A New, Cheaper Form of Meth (?)

‘I DON’T KNOW THAT I WOULD EVEN CALL IT METH ANYMORE’

Quote:

In the early 1980s, the ephedrine method for making meth was rediscovered by the American criminal world. Ephedrine was the active ingredient in the over-the-counter decongestant Sudafed, and a long boom in meth supply followed. But the sample that arrived on Bozenko’s desk that day in 2006 was not made from ephedrine, which was growing harder to come by as both the U.S. and Mexico clamped down on it. There was another way to make methamphetamine. Before the ephedrine method had been rediscovered, this other method had been used by the Hell’s Angels and other biker gangs, which had dominated a much smaller meth trade into the ’80s. Its essential chemical was a clear liquid called phenyl-2-propanone—P2P. Many combinations of chemicals could be used to make P2P.

Quote:

Among the drawbacks of the P2P method is that it produces two kinds of methamphetamine. One is known as d-methamphetamine, which is the stuff that makes you high. The other is l-methamphetamine, which makes the heart race but does little to the brain; it is waste product. Most cooks would likely want to get rid of the l-meth if they knew what it was. But separating the two is tricky, beyond the skills of most clandestine chemists. And without doing so, the resulting drug is inferior to ephedrine-based meth. It makes your heart hammer without offering as potent a high. Bozenko’s sample contained mostly d-methamphetamine. Someone had removed most of the l-meth. “I’ve taken down labs in several continents,” Bozenko told me years later. No one in the criminal world, as far as he and his colleagues knew, had ever figured out how to separate d-meth from l-meth before.

The article goes into greater detail about the effects of P2P meth compared to Ephedrine base stuff - vastly greater rates of psychosis and other wildly problematic behavior. The P2P derived drug is now vastly more common that the ephedrine-derived drug. But other than speculation about contaminants resulting from the process, goes into very little detail as to why the effects differ. The left-right chirality issue is not further discussed - is it normal now for the L isomer to be removed from P2P meth or was that a one-off sample?

I posted it here because I am a child of the 1980's-era anti drug education efforts, which blended in a heaping portion of false information with their well-meaning effort. Remember when they dismissed the legalization of marijuana because this modern stuff was so much stronger than the stuff the hippies smoked in '67? This all triggers by skeptical doubt senses.

Meth is clearly a dangerous drug, nasty stuff. But unlike the switch from heroin to fentanyl (two different drugs with very similar modes of action, one vastly more potent than the other), these two kinds of meth are still the same chemical - right?

So my question for the ISF hive mind is this: Is there really a difference between the P2P derived stuff vs the Epherine derived stuff?

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/31q0aui