<tech>
Sorry to nerd out but a Wikipedia search would have uncovered the legal amphetamine analogue (3-Phenylbutan-2-amine). N-methylation isn't hard so N-methyl-3-phenylbutan-2-amine would have been just as simple to make. The patent states 'milder action' BUT that's when racemic synthesis is employed, the (2S,3R) enantiomer ((S)-trans) is likely to produce significantly stronger effects,
BUT it IS more work unless you simply order (3R) 3-phenylbutan-2-one AKA Methyl phenylethyl ketone (CAS 769-59-5) which you can. Still needs optical resolution, but that's just one extra step,
</tech>
People who define someone as 'the enemy' often seem surprised that said agency (the word used in it's broadest term) in return regards that person as an enemy!
To paraphrase Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“I discovered that it is much more effective to act like a nice guy and be "reasonable" if you prove willing to go beyond just verbiage. You can afford to be compassionate, lax, and courteous if, once in a while, when it is least expected of you, but completely justified, you savage an enemy, just to show that you can walk the walk.”
I don't know about anyone else, but I don't seek enemies.
Moving along in the same vein, has anyone seen the short interview (or indeed an interview) with George Marquardt? He began by making methamphetamine but quickly recognized that α-methyl fentanyl was:
1-Legal at the time
2-Around 1.5 x more potent than fentanyl
3-Had a duration comparable to heroin
4-Used a methamphetamine precursor (phenylacetone AKA benzyl methyl ketone AKA BMK
5-The other two precursors were uncontrolled
So he made it.
Now THAT is what a smart person would do. That he continued making it after it had come under legal control (as had the other precursors) suggests that he too had succumbed to the minimum effort for maximum profit and didn't manage risk appropriately - in fact he LIKED the risk, so he broke rule 2. There were legal options even in 1983.
He claimed to have produced AZT for HIV sufferers and components of nerve agents for survivalists but their is no proof of either. I should add that 'components' is a hugely vague term. When you read the list of Schedule III precursors listed by the Chemical Weapons Convention, some of them are commonly used in labs and can simply be ordered. I have reason to doubt the veracity of his claims. I suspect he decided a book or other media project was the way forward and so he, ahem, was 'inexact with the factuality' as one UK politician admitted when caught lying. I could be wrong, but WHY was he seeking enemies? He previously went to great lengths to avoid doing so. Thus he was creating a myth.
