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The Methcathinone Project, West Coast.
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I guess it all started when I heard about a new drug craze that had just been
detected in Michigan by the local authorities. I'd say it was somewhere around
the middle of 1993. A year ago I'd been diagnosed with ADHD, also known as
hyperactivity, and I wondered if I couldn't make CAT and use it to help me with
school in the same manner Ritalin and other amphetamines are used.
I decided to look into the matter - methcathinone sounded like speed. All I
had to go on was that it was made from ephedrine, and that it was named
methcathinone. I could find no other references to the compound.
One day, by chance, as I was looking up the entry for Phenpropanolamine, the
active ingredient in Dexatrim, I noticed that one of its isomers was sometimes
called cathine. Hmm - that sounds familiar - and being that 'cathine' is an
alcohol of sorts, its ketone complement might just be named cathinone!! Combine
this with the fact that ephedrine is none other than n-methyl cathine, and it
becomes obvious: one simply needs to oxidize the hydroxyl group of ephedrine
to a keytone to produce methcathinone.
As all things go in organic chemistry, this required a few tries - I was coming
up with a novel synthesis of my own... which would have been much easier had I
knew then what I do now ;)
My first attempt involved Ephedrine bought at an outrageous price from the
local GNC mart, which incedentially no longer carries them. I extracted the
ephedrine and then added potassium dichromate solution. Nothing happened. Well
shit, this is uncool. I turned around and grabbed a chick who was in my organic
chem class, and asked her - say, what do you use to oxidize a secondary alcohol
if dichromate doesnt work? She suggested potassium permaganate, so I chucked
some in. Soon enough, I smelled something sweet. "Ketones smell sweet, right" I
asked.
"Yes - almost always"
"Does this smell like a keytone to you?"
"Yes. What is it?"
I then preceded to diagram the whole damn structure for it. She just looekd at
it and said wow. I've actually gone up to instructors there with the structure
for amphetamine written on a piece of paper with dl-phenylalanine next to it,
and just looked at them and said "how would I make this go to that, i've been
curious about some naturaly processes occuring in some plants" and they give me
a full working synthesis for the reduction of amino-acids. They know so much
method but do not recognize a drug for what it is - I am the exact opposite of
this - full of wonder and questions but never the right answers.
In any case, I added way to much permaganate, and the solution turned black
when I attempted to dry it. I had a working synthesis, as evidenced by the
odor, but not a GOOD one. Because of the price of Ephedrine, and my lack of
credit cards for mail order, I turned to the popular nasal-decongestant
pseudephedrine for further research - there was tons of it lying around the
house, and it's reletively cheap, ranging from $3 per 100 for really cheap
generic to $14 for brand-name "Sudafed".
This is apparently where a twist of fate unique to me occured - I ended up
developing a synthesis that apparently will NOT work with ephedrine (I have
only tried twice and both times produced lots of ephedrine)
I was pleased with permaganate as an oxidizer - it was strong as far as
oxidizers go - and plentiful. vey lab on campus, even the biology labs, had a
shitload of it - entire jars just lying around. I took maybe 50 grams of the
stuff - and to this day have used very little of it. You see, I noticed a
strange thing while I was synthisizing cat... The less KMnO4 I used, the better
the synthesis seemed to work! I ended up using about 1/5th what I needed in
theory to produce optimal results. I'm still not sure why, but I suspect the
solution somehow pulls oxygen out of the air (understandable) and then uses it,
with KMnO4 only initiating the reaction.
My final synthesis and extraction involved washing the tablets with a paper
towel soaked in PUREFIED WATER (using pure, not tab, water seems very important
here. Mineral water will work, but not tap - I suspect chlorine is somehow
involved in this inhibition of the reaction as I can smell chlorine when I take
a shower) then smashing them in pure water until well mashed, then boiling in a
microwave. I'd remove the boiling solution, and add about 5mL of HCl obtained
from "jasco concrete cleaner" for every 3g of pseudephedrine. I'd stir the
mixture, and then let sit until settled, bringing the top (liquid) layer off
with a turkey baster and discarding the filler.
