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The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
101–110 of 371 posts
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not a chemist, but would we expect both isomers to break down under heat the same way? Or is the l-meth potentially being converted to something different than d-meth when smoked? 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-met…
It seems to me that the Elephant in the room is not the racemic composition of meth, or purity, but composition and nature of the remaining impurities. Do you know if these are well understood and tracked over time?
I can't rule it out, but it's unlikely. Unless the meth cooks are doing something really bizarre, it's unlikely anything in the synthesis route produced as a side product is going to be as biologically potent as the meth itself. (This is not true for other street drugs, see MPTP). P2P Meth synthesis is pretty simple and straightforward if you have the reagents, it's Organic Chem 2xx-3xx level stuff. And it is really easy to crystallize to high purity.
I think it's actually the opposite of impurities. The tech and supply chains have gotten so good, the purity had gone way up and the cost down, that people are just using way more of it.
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of the effects of any intoxicant are culturally constructed. Alcohol is widely known for causing aggression, but this effect doesn’t seem to exist in cultures without that association. Nor does it exist in double-blind studies, yet the placebo group becomes more aggressive. You can start with two chemically identical intoxicants, and either by marketing or random path dependencies one gains a reputation in the s…
I agree that the gin->mean, whisky->emotional, etc, is all bunk. But I'm still convinced there's a link between alcohol and violence. If nothing else, the lowered cognitive function and reduced inhibition would mean more opportunity to be angry, and less self control. Like, a drunk person might misinterpret someone accidentally bumping into them as aggression. And would be less likely to suppress the urge to respond…
I’m just a sample of one, but I’m way more likely to flip my shit when sober — all my fights or verbal altercations I have in fact been sober.
Granted, I’ve been diagnosed with various mental health disorders related to emotional regulation, so perhaps this is dependent on individual brain function.
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#104From a societal POV, we need a Government-regulated drug harder than Alcohol or Tobacco. Similar in function to Soma. Maybe marijuana can fit the bill. It doesn't make sense to 'outsource' production of narcotics to antagonistic nations or criminal enterprises.
You can get edibles now that are dosed at 5mg increments and are the size of an antihistamine.
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Canada you can still buy that over the counter. You get id-ed and they keep a record of your purchases, but since it's now generic pills it is now much cheaper than it was before
It's the same in the US; you can buy it without a prescription, but you have to have your ID logged.
And there's a limit on how much you can buy at a time, you can only get 15 24-hour pills every 15 days, which means you need a regular pharmacy trip
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Much of the effects of any intoxicant are culturally constructed. Alcohol is widely known for causing aggression, but this effect doesn’t seem to exist in cultures without that association. Nor does it exist in double-blind studies, yet the placebo group becomes more aggressive. You can start with two chemically identical intoxicants, and either by marketing or random path dependencies one gains a reputation in the s…
I agree that the gin->mean, whisky->emotional, etc, is all bunk. But I'm still convinced there's a link between alcohol and violence. If nothing else, the lowered cognitive function and reduced inhibition would mean more opportunity to be angry, and less self control. Like, a drunk person might misinterpret someone accidentally bumping into them as aggression. And would be less likely to suppress the urge to respond…
Reduced inhibition does not support the thesis of increased agression, unless you define aggression to refer to "aggression shown".
But I'd overall turn the 'cultural' aspect a little further even. I think I have observed a couple of times people to consume alcohol in order to be able to transgress cultural norms because the cultural norms themselves are 'parametrised' for the sober-drunk states.
I.e. get into a fight sober? Could be unacceptable even to someone who wants to get into a fight. After 4 beers? May be perfectly fine for your peer group. Same goes to other things, like dancing, approaching strangers, etc.
What I really found interesting for example is, in my abroad term in Canada. The sober Canadian society was overall friendly and polite, definitely friendlier than in my German home. People held up doors for me (a 20 something man, felt really weird and unexpected), you got compliments for what you wore (never happened to me in Germany), etc. pp. But this radically changed in the 'drunken space' where people were a lot more aggressive and fights were much more the norm.
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#107One very strong reason to doubt that heavy metals, such as lead or mercury, play a large role in the meth crisis, is that heavy metal poisoning has telltale signs and symptoms that would not go unnoticed. Furthermore, we have excellent methods for the determination of Pb and Hg in the bloodstream, and there simply isn't any corresponding epidemic of heavy metal poisoning. Also, a nitpick: the author refers to the con…
> Also, a nitpick: the author refers to the condensation product of benzaldehyde and nitroethane, which is phenyl-2-nitropropene, abbreviated P2NP, incorrectly. He calls it "nitrostyrene (NTS)", which is the one-carbon-shorter homolog.
Can you give a bit more detail about what's wrong here, and how it might be fixed? Are all mentions to nitrostyrene/NTS incorrect? This is used repeatedly in the cited papers, so I'm confused if they are also wrong, or the post has mangled usage, or what.
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#108The article mentions the ban in 2006 of over-the-counter sales of Sudafed (pseudoephedrine). One of my favorite satirical articles is "A simple and convenient synthesis of pseudoephedrine from N-methylamphetamine". (The joke being that Sudafed is now hard to purchase while meth is readily available.) https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume19/v19i3...
The ironic thing is the sheer drop in price is probably due in part to the P2P route taking over. It's a more involved process than Sudafed meth, but it's easier to scale, since you aren't bottlenecked by the pharmaceutical supply.
Once you establish the facility and pipeline, you can crank out industrial amounts of crank. The precursors are cheap and used in huge quantities by legitimate labs.
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#109I've looked into the logistics of "cooking" meth and it is a complex process that, were I not an expert, wouldn't create something I would be comfortable putting into my body. How is meth "industrially" produced? Is it Walter White-esque clandestine factories? Is it clever people in their garages? Is it done over the border?
The cartels are hiring professional chemists:
> The chemist, a burly man with a master’s degree in biochemical engineering described the industry’s transformation, as the pair worked at an outside table.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/08/mexico-cartel-...
Re: The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that the gin->mean, whisky->emotional, etc, is all bunk. But I'm still convinced there's a link between alcohol and violence. If nothing else, the lowered cognitive function and reduced inhibition would mean more opportunity to be angry, and less self control. Like, a drunk person might misinterpret someone accidentally bumping into them as aggression. And would be less likely to suppress the urge to respond…
I’m just a sample of one, but I’m way more likely to flip my shit when sober — all my fights or verbal altercations I have in fact been sober. Granted, I’ve been diagnosed with various mental health disorders related to emotional regulation, so perhaps this is dependent on individual brain function.
Of course. Not everybody is going to get violent. And it won’t affect everybody the same. But it does feel like it really brings out the violence in people who maybe are already prone to that type of behavior. In your case it may do the opposite.