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Not-such-better-living through chemistry

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Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#141

Post by gavinray »

gpcr1949 wrote: post #125
gavinray wrote: post #36

The optical resolution of racemic amphetamine/methamphetamine has been known for years. https://erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/amphetamine.res... What has surprised me is how infrequently it seems to be carried out, given the materials required for it. This is all you need: - D-Tartaric Acid (You can buy it from import sites in bulk for $30-60/kg) - Lye/Sodrium Hydroxide - Ethanol/Everclear (if you're convertin…

Agreed the process is very simple. The innovation that makes the resolution worth it is (as Derek also mentioned in the blog post) an efficient way to re-racemize the L-meth to DL-meth, which can then be resolved again. With steady state production and pooling this means it can be done using just one batch size (and not ever smaller "brsm" style bathces). If these steps are efficient enough you definitely get much mo…

Oh wow, now this is interesting.

To ELI5 this, what the commenter is saying is that you can take the "useless" L-Meth, and convert it to racemic, mixed D/L Meth.

Which you can then perform a second resolution step on, to convert/purify further, to the opposite chirality and get D-Meth.

The very interesting thing about this (if I were a clandestine chemist, or someone who wanted to get high at home), is that:

- AIBN is a readily available reagent, it's not difficult to acquire or would put you on any lists. This is in comparison to much of what you need for other synthesis techniques

- You can buy L-Meth legally over the counter. The extraction process would be a bit of a mess (quite literally) but should be doable, some basic recrystallization and/or conversion to freebase.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#142

Post by vidarh »

GoldenRacer wrote: post #39
cjbgkagh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that if we legalize dangerous addictive drugs then we might as well legalize all medications/drugs by which point the medical establishment loses a big chunk of the income that it gets from being a monopoly supplier. I wish society was mature enough for full legalization, but often those pushing for legalization underplay the negative problems associated with drug use. Particularly for that 'harmless plant' m…

The only problem I see with legalizing all prescription drugs is that a lot of people would use them off label or in inappropriate context (ie taking antibiotics when you have a viral infection). I think this could be managed with an appropriate regularity framework that I think should probably apply to psychoactive drugs as well. This would be some sort of licensing system. Anyone can get a license to buy antibiotic…

Antibiotics would be far worse to deregulate than even the hardest recreational drugs, because widespread flawed use would harm other people at scale by promoting drug resistent strains.

I think legalisation ought to be driven largely evidence of harm, not just by abuse of the drugs, but systemic harm both of legalisation vs. criminalization, but with a reasonably high level of ability to take personal risk.

E.g. for drugs where we know addiction drives crime, even fairly substantial harm from the drug itself might still mean legalisation is a net gain. Heroin might fit in that bucket (a small UK trial with prescribing it saw offending rates for those in the trial drop dramatically, and so reducing net harm to society).

At the same time high risk may justify a high degree of regulation of specific drugs to ensure people are at least aware of the dangers, and aim to reduce recruitment.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#143

Post by abirch »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

I have a friend who, fortunately, escaped the drug world and is happily recovered now. One of the many interesting things I learned through talking to him and his friends is the pervasive idea among addicted that street drugs were always better in the past. Everyone vividly remembers their drug being much better when they first got into drugs, with steadily declining effects over the years. Many of them had elaborate…

The sad thing is many overdoses are due to people who quit, lose their tolerance, but take the same amount of their drug as when they were still actively using.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#144

Post by daniel-cussen »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

I have a friend who, fortunately, escaped the drug world and is happily recovered now. One of the many interesting things I learned through talking to him and his friends is the pervasive idea among addicted that street drugs were always better in the past. Everyone vividly remembers their drug being much better when they first got into drugs, with steadily declining effects over the years. Many of them had elaborate…

[dead]

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#145

Post by tchaffee »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #76
taxicabjesus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity has a long history of self-medicating distress. At first this was mostly with alcohol. America's prohibition efforts started in the early 1900's: prohibition, Harrison Narcotic Tax Act, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream#Background_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs#20th_century

Is any regulation considered an act of 'war'? I pay taxes, do you call that a War on Income? If so, when did it start?

The parent comment can hardly be credited with the phrase. When Nixon announced his new policies he called it a war on drugs. A catchy phrase that stuck. Far too late now to try to rename it for some sort of pedantic consistency.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#146

Post by tchaffee »

ck2 wrote: post #74

What if instead of all the money poured into law enforcement and prosecution we instead make treatment for addiction completely frictionless, effortless and guilt-less. Like walking into a supermarket easy. Of course progressives have been begging for that to happen with mental health in the USA for decades, so all this is a fantasy to try to help people in society.

