The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it

Methamphetamine is very, very stable. It stays as methamphetamine when it's vaporized, regardless of whether we're talking d-meth or l-meth.

> There doesn't seem to be debate that P2P processes create l-meth and d-meth, and that l-meth was less common in earlier versions.

Not quite. p2p done naively creates racemic meth, yes, but the modern methods, which have been used for years, purify that to enantiopure d-methamphetamine. They do this by bubbling d-tartaric acid through the racemic mixture, which separates the two enantiomers thus yielding the desired pure d-meth.

Furthermore, historically racemic meth was much more common. AFAIK the infamous "shake and bake" technique creates racemic meth. I do know that there is a pseudofed route that yields d-meth, but I think it's different than shake and bake. So don't quote me on this paragraph, but at a minimum we know that in the last several years, almost all meth seized in the US is highly pure/potent d-methamphetamine. There is less l-meth than ever.

> I just don't think the evidence is so weak that we can discard the potential that l-meth is involved.

On the contrary, the evidence is so weak that we literally can discard that l-meth is involved. First of all l-meth is better studied than you say. I would bet to approve the l-methamphetamine-based vics vapo inhaler they had to at least do animal models with large amounts of pure l-meth.

Second of all, and this is what blows the giant hole in your argument, there is no surge of l-meth. There is less l-meth than there has ever been in the history of methamphetamine.

Thirdly - this ties into the second point - you seem to thikn that getting racemic methamphetamine is something particular to the p2p method. It's not. As a general rule, synthesis of any compound yields the racemic version (if we're talking a compound with two enantiomers). This is definitely true for meth, where almost every method yields racemic meth. AFAIK there's a pseudoephedrine route that yields straight d-meth, but like I mentioned above the current state of the art is just to do a big p2p synth route and then separate out the d enantiomer specifically.

The pills they're referring to, 30 M (https://www.drugs.com/imprints/30-m-8232.html), are oxycodone pills (a powerful opioid), but he's likely actually specifically referring to pressed fent (or fent analogue) pills that are made to look like real oxycodone pills. Or perhaps a mixture of meth and fentanyl, such as what George Floyd was taking the day he died (see https://interactive.kare11.com/pdfs/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.... as well as the other evidence around the case)

There's a big problem where, now that the government has really cracked down on so-called "pill mills" - which like all of the war on drugs was the worst thing they could have done, because now the demand is being filled by fentanyl and fentanyl analogues that are pressed to look like oxy pills, but aren't. Oxy alone can be dangerous, but fent is another beast (particularly illicit).

As one anecdote I just had a friend-of-a-friend (I didn't know them personally) die of an overdose earlier this year. They took "oxys" orally which were actually pure fent analogue, and now they're dead. They are yet another fatality of the war on drugs (and also the war on COVID since the lockdowns were the proximate cause of them picking up their opioid habit again)

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Oh, and to elaborate on the GP's point about overdoses being the result of running out of meth, methamphetamine increases respiration rate, which will theoretically counteract the respiratory depression induced by opioids (which are how opioids always kill, with the one exception that fent and related analogues can possibly kill by an addition mechanism of action known as wooden chest syndrome)