To this somewhat red solution, I added KMnO4, already disolved. A rediculously
small amount - it *IS* needed, and the more you use the faster the reaction
goes. I still don't know how much is optimal, but I used a few drops of what
from a mixture i'd made with about .5 Molar concentration. Then I boiled this
repeatedly for 10 minutes in a microwave, and dried the stuff out to a powder.
By doing an 'acetone wash' I was able to get a flaky crystal/powder. The
acetone wash consists of nothing other than pouring acetone over the dried
stuff, swishing around very well, and then discarding the acetone (cat HCl wont
disolve in acetone, at least not very well). The acetone removes the annoying
red color too!
The resulting powder proved quite addicting to rats when placed in a mixture
with peanut butter, and the rats had a deffinite preference for methcathinone -
consistently choosing methcathinone-laced peanut butter over both peanut-
butter, sugar-laced peanut butter, and pseudephedrine and ephedrine-laced
peanut butter. With some methamphetamine obtained from a semi-reliable source,
I determined that methcathinone was about twice as likely to cause convulsions
per miligram - however the methamphetamine *may* have been 'cut' or merely
amphetamine, etc - in mice. The time had come for a human trial.
I orally took a dose of about 20mg or so, mixed with orange juice to mask the
annoying alkaloidal taste. In about 30 minutes I felt quite speeded up. Like
I'd taken around 400-600mg of Caffeine when I hadn't had ANY in weeks! Only the
high was more pleasant. Hmm - spiffy - this was not the reaction I had
anticipated - previous experience with both ephedrine and amphetamine had left
me feeling relaxed and ready to pay attention. Methcathinone made me uppity,
and restless. I wanted to party and drive fast all around town, etc.
I gave some to a friend, who snorted it. This was the first time methcathinone
was snorted in all of california to my knowledge - bear in mind that at this
time the recipe was not on the internet and was selling for over $100 from
person to person - a wholely different and much more difficult recipe it turns
out.
So I smoked some out of a test tube we had lying around. I simply stuck it in
the bottom of the tube with enough NaHCO3 to neutralize the solution. The
compund dried and began to produce vapors. I stoppered the tube with my finger,
allowing little gas to escape, until the tube was full of vapor and my thumb
was hot. I took a hit - and felt more awake instantly, but not all that great
of an effect.
Then I snorted some. I think it was at this point that I became 'instantly
addicted.' Users everywhere - everyone I gave it to - seemed to agree -
unlike cocaine, snorting methcathinone is by far the strongest route to your
bodies system (no one was dumb enough to try injecting it, but that'd probably
be stronger yet).
I never stayed up for three or four days on it, like other people did, but I
think its the ADHD behind that. If I did more than a line or two, it had a
reversing effect, making me just jittery, irritated, and unable to concentrate.
One line worked best - I was more energetic and bouncy, still not really able
to focus my attention, but very hyper and happy. I still managed to screw up my
life, however, and got kicked out of my house and started living in my car,
synthesizing cat wherever I could find a microwave and a hairdryer to dry it.
Eventually I became quite paranoid, and was checked into an institution by my
still unsuspecting parents.
They listened to me talk, and piss-tested me. Nope, no drugs (methcathinone was
not tested for - they thought I was making speed or a lot of nothing?) and
proceeded to diagnose me as "Schizoaffective Bipolar". They said the next day
I'd be getting Haldol to sedate me, but that I should just go to sleep in a
room. I thought - hey, downers, cool, prescription ones too - and said lemme
have it now. OOPS. -->never ask for antipsychotic medication, it makes you feel
like shit evey time, unless you are psychotic or something naturally <--
For the next couple of days, I was really too damn sedated to argue with them
about my condition, nodding out all the time and not being able to even slighly
think. I was too sedated to even realize that Haldol was the cause of the
problem and kept taking it like a meat-head, even though I was admitted on a
voluntary basis (I thought - hey - free food and a bed! I was a total meat-
head) and had the right to refuse medication. Lucky for me, the side-effects of
Haldol and its compliment-drug, cogentin, which is supposed to prevent side
effects, made me totally unable to piss. They had to take me off of it, and
they put me on 'Risperidol', a new, fucking-expensive antipsychotic that is a
miracle-drug for people with schizophrenia, but still useless for normal
people.
