• N&PD Moderators: Skorpio | thegreenhand

The "new" pseudoephedrine (Phenylephrine)

otb01 said:
I'm pretty sure they still have ephedra (ma huang) in chinatowns

Yeah, but they're not idiots: they saw what happened to those veterinary places selling strong tincture. I've tried to get Ma Huang in chinese herb stores and got nowhere.

Perhaps, if you have contacts, some Asian friends who speak the lingo. But even then I wouldn't count on it. I wouldn't order anything like that mail order, either. Agricultural products suffer a fair degree of scrutiny for other reasons.
 
Phenyl-2-nitropropene --> Phenyl-2-propanone --> Methyl-phenyl-propane-2-amine(meth) is the way to go. All precursors are readily available or can be made from other precursors without much trouble, and if one wants d-meth, just seperate the d-isomer from the racemic meth with d-tartaric acid. Voila é presto.
 
Why not just go straight from the P2NP to amphetamine?
Easier. Sure, it's missing the N-methylation but...
 
Just like you said, it misses the n-methylation. P2NP can be reduced with iron powder to P2P, and then reductively aminated to meth with methylamine(made from formaldehyde and ammoniumchloride)
 
but the potency gain is not worth the synthesis loss
same thing with mda/mdma (IMHO)

and while we're on the topic, NO2Et is not that easy to come by, neither is MeNH2, both suck to make yourself.

but, uh, no synth discussion!
 
Once racemic meth is made from P2P, you can seperate the dextro isomer with d-tartaric acid, leaving d-meth. D-meth compared to racemic amphetamine shure is a big difference. And nitroethane can still be gotten easily, depending on where you live. And making methylamine is so easy a child can do it. But like you said, no synth discussion, I'll stop babbling.
 
Recemate is qualitatively different experience from d. If anything I;d say it has a little more not less "kick" to it.
 
I think the reason many prefer the d-meth is because it's more potent by weight. Even if the subjective experience of racemic meth is slightly better for someone, he's going to have to spend twice as much on it.
 
Well if you dont believe adrenaline is an addictive drug, then search the Australian media over the past month (www.theage.com.au) and you'll see the Aboriginal community is abusing adrenaline since alcohol has been prohbited.
I'll find you a link tomorrow.
 
Psych0naut said:
Once racemic meth is made from P2P, you can seperate the dextro isomer with d-tartaric acid, leaving d-meth. D-meth compared to racemic amphetamine shure is a big difference. And nitroethane can still be gotten easily, depending on where you live. And making methylamine is so easy a child can do it. But like you said, no synth discussion, I'll stop babbling.

If children's idea of fun is endlessly boiling buckets of formaldehyde reeking glop, I guess.

I never compared the two "side by side" so to speak. I've heard different things. In my experience, it's not too different, d, and d, l. Both will eat your life.

As I always say, terrible, terrible stuff...um, by the way, got some?=D
 
If racemic meth is so subjectively different, then why is l-methamphetamine supposedly not centrally active? l-methamphetamine being the ingredient in OTC Vicks inhalers.
 
I'm not a neuropharmacologist, but I can assure you that there is some degree of synergism and the racemate is definitely not just d with "a 50% cut".
 
Oh I know that, it's been well demonstrated with amphetamine (that's why they make Adderall) but I don't understand why l-amph or l-meth alone is inactive.
 
retired_chemist said:
I'm not a neuropharmacologist, but I can assure you that there is some degree of synergism and the racemate is definitely not just d with "a 50% cut".

It never seemed like it was cut to me. I always liked it fine. Cleaner, too - no residual pill glop, and no precursor that follows product through an acid/base.

I spoke on the basis of a well experienced female user, who complained that [d, l ] lacked the 'kick' of the pill dope she was used to.
 
MattPsy said:
Why not just go straight from the P2NP to amphetamine?
Easier. Sure, it's missing the N-methylation but...

Nitropropene gives low yields and is messy above small scale. P2P & ephedrine are used because you can scale it up & up & up!

Of course, going one step back, phenylacetic acid is watched... but it's esters are not and are abundent.
 
Using what reduction method? If Fe/HCl, then sure, i'm not surprised. I've heard Urushibara Nickel works great though, relatively high yield,, and it's super easy to make it! I've certainly found it easy, anyway... (I'm talking about the nickel catalyst here, not P2NP :| - there are plenty of other uses for such catalysts!).
I've always though hydrogenation processes were FAR more elegant... and for that matter, scalable!
 
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yea, but seriously, isn't working with bright-ass-yellow needles so much more fun than a white powder and purple reducing agent?
 
Fe/HCl will reduce phenylnitropropene to phenylacetone, not amphetamine, so that does not work at all.

If I remember correctly (its been a long time) catalytic reductions of nitropropenes are prone to a side reaction that forms secondary amine, although this can be suppressed to a certain extent by adding a large excess of another primary amine such as ammonia.

Although maybe not so available to clandestine chemists, LAH is by far the preferred laboratory method for reducing most phenylnitroalkenes to the phenylalkylamine.

In any event we seem to be discussing synthesis here so ...
 
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