Health - Toxic impurities in GBL?

[tripster]

SWIM is curious to find out how toxic is this GBL:

Assay, % minimum (sum of GBL and methyl derivatives) 99.9, ST8460
Water, % maximum 0.05, STI8432
Color, APHA maximum 10, STI8415
1,4-Butanediol, area % max 0.10, STI8460
Acid, wt. % max. (calculated as butyric acid) 0.03, STI8461
Foreign matter - none, STI8412
THF, area % max. 0.05
Acetal, ppm max. 50, STI8460

Chloride, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.30
Sulfate, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.00
Nitrate, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.00
Iron, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.05
Copper, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.05
Zinc, wt. ppm. max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.05
Lead, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.05
Sodium, wt. ppm max. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.50
Potassium, wt. ppm max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.50

His biggest concern is it is "assayed minimum 99.9% as sum of GBL and methyl derivates", but it doesn't specificy what derivatives these are, and in what concentrations. Later he looked after this, and astonishingly he found probably it is N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP) which is a derivative of GBL. Can this be true? It is slightly toxic, causing reproductive damage and probably other problems, giving him a very huge health concern now.

Probably 1,4-butanediol is not highly toxic at concentrations 0.1% max, but subchronic THF exposure is also slightly toxic and mutagenic.

The question is: is this material safe to consume on the long run for daily use? He thinks definitely not. He also gets a slight headache and a mild hangover for high doses (3+ ml), doesn't know if because of neurochemistry changes, or because of toxic impurities.

He also likes the idea of keeping it as GBL, because it is perfectly legal as a solvent where he lives. He is also highly thinking of converting it to NaGHB, and purify it by steam distilling at 150 C for some time, until all solvents evaporate, leaving no smell. All impurities have a boiling point around 200 C (except THF at 66 C), so by boiling at 150 C they should all slowly evaporate. He also thinks with GHB, the addiction/rebound/withdrawal dangers would be lowered.

He doesn't like to break the law, but he is now extremly worried about his health, as he consumed about 50 ml of this material already, not being sure about the health implications, and he doesn't want to poison himself anymore with toxic impurities. Probably he didn't do more harm to himself than a few weekends of heavy drinking, but he wants to play safe. He was actually looking for something non-toxic, as his body doesn't even like alcohol.

He would also like to find out if there's a way to get GBL back from the purified NaGHB, to keep it both healthy and legal, but he's no chemistry expert. He read somewhere that in aqueous solution under acidic conditions, NaGHB turns back into GBL. And then he could evaporate the water to get near pure GBL, which would then be legal in his country, and most likely safe to consume on the long run. Is this a plausible solution? Is there a description anywhere on how to do this and what material(s) to use, what ratios?

Any suggestions or ideas are highly welcome.

Also he warns you that web pages sell such material as "guaranteed 99.99% highest purity GBL", so you never know what toxins you actually put in your body!! Never trust web pages, this is just marketing bs to make their product sell more, and make you spend a lot of money on rubbish, as he found out later. He found it out the hard way, don't let be fooled

tripster added 77 Minutes and 29 Seconds later...

Update: another document from this manufacturer says min. 99.7% GBL and max. 0.4% Methylbutyrolactone, but no idea if this is the same material, or datasheet for another one. But for sure it seems it's not the toxic NMP, as SWIM first thought. He'll ask the supplier which datasheet is the right one, as there are about 3 different GBL assays found on their web page.

Can't find info on methylbutyrolactone, anyone have info on its toxicity? Maybe it's the same as gamma-valerolactone, which is GBL with a methyl group?

tripster added 752 Minutes and 13 Seconds later...

Update: SWIM found that the THF impurity is also very toxic even at low concentrations, causing liver and kidney damage, and is carcinogenic. Now he has extremely bad feelings about hurting his body badly and irreversibly, by trusting a stupid web page that sells "highest purity 99.99% gamma-butyrolactone", but in fact contains max. 0.05% highly toxic and carcinogenic THF!