That does indeed seem to be working in Portugal.

One unpredicted side effect of making it a health issue instead of a criminal issue is that it's no longer so cool to young kids. Breaking the law is a bit of a rebellious thrill. Getting an addiction like Uncle Bob and having to visit the doctor a lot, not so cool.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#147

Post by tchaffee »

starkd wrote: post #87
ck2 wrote: post #74

What if instead of all the money poured into law enforcement and prosecution we instead make treatment for addiction completely frictionless, effortless and guilt-less. Like walking into a supermarket easy. Of course progressives have been begging for that to happen with mental health in the USA for decades, so all this is a fantasy to try to help people in society.

That might work if drugs were as easy to stop than start. Addiction treatment has a very low success rate with high relapse rate, and its incredibly expensive per user. The best treatment remains not starting in the first place.

Prohibition doesn't work at all at stopping people from starting in the first place. It has over a hundred years of failure.

Switzerland hugely reduced an endemic heroin problem in part by making it a health issue instead of a criminal issue.

And Portugal has shown a lot of success in decriminalization of most drugs.

Illegal drugs are perhaps the 2nd largest business globally, after petroleum. Prohibition is an abject failure at "not starting in the first place".

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#148

Post by sterlind »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #40

I have a friend who, fortunately, escaped the drug world and is happily recovered now. One of the many interesting things I learned through talking to him and his friends is the pervasive idea among addicted that street drugs were always better in the past. Everyone vividly remembers their drug being much better when they first got into drugs, with steadily declining effects over the years. Many of them had elaborate…

> The drugs may have changed slightly over the years, but the sad reality is that the real change was their accumulated tolerance and long term damage from drug abuse had blunted their response so much that they could barely feel the drugs any more.

This varies with the drug. MDMA is notorious for losing its "magic" after six or so trips. There's a special empathic, soul-opening quality to it - the kind of thing that makes it such a good candidate for treating PTSD. But after a few times, it becomes more like a regular psychedelic amphetamine.. fun, but not life-changing.

On the other hand, pure psychedelics don't really lose their magic. Tolerance develops, but goes away after a week. Psychedelics aren't associated with brain damage, while MDMA mildly is.

Then there's opioids, of course, which are ruinously addictive and fickle with tolerance.

When you're on the outside of the community, it's easy to lump "drugs" together and make generalizations. But every class of drug is different.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#149

Post by tchaffee »

blfr wrote: post #84
ck2 wrote: post #74

What if instead of all the money poured into law enforcement and prosecution we instead make treatment for addiction completely frictionless, effortless and guilt-less. Like walking into a supermarket easy. Of course progressives have been begging for that to happen with mental health in the USA for decades, so all this is a fantasy to try to help people in society.

We do not have the technology to make mental health care supermarket easy. Psychiatric drugs have NNTs in the dozens, terrible side effects, or both. It's a fantasy because it has no chance of working even before you consider the enormous amount of resources it would require. I strongly suspect the same about just letting people do copious amounts of legal drugs and then trying to fix addictions they develop. Steppin…

The ounce of prevention doesn't work. Prohibition has been a huge failure.

Re: Not-such-better-living through chemistry

#150

Post by jeltz »

photochemsyn wrote: post #110
cjbgkagh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* I did use the qualifier 'often' which is not 'all' and to my opinion it's not enough. People readily forget the downsides and need constant reminders. Edit: please note that the following includes the qualifier “most” and please understand that this does not mean “all”. I think alcohol is a bad example as alcohol for most people has a way of punishing abuse on its own and quickly thereby maintaining a tight associa…

I disagree entirely with this viewpoint - alcohol is one of the most dangerous and addictive substances available, with serious long-term health consequences. While the opiate epidemic has made a lot of headlines, CDC data IIRC points to the alcohol resulting in the premature deaths of about five times as many people (not by direct overdose as with opiates, but via associated medical conditions like liver failure). A…

If alcohol is one of the most addictive substances around I do not think we need to worry too much. Alcohol is actually not very addictive. Most people can drink regularly drink large amounts of alcohol without feeling the least bit of addiction.

Alcohol is very bad for your health and it is a horrible thing to be addicted to but it is not very addictive.

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