To follow up on my delayed shipment from Kachhela:
After 30 days since my payment, Anil still wants me to wait another week for my package to leave the Mumbai post office before he will ship a replacement. So what this means is that my total time to receive my shipment product will be going on 2 months.
The point he makes is that it is out of his control and that all vendors have this problem around Diwali, Xmas, and New years.
Its good to be aware of this and to take it into consideration when placing an order for essentials.
Something might be wrong, since I donāt think they will use an American product in India as a filler. Is mass spectrometry really able to detect miniscule 100 mg amounts of a compound? It doesnāt make sense they will fake Acarbose so elaborately. You could maybe get in touch with someone from Bayer as itās their product thatās possibly being faked.
That seems like an unusual filler. How did you do the Maxi Spec analysis? Did you do it yourself? Iām more familiar with HPLC. You can see the analysis by Valisure (HPLC analysis) on Biocon and Zydus sirolimus below from this: Rapamycin / Sirolimus from India, Lab Test Report on Quality / Purity
Well I am not a chemist so I do not have all the answers you mentioned here.
Here is what I know: There is a service in my hometown that offer free drug analysis (to counter drug overdose and harm reduction)
I took the opportunity to test that chemical.
The social worker put a tiny amount on the mass spectrometry machineā¦The results are as shown on the picture I attached.
Did he do it wellā¦I am not sureā¦Is the machine at fault? Maybe, but its a brand new machineā¦
In truth, I am not qualified to answer about the validity of thatā¦ however I did lose trust in this vendor and will test all substance I receive from India in the future.
A better test: Take acarbose with a high carbohydrate meal, preferably with a lot of wheat. Eat some wheat bread etc. If you donāt fart a lot in the next twelve hours, it is not acarbose.
Iāve used HPLC-MS and a possible reason that the adulterant found is so odd, is that it depends on what library the MS fragments are being matched against.
From your description it sounds like itās a narcotics and associated adulterants (that have been used by drug dealers in the past) library, it may not even have acarbose in its library, as itās not a recreational drug.
Honestly, the best way to test it is the @desertshores method. If itās really Butter Buds, youāll have a sweet taste when you chew it up and you wonāt fart like crazy. Butter Buds pose no health risk if you ingest them.
Based on your description of its use (to identify impurities in street drugs), and based on the output screen, Iād bet my house that thatās an FTIR spectrometer, not the LC/MS that people may be thinking of. Here is the inverse curve for Acarbose (transmission, not absorption). Note that it very closely matches the spectrum on the screen. You almost definitely have Acarbose, not butter buds.
If you donāt believe the curve, you could try contacting Bruker (the manufacturer) to see of Acarbose is in their OPUS database, or ask your friend to use the software to search for both. Compare the Butter Buds spectrum to Acarbose. Even if they are similar, would the drug counterfeiter go out of their way to find compounds with very similar spectra? Maybe, but I think with this information and the fart test, you can be almost certain.
Edit: adding inverted and flipped version for clarity.
What Iām now wondering is whether acarbose and butter buds are chemically similar enough that we can all stop importing glucobay. Somebody please get some butter buds and do the gas test.
I think we just have to be patient and our shipment will arrive. Itās been my experience that with all my packages it has taken a good 15-20 days to get the shipment (from time it sayās processed). Iāve stopped tracking since all my packages (7-8 of them in last two years) have arrived with no problem. In couple occasions they were opened by customs but still were delivered just fine. I have stopped worrying and just wait till I see it delivered.
, but I still think the library is a bit sus.