4DQSAR
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2025
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I felt I should read this tome as I've never considered George Marquardt as some sort of modern day 'Robin Hood'.
The DEA agent who wrote the biography details the life of Marquardt and it soon became clear that old George was not the genius he inferred (and probally believed) he was. While fentanyl (not 3-methyl fentanyl, he apprantly couldn's reliably synthesize that) which resulted in his last conviction of five is mentioned by the various articles that it seems reliely solely on the word of someone for whom lying is pretty much a foundational skill.
It's a decent book and does somewhat suggest that George Marquardt was a highly skilled self-taught organic chemist BUT clearly not a medicinal chemist. When asked if he could synthesize fentanyl, his response was 'show me the structure and I will tell you' which again, hints that he indeed have an intuative ability to synthsize quite complex organic compounds but oddly, apparently either didn't know of or lacked the formal education in which the ability to take a IUPAC name and draw as a 2D strucutal diagram is considered dull, but vital.
I don't believe he syntheized a binary form of Sarin for 'Nazi survivalists' (even the binary is extremely toxic) or AZT for HIV sufferers. The former eats glass so the entire synthesis isn't viable using glassware (as he claimed he used) likewize AZT releases hydrazoic acid. Both would kill the chemist, however careful they were. But because the US has a statute of limitations, George was oddly silent on who he sold those two products to in spite of happily telling the court the personal details of EVERYONE he conspired with.
On one hand he had a unique take one the world, was utterly pragmatic about his profession and took jail-time as an expected part of 'the price of doing business'.
The fact BDPC and 4-phenylpropiram were both known and both totally legal (even under the hastily added 'analogue ' laws) seemed to entirely pass him by - Both were patented and both were in books on the subject of opioids but it seems George wasn't much of a reader.
I've said this elsewhere but so often I've pointed out to someone that there seemed no point in making whatever illegal compound they were in fact making when legal alternatives existed. But they all seemed to LIKE breaking the law. That is is all one big game. That if it were legal it wouldn't be asserting personal freedom (as George describes it).
Overall, a lot better than I expected and I suspect while George got away with producing alpha methyl fentanyl because it WAS legal at the time, It wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss because I strongly suspect while making 'methamphetamine precusors' (unspecified), he noted that BMK was also a key precursor to alpha methyl fentanyl. He doesn't say that as that would be admitting a crime he was never put on trial for.
I recommend this book.
The MOST interesting thing is right as the end where George proclaims he is an outlaw so doesn't expect the protections of a law so feels he shouldn't expect to be subject to the law.
Now I thought about this and realized that by using bank-notes, THAT is accepting a protection from the law. A bit of paper only has value because of many laws. I don't think he was knowingly being dishonest, more that he only considered the criminal law as it applied to HIM.
I think the nicest thing I can say is that the FDA was convinced there had to be huge sums of money hidden somewhere until they counted up the price of the equipement George had bought. Few 'cooks' have their own NMR/GC-MS setup let alone niche glassware only used once (falling film distillation unit). He also spend a fortune on antique stereographic photographs and all manner of things that while costly, were seeminly never seen as an investment but just something that fascinated him.
Put simply, someone who I'm almost certain was on the autism spectrum which shows us one thing - the most dangerous criminals are the ones who DON'T do it for the money.
The DEA agent who wrote the biography details the life of Marquardt and it soon became clear that old George was not the genius he inferred (and probally believed) he was. While fentanyl (not 3-methyl fentanyl, he apprantly couldn's reliably synthesize that) which resulted in his last conviction of five is mentioned by the various articles that it seems reliely solely on the word of someone for whom lying is pretty much a foundational skill.
It's a decent book and does somewhat suggest that George Marquardt was a highly skilled self-taught organic chemist BUT clearly not a medicinal chemist. When asked if he could synthesize fentanyl, his response was 'show me the structure and I will tell you' which again, hints that he indeed have an intuative ability to synthsize quite complex organic compounds but oddly, apparently either didn't know of or lacked the formal education in which the ability to take a IUPAC name and draw as a 2D strucutal diagram is considered dull, but vital.
I don't believe he syntheized a binary form of Sarin for 'Nazi survivalists' (even the binary is extremely toxic) or AZT for HIV sufferers. The former eats glass so the entire synthesis isn't viable using glassware (as he claimed he used) likewize AZT releases hydrazoic acid. Both would kill the chemist, however careful they were. But because the US has a statute of limitations, George was oddly silent on who he sold those two products to in spite of happily telling the court the personal details of EVERYONE he conspired with.
On one hand he had a unique take one the world, was utterly pragmatic about his profession and took jail-time as an expected part of 'the price of doing business'.
The fact BDPC and 4-phenylpropiram were both known and both totally legal (even under the hastily added 'analogue ' laws) seemed to entirely pass him by - Both were patented and both were in books on the subject of opioids but it seems George wasn't much of a reader.
I've said this elsewhere but so often I've pointed out to someone that there seemed no point in making whatever illegal compound they were in fact making when legal alternatives existed. But they all seemed to LIKE breaking the law. That is is all one big game. That if it were legal it wouldn't be asserting personal freedom (as George describes it).
Overall, a lot better than I expected and I suspect while George got away with producing alpha methyl fentanyl because it WAS legal at the time, It wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss because I strongly suspect while making 'methamphetamine precusors' (unspecified), he noted that BMK was also a key precursor to alpha methyl fentanyl. He doesn't say that as that would be admitting a crime he was never put on trial for.
I recommend this book.
The MOST interesting thing is right as the end where George proclaims he is an outlaw so doesn't expect the protections of a law so feels he shouldn't expect to be subject to the law.
Now I thought about this and realized that by using bank-notes, THAT is accepting a protection from the law. A bit of paper only has value because of many laws. I don't think he was knowingly being dishonest, more that he only considered the criminal law as it applied to HIM.
I think the nicest thing I can say is that the FDA was convinced there had to be huge sums of money hidden somewhere until they counted up the price of the equipement George had bought. Few 'cooks' have their own NMR/GC-MS setup let alone niche glassware only used once (falling film distillation unit). He also spend a fortune on antique stereographic photographs and all manner of things that while costly, were seeminly never seen as an investment but just something that fascinated him.
Put simply, someone who I'm almost certain was on the autism spectrum which shows us one thing - the most dangerous criminals are the ones who DON'T do it for the money.
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