Bump to avoid pruning related bullshit.
And to add, that the other fragment left after the typical bisulfite cleavage of the B vitamin (its thiamine, B1) is highly toxic. It has a name, toxopyrimidine, and its a convulsant poison, inhibiting GABA biosynthesis because toxopyrimidine and it throws a spanner in the works of biological processes which use vitamin B6 as a cofactor. Nasty stuff, so if making chlormethiazole or bromethiazole, etc., which isn't difficult, and without going into too much detail, its just two steps, cleavage and halogenation of the intermediate alcohol. The alcohol is much, much less potent than the chlorinated or brominated derivatives. But careful workup is needed to make sure that the intermediate alcohol is pure, and free of toxopyrimidine. At least unless not having enough GABA to go around, convulsant poisons and possible excitotoxicity is your cup of tea.
Thankfully the aqueous solubility of the unwanted, noxious component differs greatly from that of the intermediate alcohol so washing the toxic component out is practical with ice cold water, and especially given the thermolability of chlormethiazole. Also, there is one downside to chlormethiazole I've noticed, namely that if dosed high and for at least a couple of days, there appears to be a metabolic pathway that leads to some sort of horrendous, virulently stygian sulfurous stinker being formed in-vivo and excreted slowly, leaving you a pariah for anything and anyone in possession of a functioning nose and a pair of legs to turn the other way and run like hell once they get within a couple of hundred meters of you if you inflict your leaving the house on anyone.
It comes out in sweat, urine, shit, saliva, ocular fluid even, stinks like hell took a shit in an ruptured afghan sewer, then threw in a molotov cocktail.
Even, and worst of all, it comes out in nasal fluid. Think letting off a weapons-grade stink bomb not in a public toilet, or tram, or air conditioning system, but right up the nose of the victim (you, in other words), as if one snapped the ampoule of a stinkbomb using both nostrils to break the glass, only less appeal.
It is absolutely vile. And bloody potent too. And will follow you around like the hounds of hell for about a week. Happened to me once, after I went on a chlormethiazole bender for several days
Whatever the metabolite is, it got produced, and I had a needed medical appointment to attend that week, and had to hide in the bog rather than use the waiting roooms, so as not to inflict the devilish reek on any more people than necessary at any more intensity than what seeped into the waiting room from behind the closed bog doors and waiting room doors. Ghastly, ghastly stuff, not chlor/bromethiazole, chlormethiazole is without a doubt, my favourite GABAergic sedative-hypnotic. I get no physical dependency from using it at 192mg 3x/daily, have been taking it at that level for years, and its a very rapid acting and for me, very effective seizure prophylaxis med, and rescue drug for the onset of a seizure, it will bring me out of it near enough as fast as the capsules break open, I've had to have someone stick them in my mouth before, after an atonic seizure left me almost totally immobilized, I was just about able to draw attention by knocking something over with what little muscle tone I had at my disposal, and very weakly managed to sign to someone in ASL and they knew what to do. Couldn't move to get to the chlormethiazole or pick up, open a bottle myself, so they had to stick a couple of caps in my mouth, as I could still swallow, swallowing and breathing are about all I CAN do if I get hit by an atonic seizure. Real fucking pain in the arse at best.
So given the alcohol counterpart is at least 10x weaker, IMO, I'd say its weaker than that having tried both. And if the deschloro intermediate is also liable to formation of a noxious sulfurous perdition-fart metabolite, then it stands to reason that 10x (or more) larger dose would be needed and correspondingly a larger quantity of the stinking sulfurous abortion of a metabolite would be formed.
Anyone know anything about activity of either a di- or trifluoroethyl group or a nitroalkyl substitutent analog? since an EWG on the end of the ethyl sidechain appears to be needed for activity in a respectable degree.