tfw you will never become a hermit living in the australian outback in a hut in an aboriginee village and spend your days digging up tree roots and steam distilling the essential oils to sell to bikie gangs to convert into MDMA and this money pays for a new water pump in your village
The concentarion of sassafras oil on the root bark is from 6% to 9% if it has been recently digged, from commercial root bark, as said by a memer here, goes from 1,5% to 5%, the average being a 2,5-3,3%. Digging for roots is for the desesperate I think, rent a truck and bring down a tree then you can strip the bark from the roots but this technice isn't too low profile :)
You can buy tons of juniper virgininana wood oil, but juniper virginiana leaf oil seems impossible to get. Dont know about the % of essential oil of J.V. but I think it's a very low % over the total mass of leaves. Pine tree leaves are very-very easy to steam distill, check this out: http://home.mchsi.com/~tblount/steam.htm
Eremophila longifolia
Usually inland, continental Australia except extreme north
"Steam distillation of the leaves gave an aromatic oil in 5.8 % yield. Various levels of safrole content between collection groups where recorded via fractional distillation and gas chromatography at (i) 72%, (ii) 90% mean / 93% best, (iii) 37%, and (iv) 0%."
Ok lets do the math.
Assuming roughly 0.3% yield of safrole from fresh leaves as a optimistic average, 1kg of your safrole precursor will require 300kg of leaves to be harvested, steam distilled, and purified. Assuming you are somehow able to amass a small army of workers to go out and harvest leaves en mass from a species that is located largely in national park areas without raising any eyebrows, the amount of trees equivalent to 300kg leaf mass probably represents a significant portion of the species entire population. I'm not familiar enough with MDMA synthesis to have any idea what the expected yields are from safrole —> MDMA but it's pretty irrelevant when the logistics of simply producing the safrole is absurd for anything past microscale.
EDIT: I wonder what the comparable jail sentences would be for importing 1kg of MDMA or widescale destruction of flora within conservation areas to the tune of 300kg leaf matter worth?
1. Eremophila longifolia
"Berrigan," "Emu bush," "Dogwood"
Grows in limestone soils, inland continental Aust. except Nth Queensland.
Shrub, up to 6m tall. Flowers nearly all year round.
Leaves contain safrole + methyleugenol, also tannins.
2. Zieria Smithii
"Sandfly zieria," "Sandfly bush," "Lanoline bush"
Grows in sandy forest & cleared areas, eastern coast from Victoria to Nth Queensland.
Small to tallish shrub. Flowers in spring.
Leaves contain safrole + methyleugenol + elemicin.
3. Atherosperma moschatum
"Sassafras"
Grows in rainforests and moist gullies of Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales.
Small to medium sized tree. Flowers in summer.
Bark contains safrole.
4. Cinnamomum laubatii
"Camphorwood," "Pepperberry," "Pepperwood," "Brown beech"
Grows in coastal rainforests in Nth Queensland.
Tree, up to 35m tall. Flowering time unspecified.
Bark contains safrole.
5. Doryphora aromatica
"Grey Sassafras," "Net sassafras," "Cheedingnan"
Grows in rainforests in Nth Queensland.
Tree, up to 35m tall. Flowering time unspecified.
Bark contains safrole.
6. Doryphora sassafras
"Sassafras," "Caalang," "Boobin," "Tdjeundegong"
Grows in rainforests of East NSW and Sth Queensland. (Also in Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.)
Large tree up to 35m tall. Flowers in early spring.
Leaves contain safrole.
7. Cinnamomum oliveri
"Sassafras," "Oliver's sassafras," "Camphorwood"
Grows in rainforests of Nth NSW and Sth Queensland.
Tall tree up to 45m tall. Flowers in late spring/early summer.
Depending on the chemical variety of the species, the bark contains either
a) Safrole + methyleugenol + camphor, or
b) Cinnamic aldehyde + eugenol
Ref:
Australia Medicinal Plants
Lassak & McCarthy, 1990
ISBN 1 86330 061 9