He doesn't know if this fear is valid or not, probably he did as much damage to his liver and kidneys in 2 weeks as he would have done with 5 years of heavy drinking... Please, don't be stupid and just drink solvents, trusting web pages!!! Otherwise you might have to go through this horror nightmare of hurting your body very badly, possibly irreversibly... He thinks it was an extremely stupid idea to play guinea pig on himself, and now regrets it very badly. He can only hope for best that his body will detoxicate, and regenerate so that he won't suffer long-term consequences... and this nightmare ends. Take this as a warning!

tripster added 320 Minutes and 9 Seconds later...

Update: SWIM got a slight back pain around his kidney area, and got extremely paranoid that he nuked his liver/kidney and went to a hospital to ask for a liver/kidney function test.

Now comes another shock: he told them that he drank an industrial solvent, and afraid that he might got poisoned and ask for a test.

"- Then we have to call the police."
"- What??! I'm here because I'm afraid I got a poisoning of a solvent, and the first thing is that you want to call the police??!"

So first they didn't even want to talk to him without talking to the police, but finally they wrote in the diagnosis that he worked with a solvent and afraid that he might got poisoned, no police involved. Phew..... So they took blood and urine, and did lab tests.

Results: everything is negative, he's totally healthy, not any sign of liver disfunction. They tested about 30 things.

Conclusions:

1. In the past two weeks, he was consuming 1-3 doses of GBL every day, so probably what he experienced today was just a severe paranoia/anxiety attack caused by GBL withdrawal.

2. Probably the impurities caused a slight discomfort which didn't manifest in the lab tests, but was worsened by the dopamine/withdrawal and resulted in this paranoid state of mind.

3. Here if you tell a doctor you consumed a solvent for it's effects, the first thing is they want to call the police, no matter it's legal as a solvent.

He thinks this is a very strong sign that industrial solvents are something to be taken extremely seriously, and will never consume anything with possible toxic impurities in it without purifying it very thoroughly. He will never trust web pages which claim high purity of their solvents, as this could lead to serious health consequences and/or hellish nightmares, like what he experienced today.

Draw your conclusions. Don't be stupid as him.

[malsat]

Massive panic attack by the look of it. You'r fine anyway!

That is about as pure as commercial GBL is going to get. That's about as pure as GBL can get, full stop. Distilling the GBL will bring over the other organic compounds with the GBL as azeotropes. They can't be removed completely.

Steam distilling NaGHB will result in your GHB being turned back into GBL and coming over in the distillate.

This is nothing to worry about. Consider the lead content, 0,05 parts per million. If a person takes a 1ml dose of GBL they are consuming 0.565 micrograms of lead. One study I've seen stated that school children had a daily intake of around 50-60 micrograms of lead (ranging up to 250 micrograms. So the amount of lead listed is not enough to be toxic. THF and 1,4-BDO are far away from being toxic in the amounts listed.

The methyl derivatives of GBL are unlikely to do anything at those concentrations as well. Methyl GHB derivatives have been seen to have GHB-like activity anyway.

NMP is unlikely to be in ANY commercial GBL. This is just a myth. GBL isn't produced from NMP, it's the other way around, so if there was ever any amount of NMP in commercial GBL it would be a result of degradation of the product over time. Nobody has to worry about NMP.

To sum it up, commercial GBL is really NOTHING to worry about, health-wise, as long as it's not abused.

If SWIY is really that concerned that the assays are falsified, and they have the right equipment, they could turn it into GHB and wash it, or distill the GBL & convert to GHB or whatever. But the more important thing, I think, is....

*SWIY should take a break from the G and then set up STRICT LIMITS for their consumption of G before they start using it again.* Addiction will fuck SWIY up more than any potential toxicity ever could.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent advice, with highly informative details about GBL/GHB toxicity

[tripster]

Agree totally. Time to take a long break, and not to mess with this material much in the future, even if it was fun at the beginning. Lessons learned.

SWIM is fine, had a long, restful night of sleep.

Thanks for your input!

tripster added 118 Minutes and 15 Seconds later...

