Morclofone - undocumented(?) cough suppressant

[dopamimetic]

(4-chlorophenyl)-[3,5-dimethoxy-4-(2-morpholin-4-ylethoxy)phenyl]methanone

Just got this in the pharmacy when I wanted codeine (yeah, this time really just for cough, it's OTC here but they don't like to sell it in most pharmacies). Tried to look it up but there's really nothing known about it. Just one single publication in German from 1983 and not even an abstract of it is accessible. WTF!? I tend to like new drugs, but just when I intentionally acquire them and not as some obscure abuse-preventing pharmacy product ... and then I want to know what it does, or at least what it should do ...

From the structure it appears to be distantly related to pentoxyverine (picture below), which is suggested to be a sigma agonist and anticholinergic but also can cause some heart irregularities if I'm right and sale of it has been restricted recently.

(And why do all these cough suppressants have to come as syrup? Do people really believe in that the syrup does have any effects besides inducing nausea and such ...?)

 

[sekio]

Who even knows? is it a local anesthetic, maybe? Na channel blocker, maybe NMDA antagonist, maybe antihistamine? It sort of bears some resemblance to diphenhydramine.

There are literally hundreds of compounds that are classed as "cough suppressant of undocumented/unclear mechanism"... I believe the FDA actually cracked down on many of them in the late 20th century due to the dubious efficacy of many compounds. For instance several menthol-type terpene compounds were traditionally used as expectorants.

The sick desire to have all cough and cold compounds in syrup from comes from this misguided idea that you need a thick syrupy medicine to coat the throat with the active cmpd... or, alternatively, it also works as a counter-overdosing measure. And it keeps the propylene glycol supplies in business.

 

[dopamimetic]

It works, but only for 2-3 hours and had to take more than the recommended dosage (x2 in the end). No noticeable side effects.

 

[sekio]

Well, lots of stuff are cough supressants. 3-MeO-PCP is a great cough suppressant, for instance, but somehow I don't see it being prescribed...

 

[dopamimetic]

Interesting but thinking of the MeO group that likely gets metabolized the same way as with MXE, to 3-HO-PCP with some opioid affinity, it's no surprise!