Investigation into Alternative Methods of Illicit Drug Production

Abstract

The police all over the world have been coming across new illicit drug products made from either licit or illicit starting materials. The illicit drug manufacturers produce new illicit products by using alternative methods of production from readily available starting materials. This project looked into alternative ways of producing new illicit drug preparations. Cooking cannabis plant material in hot milk made an illicit preparation called cannabis milk; this new illicit product contained the main cannabinoid, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), found in cannabis plant. Cannabis milk made from cannabis flowering heads resulted in more THC being present in the product than when cannabis milk was made from cannabis leaf. Alternative method of preparing different type of cannabis oil, called ‘honey oil’, was done by using butane gas to extract the oil from cannabis plant material. More honey oil resulted when cannabis flowering heads were used instead of cannabis leaf. The new method produced less cannabis oil product than previously used method where cannabis oil obtained by soaking cannabis plant in organic solvents. The main advantage of the new method was the very short manufacture time. Readily available poppy seeds have shown to produce an illicit extract when soaked in hot water. Two different types of store bought poppy seeds (blue-black and white) were used in production of poppy seed tea and each type of poppy seeds used produced different results. Poppy seed tea made from blue-black poppy seeds had detected levels of morphine, codeine and thebaine; while use of white poppy seeds, in production of poppy seed tea, resulted in presence of codeine, thebaine, papaverine and indications of noscapine. A third type of poppy seeds was obtained from indoor cultivation of poppy plants and poppy seed tea made from these seeds only contained traces of codeine. Manufacture of Russia’s new designer drug (‘krokodil’) was achieved by reacting codeine phosphate, red phosphorus and iodine. Codeine was fully converted to desomorphine and an unknown compound. The laboratory made ‘krokodil’ was free of toxic contaminants than the street made product is reported to contain.