Ketamine HCl Solubility and cuts

Isopropyl alcohol: Ketamine HCl is “soluble” in isopropyl, meaning 10-30ml of isopropyl is

needed to dissolve 1g of ketamine

Ketamine HCl is classified as “freely soluble” in methanol, which means it will dissolve up to 1-
10g in each ml of methanol.

Ketamine HCl is sparingly soluble in chloroform.

Un-cutting K

Once upon a time, a significant amount of the ketamine sold on the black market in Toronto was
veterinary K that had been redirected from the controlled legitimate medical market. In recent
years, however, K demand has consistently outpaced supply, resulting in irregularly-produced K
coming to market and increasingly showing up at street level in heavily-cut batches.

Street / party K is now often cut multiple times in different ways by different people as it
journeys down to end-users.

This article is about how to spot cut K, how to identify common cuts, and how to attempt to
remove as much cut as possible in order to be able to have a better understanding of and control
over what you're putting into your body.

"Veterinary" ketamine that has been crystallized (dried) from liquid will typically solidify as long
crystal shards (which can vary in length/girth), ranging from entirely-intact shards to smashed
and broken pieces depending on how much they've been handled and whether they're from the
top or bottom of your source's bag.

Typically, most uncut crystalline K "should" look like this (but often no longer does - see below):
Nowadays in Toronto, conventional shards are scarce in many circles, and "pebbles", "cubes"
(some small like table salt, some larger like bath salts), and even massive single-piece chunks are
commonly encountered at street and party level.

These differences are due to variations in how batches are synthesized and crystallized, and may
sometimes be due to cuts that are added to liquid K before it is crystallized ("rerocking"), but for
the purposes of this article any and all of these different types are simply going to be considered
"K".

This article is about the extra stuff you may get sold in your baggie that is 100% _not_ K, the
unwanted bulking cuts that can be added by any person who gets their hands on the K between
the producer and the final customer.

When a cut is selected, it is generally chosen to visually match the type of K in terms of shape
and is almost always smaller than the ketamine crystals as being larger would call attention to
the cut as a primary component of the batch. Heavier cuts are preferred when a scale is being
used to weigh the drug, while lighter ("fluffier") cuts are preferred when the desired result is to
fill up a container like a vial or a bag.

More towards the bottom we will discuss specific methods for attempting to separate out cuts,
but first let's take a look at some common cuts that you may encounter:

Specific common cut details:

MSM or Methylsulfonylmethane is possibly the most common cut found in street K in Toronto at
the moment. It's sold as a supplement for the treatment and prevention of arthritis. Given this, it
may be one of the better adulterants as far as impact on your body goes, however Health
Canada obviously hasn't been expecting people to be snorting or injecting the stuff when they
approve it for retail.
MSM's appearance is sharp-edged, small crystal fragments, a little like partially-formed
snowflakes or tiny bits of diamond/glass. (The inset in the above photo is magnified to show
detail.) MSM is usually heavier than the K in a batch, and its weight and small size cause it to sift
to the bottom of bags.

Unlike K, which crushes to a soft powder, MSM crystals are resistant to crushing and just crush
down into smaller crystal fragments. This is helpful in identifying it, but this also makes it
particularly prone to irritating sinus passageways.

If you taste-test MSM, you'll primarily notice a cooling sensation on the tongue, backed by a
lighter "earthy" soil-like taste.

MSM is one of the easiest cuts to remove using the basic separation techniques described
further down.

MSG or Monosodium glutamate shares more resemblance to ketamine shards than almost any
other substance. The crystals form almost identically to shardy K, and even a trained eye may
have difficulty differentiating the two, even side-by-side.

MSG is generally only encountered as a cut when the K itself is in this conventional shardy form,
and so obviously it hasn't been very common lately.

MSG comes in a range of sizes:

One way to visually differentiate MSG from K is the "dual-shard" formation that commonly
shows up in MSG (the appearance of two shards "stuck together"), while this is uncommon for
ketamine shards.

However, this dual-shard formation is not always going to be present with MSG depending on
how it has been manufactured and sorted:
Shardy K cut with MSG can be very difficult to separate using the methods described below, but
it is still extremely easy to identify the batch as cut with MSG because of the powerful "Chinese
food" taste.

