As mentioned, anethole or anisaldehyde are also the starting materials for many PEAs and AMPs, including PMA and PMMA which are easier to produce. Why bother? Because active compounds are what pills are all about. I don't know about your crew, but human behavior being what it is, if something is not right, tempers tend to get more heated the closer a person is to a source. A product that doesn't behave in any manner that is expected, is bad for business. Why should drugs be any different?
Just Imagine for a moment we are a year or more down the line and there is virtually NO MDMA to be found - anywhere
There's a choice of 2 pills:
1) Has no effects.
2) Has strange "MDMA like" effects whereby the brain is flooded with serotonin, 5HT reuptake is affected due to a simultaneous inhibition of MAO at a potency 20x more than d-amphetamine *, and dopamine is also increased, providing a powerful stimulant effect.
What pill do you think would sell better?
Sure many people would hear the scare stories, and others would try one and think, nah, this is shit and simply go without. But there would still undoubtedly be a market regardless of the warnings, deaths and general bad press.
It's also more than likely that PMA or PMMA is, or will be mixed in with MDMA to make it "go further". Evidence to support this concerns post mortem reports from deaths involving PMA, as most fatalities also had MDMA in their blood.
* GREEN, A.L. & M.A.S. EL HAIT. 1980. p-Methoxyamphetamine, a potent reversible inhibitor of type-A monoamine oxidase in vitro and in vivo. J. Pharm. Pharmacol. 32: 262–266.
