"Amphetamine Paste" What is it?

[4meSM]

I am beginning to think there is a big gap in my knowledge of amphetamines. Stemming from different drugs being given the same name (usually ‘speed’)

30 years ago in Australia I was injecting a drug that we called speed and which I had always presumed was amphetamine sulfate. It was such a problem at the time that the government began to restrict pseudoephedrine because that was what it was allegedly made from. The experience was mainly lightning fast thoughts, manic levels of physical energy, a motor mouth, and chewing your tongue off. It usually came as a white powder.

Fast forward to today and the ice/meth/shards that we have is a completely different experience. Whether the SEAsian version likely produced from pseudo or the Mexican version likely produced by P2P.

What was I actually taking 30 years ago? Amphetamine sulfate but not actually produced from pseudo as claimed by government or some other amphetamine produced from pseudo that is not meth.

I’m confused

The problem with pseudoephedrine is that it already has a N-methyl group like methamphetamine, so trying to remove the methyl group, just to make regular amphetamine, wouldn't make sense. Pharmaceutical pseudoephedrine is only 1 step away from dextro-methamphetamine, that's why it was/is such a popular route (same goes for ephedrine, they're the same in practice).

I'm not very familiar with the history of "speed" in Australia, but if it was in fact made from pseudo then it couldn't have been amphetamine.
The product you're talking about, was it the only form of "speed" available at the time?

Pseudo can also be used to make methcathinone.
Methamphetamine seems more likely though, it might have been powdered meth (probably not as pure as today)

 

[Jabberwocky]

The product you're talking about, was it the only form of "speed" available at the time?

Pseudo can also be used to make methcathinone.
Methamphetamine seems more likely though, it might have been powdered meth (probably not as pure as today)

It was just about the only product available and I never heard it called anything but speed, crank, or goey. Sometimes there was a yellow gluggy stuff called paste. But it seemed a shittier version of the same stuff.

Perhaps it always was meth and what has changed is me and how I experience it. Or there is a real difference in the experience of earlier powdered inferior meth and today’s more pure crystal.

To my mind the stuff back then lacked the prosexual effects of today’s meth and today’s meyh lacks the motormouth mental and physical energy of the “speed” back then.

Or perhaps I’m wrong about pseudo being used back then. It was a lifetime ago. Thanks though for learning me!

 

[4meSM]

It was just about the only product available and I never heard it called anything but speed, crank, or goey. Sometimes there was a yellow gluggy stuff called paste. But it seemed a shittier version of the same stuff.

Perhaps it always was meth and what has changed is me and how I experience it. Or there is a real difference in the experience of earlier powdered inferior meth and today’s more pure crystal.

To my mind the stuff back then lacked the prosexual effects of today’s meth and today’s meyh lacks the motormouth mental and physical energy of the “speed” back then.

Or perhaps I’m wrong about pseudo being used back then. It was a lifetime ago. Thanks though for learning me!

Crank is meth for sure, it might have been something similar to "biker crank" which was first popularized in the USA. Governments like to say that crystal meth is a new dangerous drug but d-meth has actually been around for a long time, it's just a more refined product nowadays (also more popular).

Amphetamine sulphate (aka euro speed) does have pro-sexual effects but it depends on both the dose and the ROA. Meth is much more powerful in that regard though (even in low doses, IME), once you've experienced it you realize that euro speed pales in comparison.
Unfortunately meth is also a much more addictive drug, specially vaped or IVed.

 

[OpiateKiller]

Unfortunately, European amphetamine is EXTREMELY variable in quality and often cut to shit. I had a handful of samples lab-tested and the spread in quality was tremendous. My worst speed sample consisted of 0.5% amphetamine (lol), 57% caffeine and the rest was an inactive cutting agent (probably lactose). Another bad one was 8% amphetamine, 42% caffeine and the rest was also an inactive cutting agent. My best speed samples were between 96-99% pure amphetamine without any (in)active cutting agents, but those were rare. According to ChEckiT! (Austrian testing-facility), the average purity of all lab-tested speed samples in 2019 was 19.7%, and only 28% solely contained amphetamine as the active substance. For reference, the average purity of all lab-tested cocaine samples in 2019 was 84.6%, and 62% solely contained cocaine as the active ingredient. (source: https://checkit.wien/media/Drug-Checking-Jahresbericht-2019.pdf)
This means, on average cocaine (MDMA, etc.) is WAY cleaner in Austria than speed.

Back when I was 19 or so we often did 50-100mg lines of speed without even questioning the purity. What a bunch of idiots we were smh... I remember one time my friend did ~250mg of the 96% pure speed in 2 hours, without even thinking about it. It wasn't uncommon for us to go through 1g of "regular" speed in a night because it was so heavily cut most of the time (We knew it was cut, but not HOW MUCH it was cut). We didn't even know what an acetone wash was back then, let alone even bothered if we had known. Anyway, he was really euphoric after the first couple of bumps when all of a sudden sth. clicked and he felt off. He became sick, anxious and wanted to go home. He basically didn't sleep, felt very ill, and extremely anxious the following couple of days. I gave him a few 0.5mg Xanax and some l-Tryptophan to help him sleep, but he looked and behaved like a freaking ghost the whole week. He hasn't touched any amphetamines ever since, lol.

I also stopped doing it a couple of months later, because for me there's nothing worse than the lingering stimulation that prevents me from sleeping. The high of amphetamine sulphate can be very, very euphoric though, so if you like long-lasting stimulants and receive a good batch you will definitely enjoy it.

Average lab tested coke in Austria is 80%?! LOL I bet in America it’s 10%

 

[Psychestim]

Average lab tested coke in Austria is 80%?! LOL I bet in America it’s 10%

Yes, but I guess this is not a representative number and the average street coke is most likely a lot worse. In 2019, ChEckiT tested most of their samples at festivals and music events, where the quality of drugs is probably a bit better than what you usually encounter. In 2019, the average purity of cocaine in the Netherlands was 67%, and 50% of all tested samples contained solely cocaine as the active ingredient (source: https://www.trimbos.nl/docs/5681180d-c006-4abb-a421-6a6362a45857.pdf). I imagine that these numbers are more realistic and closer to the actual average purity here and other European countries.

 

[G_Chem]

Just a heads up the reason some good quality Amphetamine may be pink is I hear the Leuckart can leave a pinkish hue from impurities sometimes. I’ve heard high quality MDA having a pink hue that I gathered was synthesized via Leuckart, like Uncle Toms Pink Sassafras people shot up in the 70’s.

Most all of the Racemic Amphetamine in E.U. is made by P2P to Amphetamine via Leuckart.

As been said pseudo has the methyl group on there and can’t be done to Amphetamine directly like Meth can vis RP/I. But... PPA can.

This is the biggest reason PPA got banned everywhere, it could be used to synthesize d-amphetamine, as well as 4-MAR.

-GC