If your drip tastes like wonton noodle soup broth when it goes down the back of your throat,
you're dealing with MSG.

Table salt and/or sugar both come in a range of sizes and shapes, but are essentially small-sized
cubes. Sugar is usually finer and lighter, while salt is heavier but larger - in both cases, they're
likely to sift to the bottom of a bag. Both are obviously very easy to notice with a taste-test, even
if you're tasting the different parts of the mixture at once.

These cuts are most common when the person doing the cutting is rushing, lazy, careless or
inexperienced. If your dealer really needs to go by the McDonald's condiment counter and then
hit the bathroom stall on their own before they'll sort you out, you should immediately be
checking for this kind of cut.

Salt in particular is irritating to the nose and throat, and salt interferes with absorption of the
active drug itself by dehydrating your cells, weakening the effects even beyond how much it's
diluting the bag. If you're consistently finding yourself stuck with something like this, it's a good
sign that you need to rethink your supplier because they're clearly not even bothering to work
hard on screwing you around and obviously haven't got your best interests at heart.

Luckily, like MSM, the shape and weight differences between these cuts and most types of K
makes them fairly easy to separate as well.
This image is, of course, a close-up, but you should notice the range of sizes present even though
this is all the same type of salt. You may see batches that have obviously salt-sized/shaped
crystals, but then additional smaller ones that don't match - they can still be the same thing
(though they could be a second cut.)

Coarse sea salt and/or epsom (bath) salts are generally uncommon as their use requires that the
K be rather large. Sea salt chunks are rougher and rounder while epsom salts are very much
cubes. K the size and shape of epsom salts has been increasingly common lately, so you may
encounter this. These are naturally clear-white but could also be coloured.
While easy to identify if you remove an individual salt crystal and taste it (or do a burn test - salt
does not combust at all and will remain regardless of what the other components change into), if
epsom-sized cube-shaped K is cut with epsom salts, there may be no simple way to separate the
two.

Unidentified fine powders could be anything, from crushed vitamins to random medication to
talcum powder to flour to, well, yeah, anything. You're best off refusing anything that comes
looking like this, because there's no really good way of telling what you're dealing with and
whether it might be dangerous before you do it (although the water dissolution and burn tests
described below can give you some clues, and a taste-test may help you decide if the powder is
actually just crushed K.)

Nonetheless, if you're dealing with a bag of K crystals mixed with fine powder, the physical
separation technique described below should be able to do a fairly good job of separating the
two.

Talcum powder is worth a special mention. It's extremely uncommon to find as a cut, but it can
happen. It'll be obvious to anyone doing a bump when they're hit with that "baby powder"
smell, and if you happen to encounter this you should stop using that batch right away -
inhalation of talc in this form can cause specific types of lung disease... and again, this is a
lazy/sloppy cut that indicates a completely reckless attitude on the part of the person doing it, a
definite warning sign that you should avoid anything coming from that source.
Steps for assessing & separating a batch:

Initial visual examination

Initial taste examination

Weight and/or physical separation into differently-appearing components

Separate component taste-testing

1. Initial visual examination: Take a look at the mixed batch. Good lighting will help, a back-light
may help (such as a cell phone), and if you have the chance actually dumping the whole thing
out onto a clean surface will definitely let you get a better idea of what you're dealing with. You
should be examining it to see how uniformly consistent the component pieces are - if they're all
basically the same size and shape, you may be dealing with a fairly clean batch. If more than one
type of thing is present, the odds are very low that it's a mixture of different types of K. In
particular note whether all the components are crystalline or whether any are powder, and
check whether any parts seem heavier than others as they move around in a bag or container by
seeing whether they seem to fall faster than the rest.