BTW he still has some slight lower back pain, which freaked the hell out of him yesterday, but he's unsure whether it's connected to GBL or not. It could be just muscle pain, or he could have slept in a weird position the night before, giving him back pain, he's unsure. Could be anything. What really freaked him out was he read in a study that chronic THF exposure causes back pain and liver damage in industrial workers, causing him to think that he nuked his liver

Now he found another study showing that THF is a weak toxin, with LD50 800 mg/kg oral and liver dysfunction found around half the lethal dose in rodents. So a recreational dose of 2 ml GBL with max. 0.05% THF, this would mean about max. 0.00125 mg/kg THF, very-very far from the lethal or liver dysfunction dose.

He's still a bit concerned about it's long-term toxicity even in such low doses. THF's boiling point is 66 C, so would it be possible to eliminate the THF from the GBL by heating it on an electric stove above 66 C for a few minutes to evaporate off the THF with good ventillation? He's really concerned about his health, so he would like to minimize the risks as much as possible.

Also for conversion, the following NaOH is available:

NaOh min 98,0 %
Na2CO3 max 1,0 %
Nitrogen max 0,001 %
Phosphate max 0,001 %
Chloride max 0,005 %
Silicate (SiO2) max 0,01 %
Sulphate max 0,005 %
Al max 0,002 %
As max 0,0001 %
Ca max 0,002 %
Fe max 0,001 %
K max 0,2 %
Mg max 0,0005 %
Ni max 0,001 %
Pb max 0,002 %

Would it be safe to use this and filter it using activated charcoal, or would it be safer to use baking soda? Does the activated charcoal remove these impurities?

Thanks for any suggestions.

tripster added 111 Minutes and 40 Seconds later...

Update: SWIM finds that the back pain is rather at the back of his spine at the center, not around the kidney area, and was probably caused by stiff muscles or by sitting too much in front of the computer. It just freaked the hell out of him. Now it's funny that a slight back pain made him think he killed his liver

He also watched a stupid scary documentary on YouTube the day before about bodybuilders use of steroids and GHB, full of disgusting horror scenes, blood, infections, kidney damage and heart attacks (titled The Man Whose Arms Exploded), plus he read that some THF workers got backpain and liver damage, causing him to totally freak out the next day because of a slight back pain

But this was a hell of a nightmare yesterday, nevertheless, so it's weird what this stuff can do to you when overused. It was a good lesson, and in the future he will use it only sparingly, with extra caution.

tripster added 620 Minutes and 41 Seconds later...

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Retrospective summary of the story:

2 weeks ago SWIM started doing 2-3 doses of GBL every day recreationally.
2 days ago he becomes more and more anxious about possible health effects, and starts looking for case studies. He starts to believe the following:

1. the GBL might have been contaminated with toxic NMP
2. the GBL contained methyl GBL derivates, which may have been toxic
3. the GBL contained THF, which is very toxic
4. he caused irreversible liver and/or kidney damage to himself
5. his slight back pain was caused by kidney damage

This eventually developed a massive panic attack, making him go to a hospital for a liver/kidney test. Normally he's a very calm person, even during exams and other stressful events, but now he was having a hellish horror nightmare.

Actually all of what he believed was false:

1. GBL doesn't contain NMP
2. it seems that this GBL doesn't contain methyl derivates, the assay was not clear on that, later he found it clearly in another assay from the manufacturer
3. THF is only weakly toxic, causing liver damage around 400 mg/kg, nearly 300,000 times the dose what a recreational dose might contain (max. 0.00125 mg/kg, according to the assay)
4. at the hospital, they did about 30 tests on him, and concluded he's totally healthy. they suggested him not to take GBL every day, and released him.
5. most likely his back pain has nothing to do with GBL at all.

Actually what he experienced seems to be a hellish panic attack caused by GBL withdrawal/dopamine rebound. The assays were highly unlikely to be falsified, because they were on the manufacturer's home page, not from the supplier. So it's very unlikely that he actually suffered any toxic effects from impurities, as they're not toxic at these concentrations.

Next day he feels zonked out, like having died and been reborn, not wanting to do anything but rest, but apart from that, he's fine. He doesn't feel like doing GBL often in the future.

Morale of the story:

Learn from his mistake, and don't abuse GBL too much, or it could do this to you. Less is more, even if it's fun at first. Don't mess up your brain chemistry, it's not fun, believe him. Play safe, and treat this substance with respect.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Well done for calming down, re-assessing the situation and, more importantly, clearly communicating the honest mistakes ...