G-Chem: I’ve been thinking about this for some time too, and you’ll know my various views from Le Junks epic “MDMA is different now” thread on the MDMA forum.
For me the criticisms of meth these days seem to be somewhat correlated, both in time and the reported poor effects, to those leveled at MDMA for the past decade, to the extent that one can compare the two drugs of course.
What I would like to know more about to start with is how is this “P2P meth” being manufactured. It’s not good enough to just say it’s P2P meth or cartel meth or whatever. That’s a start. But the methods of making P2P nowadays have no doubt changed enormously, in much the same way as making MD-P2P has changed. And there are many many ways to make P2P.
So, how are the cartels creating this P2P? Phenylacetic acid? Benzaldehyde? APAAN? Benzyl cyanide? God forbid, BMK-glycidate? MDMA production and meth production never looked so the same.
And then, how are they reductively aminating the P2P? Is it with methylamine? Is it something else? And what is the reducing agent? What is clear is whatever it is, they can now achieve this on a massive scale, in much the same way as those Dutch mass producers of MDMA are able to do. Are they using metal catalyst hydrogenation or something else? Is the method some one pot masterpiece that appears to be the stuff of genius, but in reality just fucks up and mellows everything?
Properly knowing and understanding what this “P2P meth” really is and how it came to be (and definitely what chemicals the P2P was before), might help us work out if there are potentially nasty and toxic byproducts involved. Or are the routes which are now being employed creating other potential problems with the end product (in much the same way as has been theorised with modern day MDMA production), that despite producing the desired and intended drug at a very high purity to boot, the whole experience just ends up a disappointment as compared to how both drugs should be.
As an aside, I’m from Australia and due to Covid we have had an utterly ridiculous meth drought combined with stupidly high prices for some time, especially in Western Australia. However, the meth atm is so so much better than it was a few years ago, when it was a third of the price and Government reports on seizures had confirmed 2 out of 3 meth samples were now P2P meth (a couple of years before that and earlier, 80% of meth seized in Australia was made from pseudo/ephedrine). There is no doubt in my mind that the ephedrine produced meth has become more common again during this rather barren period and thank goodness it has; the high is so much nicer, there is less Vasoconstriction and far less paranoia/tweakedness/scatteredness.
And no, it is not because of having a lesser amount and consuming less because it’s more expensive etc. It’s just a much better product, just how it use to be before the explosion of the “P2P meth” began. And believe me, explosions in Mexico were still felt in Australia, and now that things are back to normal, I suspect more will be felt again. :/