2. Initial taste examination: Get a dab on your pinky finger and put it to the tip of your tongue.
Odds are this won't be the best experience you ever have, but it can tell you a lot that your eyes
just can't. Ketamine variants can have slightly differing tastes, but the basic K taste is pretty much
the same as getting hairspray in your mouth - a distinct semi-sour/semi-chemically/semi-metallic
blend of flavour that will trigger most living beings' repulsion reflex. Salt will taste like salt, sugar
like sugar, MSG like generic Chinese soup broth. MSM has the taste of soil, but the taste isn't
dominant with MSM, instead what you're looking for is the cold sensation that is produced as it
melts on your tongue. You may taste a mix and only taste the strong K element, but if you pay
attention you might simultaneously feel this cooling sensation and realize that it's been mixed
with MSM.

3. Weight and/or physical separation into differently-appearing components: Of these two

methods, physical separation is simpler and quicker but weight separation can be used in more
cases and requires less special tools to improvise.

Physical separation simply refers to separating the components based on differences in their
physical size and shape. This is most easily done with a fine metal strainer (sieve), the type of
which can be picked up cheaply at any kitchen supply store, dollar store or even many
convenience stores. It requires that you're either trying to keep the smallest or the largest parts
of the mixture, but the procedure is simply that you dump the mix into the strainer and tap the
side repeatedly until everything that will fall through has. Ta-da, MSM underneath on the
bottom, large K cubes still on top in the strainer! (or whatever the case may be).

Weight separation is done by relying more on the differences in the weight of the components
than on their size or shape. It can therefore be used in cases where the cut and K may be
virtually identical in appearance, and can even work to some extent sorting MSG from shardy K.

To perform a basic weight separation, you'll need a surface you can pick up that's at least the size
of a CD jewelcase (in fact, I recommend you use a CD jewelcase because it's likely available and
its hollow structure lets you tap it more effectively). Hold the jewelcase over a table, flyer, etc to
catch spill-off. Dump a pile of your mixture in the middle (horizontally) of the case near the far
side from you, then pick up that far side so the case surface slopes down towards you, with the
far side 1 to 2 inches up.

Now tap the side of the jewelcase over and over, just enough to cause the vibrations to shake
the pile. You'll start to see the different parts of the mixture sliding apart and down towards you,
and you should see that certain parts are falling faster than others. If everything is falling quickly,
you're holding it at too high of an angle. Tapping is also best done with a solid object like a pen,
marker or fingernail rather than a soft fingertip.

If you put out a large pile, you may need to use a card to pull off what has separated out and
then rebuild the pile at the top of the case and start again, repeating this until you've gotten a
satisfactory amount of cut separated from K.

4. Separate component taste-testing: Now that you've turned your one pile into two piles, you
might want to try a small taste of what you suspect to be the cut on its own in order to confirm
your suspicions of it. Then take the cut, bag it up and give it back to your dealer - let them know
that you're not a sucker and you expect honesty, quality and respect or you'll be going
elsewhere.

Additional steps:

Burn-testing: Many dealers will use this themselves to assess purity of new batches. You can
burn-test a mixture or separate components. To do this, take a scrap of aluminum foil, place a
very small amount on it (like the size a grain of rice or two) and then heat the underside with a
lighter. Don't inhale the fumes - everything from the foil to the cut to the K itself will be giving off
something toxic, and ketamine isn't really a smokeable drug anyway.

What will happen is the substance(s) will sizzle, melt and then burn off. Pure K will leave you
with an deep inky red stain, while most other things will burn black or some other colour. Salt
will not burn at all since it is not a hydrocarbon, so if at the end you see a spot of the desired red
colour with some cubes still sitting in the middle of it, you're dealing with a salt cut. Take note
though, sugar will produce almost the same colour as K when burned like this!
Water-dissolution testing: Most people who snort K would never think to do this, but everyone
who injects it will naturally go through this step. Anyone can do it with a cooker even if they
have no intention whatsoever of injecting the result, and cookers are available without needles
from outreach centres like the Queen West Health Centre (Bathurst & Queen) and The Works.

You put an amount of your mixture into the cooker, add water and heat it from below with a
lighter. The heat is necessary as K itself is not perfectly soluble in cold water. What you should be
watching for first of all is whether any fizzing occurs when you first mix with the water, or
whether any components of the mix float to the surface. Then, after heating, check to see if
anything proves to be non-water-soluble and remains a solid. Any of these things are warning
signs that an uncommon and potentially harmful cut could be present and you should think
about avoiding using this batch entirely.