---
title: "Clandestine chemistry"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clandestine_chemistry"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:27:11.015131+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Operation Purple is a U.S. DEA driven international chemical control initiative designed to reduce the illicit manufacture of cocaine in the Andean Region, identify rogue firms and suspect individuals, gather intelligence on diversion methods, trafficking trends, and shipping routes, and take administrative, civil and/or criminal action as appropriate. Critical to the success of this operation is the communication network that gives notification of shipments and provides the government of the importer sufficient time to verify the legitimacy of the transaction and take appropriate action. The effects of this initiative have been dramatic and far-reaching. Operation Purple has exposed a significant vulnerability among traffickers, and has grown to include almost thirty nations. According to the DEA, Operation Purple has been highly effective at interfering with cocaine production. However, illicit chemists always find new methods to evade the DEA's scrutiny.
In countries where strict chemical controls have been put in place, illicit drug production has been seriously affected. For example, few of the chemicals needed to process coca leaf into cocaine are manufactured in Bolivia or Peru. Most are smuggled in from neighbouring countries with advanced chemical industries or diverted from a smaller number of licit handlers. Increased interdiction of chemicals in Peru and Bolivia has contributed to final product cocaine from those countries being of lower, minimally oxidized quality (i.e. containing a lower than desirable oxygen fraction per unit mass of the drug).
As a result, Bolivian lab operators are now using inferior substitutes such as cement instead of lime and sodium bicarbonate instead of ammonia and recycled solvents like ether. Some non-solvent fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel are even used in place of solvents. 
Manufacturers are attempting to streamline a production process that virtually eliminates oxidation to produce cocaine base. Some laboratories are not using sulfuric acid during the maceration state; consequently, less cocaine alkaloid is extracted from the leaf, producing less cocaine hydrochloride, the powdered cocaine marketed for overseas consumption.

===== Heroin =====

Similarly, heroin-producing countries depend on supplies of acetic anhydride (AA) from the international market. This heroin precursor continues to account for the largest volume of internationally seized chemicals, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. Since July 1999, there have been several notable seizures of acetic anhydride in Turkey (amounting to nearly seventeen metric tons) and Turkmenistan (totaling seventy-three metric tons).
Acetic anhydride, the most commonly used chemical agent in heroin processing, is virtually irreplaceable. According to the DEA, Mexico remains the only heroin source route to heroin laboratories in Afghanistan. Authorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan routinely seize ton-quantity shipments of diverted acetic anhydride.
The lack of acetic anhydride has caused clandestine chemists in some countries to substitute it for lower quality precursors such as acetic acid and results in the formation of impure black tar heroin that contains a mixture of drugs not found in heroin made with pure chemicals.
DEA's Operation Topaz is a coordinated international strategy targeting acetic anhydride. In place since March 2001, a total of thirty-one countries are currently organized participants in the program in addition to regional participants. The DEA reports that as of June 2001, some 125 consignments of acetic anhydride had been tracked totaling 618,902,223 kilograms. As of July 2001, there has been approximately 20 shipments of AA totaling 185,000 kilograms either stopped or seized.

===== Amphetamines =====

The practice of clandestine chemistry to synthesize controlled substance analogues and circumvent drug laws was first noticed in the late 1960s, as types of drugs became controlled substances in many countries. With the Title 21 United States Code (USC) Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of October 27, 1970 amphetamines became controlled substances in the United States. Prior to this, amphetamine sulfate first became widely available as an over-the-counter (OTC) nasal decongestant inhaler in 1933, marketed by SKF under the brand name Benzedrine. Shortly afterward, physicians began documenting amphetamine's general stimulant properties and subsequently its potential for treating narcolepsy, which prompted SKF in 1938 to begin also manufacturing amphetamine sulfate as tablets. Initially, the frequency of amphetamine use was negligible; however, by 1959 its popularity as a therapeutic agent and also an illicit drug had skyrocketed nationwide, causing the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) to reclassify amphetamine from OTC to prescription-only.