[Q] Methylephedrine

[fazed666]

Firstly,
Hi everyone, I've been an active reader of this form for many years now
and have found it very helpful for harm reduction over the years.
I finally decided to join and just wanted to say thank you to all those that
have helped without knowing it in the past and to those that will help going forward!

So I've recently moved to Japan and with the countries laws being so
tight around drugs (and especially stims) I thought my time using anything other
than nicotine and alcohol was over, however when I got a cold here I discovered
they have medicine containing hydrocodone (albeit in a very low dose) and
something called methylephedrine.
Just wandering if anyone knew anything about this substance at all or had come
across it in the past as a google search turned up basically nothing?


- Fazed

 

[Tubbs]

The fact that your search, and mine for that matter, turned up next to nothing, says there is zero recreational value.

Secondly, we don't allow any sort of synthesis discussion here on bluelight, with that said I have to close this

 

[Tubbs]

Reopening and sending to Other Drugs

 

[Scrofula]

Now that is one jittery rabbit with a badly congested hole. So there's a lot of ephedrine knock-offs in the wild, and a couple in your nearest WalGreens. The worst one, worse than kids eating Benzedrex cotton or RC vendors selling Benzedrex cotton as Hexen, is phenylephrine. No one told you, American citizens, but they quietly replaced all the bona fide pseudo ephedrine with pseudo-pseudo ephedrine, aka phenylephrine, in all the cold medicine on the shelves, all because no one cooks meth in their trailers anymore anyway (seriously, by weight SudaFed™ is way more expensive). Problem is, it doesn't work for shit, and is worse on your cardiovascular health than regular ephedrine. But good to know it'll still counteract the antihistamine in your Tylenol? Daytime Severe Cold and Flu™.

So passionately do I hate phenylephrine, I assumed you just misread it as methylephrine, it's that pernicious in labeling. But the Sudo family is broad, and there are lots of options.

There are actually two ephedrines and two pseudo-ephedrines, except they're all the same molecule. There's just four combinations of left- and right-handed. Take off an -OH and you get methamphetamine. There is a N-methyl ephedrine, so technically a dimethyl phenylpropanolamine, which I will get back to. Interestingly, no-methyls on phenylpropanolamine is PPA, which has also been removed from the market in much of the world.

But if you add an -OH in the 3 position, you get phenylephrine, posing as pseudoephedrine in your NyQuil™. From there you could make the N-methyl an N-ethyl to get Etilefrine, an emergency BP stimulant, or remove the N-methyl and get Pressonex,. Remove the alpha carbon and get neo-Synephrin, move the 3-OH to the 4, and get Octopamine/Synephrine/Oxydrine, also available as a pill outside the US (and a neurotransmitter in invertebrates).

You could try a 2,5 dimethoxy and get Vasoxyl (no longer marketed). Or a 2-methoxy des-oxy ephedrine and get Proasma (RC vendors, that's 2-methoxy methamphetamine! Why isn't that being marketed? I hear it's the most serotonergic of the asthma medications (yes, I'm aware 4-MeO-MA has a reputation)).

But then we start turning the beta-alcohol into a beta-ketone and we're way off into the cathinone class, soon to arrive in Florida and start eating faces.


But to answer your question, yeah, it's just N-methyl ephedrine, or dimethyl phenylpropanolamine, brand names Caress, Sekiel, Tramezin, et al. The Japanese Sekiel also contains noscapine, which is probably a bit DXM-like. I have no reason to think it'd be any more exciting than Non-Drowsy DayQuil™ Severe Cold and Sinus.

 

[Kaden_Nite]

Fazed, I think the pills you are talking about contain very small amounts of methyl-pseudoephedrine and dihydrocodeine. Maybe chlorpheniramine (I remember them from the Japanese pharmacy I used to shop at).

I doubt they would have recreational value. Even the beta-ketone of methyl-pseudoephedrine (dimethylcathinone) which some careless vendor sent me instead of mephedrone years ago, had little if any pleasant or useful effect. I don't think I read one positive report about it.

I wouldn't bother with it. Japan doesn't do stimulants by the sound of it, just not their thing.

 

[Tryptamite]

lol i think stimulants fuel the drug culture in japan, i imagine methamphetamine is used/abused to a far greater degree than opiates and probably cannabis. benzos would be second.

if anyone cares to google to find actual data be my guest, i cannot be arsed atm, but if anyone has any real life info on the drug scenes in japan i would love to hear about how any of it works!

 

[Kaden_Nite]

Pharmaceutical stimulants I was referring to. They seem quite relaxed about benzos and the likes, but very cautious about stims. I wouldn't doubt that meth and mdma are happening there just like everywhere else though.

RC vendors used to have stalls over there with psychedelics, but I think that's a bit dated. This dude on Reddit did an AMA about his time growing hydroponic weed in Japan. Good read, offers a bit of insight into the scene there. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2tqma7/i_moved_to_japan_grew_and_sold_marijuana_until_i/