Emmeka
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Messages
- 5
Having recently acquired Shulgin's PiKHAL, I've been interested in his ideas about the "essential amphetamines" - amphetamines that can be synthesized from an essential oil (an essential oil being the hydrophobic liquid extracted from a plant with the characteristic fragrance of that plant; a good example being clove oil). He lists about 10 of these compounds:
While I'm familiar with MDA and a few of the other Safrole-based compounds, I had never heard of any of the others - and apparently neither had anyone else. I was particularly interested in DMMDA, which comes from Apiol, the essential oil of the readily available Parsley herb. DMMDA was actually the first of these amphetamines that Shulgin synthesized - he first reports creating it in 1962 in the Shulgin Lab Books. Of all the essential amphetamines, an article he published in 1967 in Nature shows that of the essential amphetamines which can be practically derived from natural sources, DMMDA is the most potent (he estimates it at about 12 M.U., PiKHAL states this may be a bit on the high side but none the less). There's absolutely no research on this compound outside of Shulgin's notes - my theory is that the readily available and affordable nature of Safrole made the Safrole-based compounds much more popular. Both MDA and PMA have made their way to the street in some place or another. Also, Apiol is relatively difficult to extract from oil of parsley, and has to be fractionally distilled due to other compounds in the oil with similar boiling points.
With Safrole heavily regulated I think it's about time the other essential oils were investigated further. The prospect of doing some original research intrigued me, so I peeked into what my country's (Canada's) laws are on amphetamines to see whether or not this substance was criminalized.
Sorry for the super-long introduction, but this is the subject of my post (thought you guys might be interested in my research too :D). I found something strange in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. As per the recent changes to the CDSA in 2012, "amphetamines" are listed under Schedule I (the most controlled substances carrying the heftiest jail times, formerly amphetamines were only Schedule III). The actual text is:
The text then goes on to list 21 different compounds belonging to the substituted amphetamine class, including MDA, Amphetamine, and DOET to name a few. We could easily interpret this to mean that all substituted amphetamines are thus Schedule I substances, as per section 2(3) which states:
This is where things stop making sense. For some reason, various substituted amphetamines are scheduled elsewhere on the act, or in some cases not scheduled at all and sold over the counter! A few examples - Cathonine can be found under Schedule III, Ephedrine can be found under Schedule IV, Propylhexedrine is unscheduled and is sold over the counter as a nasal decongestant (I had to double-check to ensure its available as I had trouble believing it but sure enough a few reputable pharmacies here actually carry it under the brand name Benzedrex, it's not exactly popular but I'm finding it online).
And, as far as I can tell, there's no case law of anyone being convicted of possession of an amphetamine outside of those listed in the act. Nowhere in the act is "amphetamine" defined (since apparently it doesn't mean the amphetamine chemical class). We can only take that to mean that by "amphetamines" they mean the 21 substances listed and their analogues, isomers and derivatives. And one of the terms the act does take the time to define is analogue, which section 2(1) defines as:
Which in chemist's terms means the act defines an "analogue" as a chemical analogue (which DMMDA is not to any of the 21 substances), not a functional analogue (which you could potentially consider DMMDA to a few of those substances). And since DMMDA is not a derivative of MDA, we can only intrepret this to mean that DMMDA is not a scheduled substance - at least until there's case law proving otherwise.
This is some pretty interesting news in my opinion, but I'm not a lawyer. I was just wondering if anyone else could find some flaws in my interpretation of the law, if there's anyone here with legal expertise that might be able to verify my theory.
- PMA (para-methoxy-amphetamine)
- 2,4-DMA (2,4-dimethoxy-amphetamine)
- 3,4-DMA (3,4-dimethoxy-amphetamine)
- MDA (3,4-methylenedioxy-amphetamine)
- MMDA (3-methoxy-4,5-methylendioxy-amphetamine)
- MMDA-3a (2-methoxy-3,4-methylendioxyamphetamine)
- MMDA-2 (2-methoxy-4,5-methylendioxyamphetamine)
- TMA (3,4,5-trimethoxyamphetamine)
- TMA-2 (2,4,5-trimethoxyamphetamine)
- DMMDA (2,5-dimethoxy-3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine)
- DMMDA-2 (2,3-dimethoxy-4,5-methylenedioxyamphetamine)
- TeMA (2,3,4,5-tetramethoxyamphetamine)
While I'm familiar with MDA and a few of the other Safrole-based compounds, I had never heard of any of the others - and apparently neither had anyone else. I was particularly interested in DMMDA, which comes from Apiol, the essential oil of the readily available Parsley herb. DMMDA was actually the first of these amphetamines that Shulgin synthesized - he first reports creating it in 1962 in the Shulgin Lab Books. Of all the essential amphetamines, an article he published in 1967 in Nature shows that of the essential amphetamines which can be practically derived from natural sources, DMMDA is the most potent (he estimates it at about 12 M.U., PiKHAL states this may be a bit on the high side but none the less). There's absolutely no research on this compound outside of Shulgin's notes - my theory is that the readily available and affordable nature of Safrole made the Safrole-based compounds much more popular. Both MDA and PMA have made their way to the street in some place or another. Also, Apiol is relatively difficult to extract from oil of parsley, and has to be fractionally distilled due to other compounds in the oil with similar boiling points.
With Safrole heavily regulated I think it's about time the other essential oils were investigated further. The prospect of doing some original research intrigued me, so I peeked into what my country's (Canada's) laws are on amphetamines to see whether or not this substance was criminalized.
Sorry for the super-long introduction, but this is the subject of my post (thought you guys might be interested in my research too :D). I found something strange in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. As per the recent changes to the CDSA in 2012, "amphetamines" are listed under Schedule I (the most controlled substances carrying the heftiest jail times, formerly amphetamines were only Schedule III). The actual text is:
The text then goes on to list 21 different compounds belonging to the substituted amphetamine class, including MDA, Amphetamine, and DOET to name a few. We could easily interpret this to mean that all substituted amphetamines are thus Schedule I substances, as per section 2(3) which states:
This is where things stop making sense. For some reason, various substituted amphetamines are scheduled elsewhere on the act, or in some cases not scheduled at all and sold over the counter! A few examples - Cathonine can be found under Schedule III, Ephedrine can be found under Schedule IV, Propylhexedrine is unscheduled and is sold over the counter as a nasal decongestant (I had to double-check to ensure its available as I had trouble believing it but sure enough a few reputable pharmacies here actually carry it under the brand name Benzedrex, it's not exactly popular but I'm finding it online).
And, as far as I can tell, there's no case law of anyone being convicted of possession of an amphetamine outside of those listed in the act. Nowhere in the act is "amphetamine" defined (since apparently it doesn't mean the amphetamine chemical class). We can only take that to mean that by "amphetamines" they mean the 21 substances listed and their analogues, isomers and derivatives. And one of the terms the act does take the time to define is analogue, which section 2(1) defines as:
Which in chemist's terms means the act defines an "analogue" as a chemical analogue (which DMMDA is not to any of the 21 substances), not a functional analogue (which you could potentially consider DMMDA to a few of those substances). And since DMMDA is not a derivative of MDA, we can only intrepret this to mean that DMMDA is not a scheduled substance - at least until there's case law proving otherwise.
This is some pretty interesting news in my opinion, but I'm not a lawyer. I was just wondering if anyone else could find some flaws in my interpretation of the law, if there's anyone here with legal expertise that might be able to verify my theory.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")