chemicals to start a 1L MDMA lab, using the methods outlined in the Rhodium Chemistry Archive. With a lab this size, one could only produce 10g-12g of 99%+ pure MDMA, every other day. I had no experience running a chemical laboratory, I had no formal education in chemistry and I had no prior knowledge in the usage of the equipment. Everything I learned was a result of about one month's education in the Google classroom, then I went for it when I was certain that I had understood the procedures in the synthesis outlines as completely as possible. Long story short, I had accumulated both the knowledge and understanding, as well as the equipment and chemicals necessary to start a lab in under two months, and within that time period I had produced several runs of it. I won't get into the details that led to my incarceration, however I will say that I was fortunate that my lab had been cleaned very thoroughly and I had run out of the precursor that would have given them the leverage to press higher charges on me. This is all avoidable. Simply, be the only one who knows about your project.
Why and how it came to be...
I was broke. I needed money and I wasn't making enough at my traditional job to pay for rent, food and utilities while still allowing me to buy my favorite bottle of McCallan every weekend. I had always had an interest in touching stove tops since my mother told me not to so I figured it would come naturally to me to start a lab. But how the hell do you do that without the education needed to understand this complex task? Easy...
The Rhodium Chemistry Archive:
https://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/index.html
Here, it was simple to just find out what I wanted to make, find out if I could get my hands on the chemicals needed to manufacture it and price out how expensive it would be to get the lab equipment and chemicals together. In my research, there aren't many labs that break the $3000 mark while still making significant quantities. This is how I arrived at MDMA. Nowadays it has become much harder to procure some of the precursors to MDMA and by now I would expect it to be near impossible not to be caught importing it. However, as the old saying goes, "If there's a will, there's a way." There are alternatives to MDMA though. Chemicals that are Scheduled 1, highly sought after and where the ingredients to make these compounds are not Listed or watched. One could theoretically import the precursors needed and find the rest at your local hardware store. I'll give you a hint. It's in the Phenethylamine class and it occurs naturally in the Southwest U.S.
There are other great resources to reference information. A couple by the late great Alexander Shulgin, Pihkal and Tihkal. Two books that outline chemical syntheses and pharmacological effects (from his personal experience) on each of the compounds in the quite extensive list that he has assembled.
Another great platform with loads of information on drugs and their pharmacological properties is Erowid.org.
Good luck and be careful out there.
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Why thank you very much. :D