I became lucid once again, and started talking with the doctors. Once I had
totalyl confused the psychologists, and the psychiatrist realized I knew more
about brain-chemistry and chemical receptors than he did, they finally listened
to the cat story. "Oh, he's an addict, and he just had whats commonly called
'amphetamine psychosis'" YEP.
They kept me on the nut-bin side for another week, just to be safe anyways. It
was the most boring time of my life. Then they took me off of the Risperidol
and sent me over to their rehab-center, across the street.
I learned a lot about my family there, but no-one knew what I had gone thru,
because, quite frankly, all the speed-freaks were the type who stay up for 5
days straight (like michigan cat-freaks you read about now) and the few other
people with ADHD there were primarily abusers of downers - typical to ADHD.
I've always found loopholes all my life, and I had to find a stimulant (other
than caffeine) that still fucks up people with ADHD... silly me.
They put me on Ritalin once they determined I could be trusted with it. I hated
it - Ritalin made me feel drowsy all the time. Every once in a while I stuck
the damn thing under my tounge and then gave it to a woman who was there for
intermitant amphetamine abuse and chronic depression. She loved the damn things
to bits. Of course, she didn't have ADHD either...
Eventually I got out of rehab, and moved to Oxnard. I stayed cat-free. Then my
room burnt down and I lived in the garage for two weeks. That sucked. After
that, I moved to Ventura.
And upon meeting a few of my old friends, decided to intrduce them to cat too.
I used it again myself - for two weeks, on a much lesser scale and more
regularly. I decided I would 'control myself'. The funny thing is, I did. very
morning I took a line, and then again in the middle of the day. Of course,
eventually this wasn't enough, but for some odd reason, instead of doing more I
thought that I had screwed up the recipe (I hadnt) and threw the cat away!
At this point, me and many others observed something startling. Brand-name
'Sudafed' when ground up smells faintly of methcathinone! None of the other
decongestants had this property. Whether this is an accident or not, Burroughs
Wellcome should look into it. On the other hand, maybe that's why people will
pay $14 for sudafed instead of $3 for suphedrine.
I went into the deepest depression of my life two days later. It lasted about 3
or 4 days. I mean, I couldnt even move - I was too depressed to eat or even
think about doing something as complicated and involved as say, committing
suicide. I just layed on the couch, to depressed to watch tv, and tried to
sleep. I musta slept about 20 hours a day. Funny, I didnt attribute this to
withdrrawl either, but stopped using cat anyways. It took me about another
week, when I looked back at myself, to realize what had happened.
I haven't done cat since. Cat is a unique drug, and I hope someone studies its
receptor-binding affinities and its effect on dopamine and serotonin reuptake
so that I may learn why it and it alone had such a dramatic effect on me. A
drug with a similar profile, bupropion, has a tert-butyl group where the methyl
is and a chlorine in the 4 position of the benzene ring... this drug is called
Wellbutrin and I take it for my ADHD now - it seems to be a balance between the
effects of cat and the effects of ritalin. The only thing I regret about
wellbutrin is its smell - which occasionally reminds me of cat.
Chemical structures:
_____ _____ OH _____ O
/ \ H H H / \ ! H H / \ ! H H
< 0 >--C--C--N < 0 >-C--C--N < 0 >-C--C--N
\_____/ H ! H \_____/ H ! H \_____/ ! H
HCH HCH HCH
H H H
amphetamine phenpropylamine cathinone
(dexedrine, benzedrine (also known as cathine (found in the Khat
and adderall contain) and ingredient in herb, commonly used
Dexatrim and many by many Serbians)
decongestant pills)
H H H
_____ HCH _____ OH HCH _____ O HCH
/ \ H H / / \ ! H / / \ !! H /
< 0 >--C--C--N < 0 >-C--C--N < 0 >-C--C--N
\_____/ H ! H \_____/ H ! H \_____/ ! H
HCH HCH HCH
H H H
methamphetamine pseudephedrine -or- methcathinone
(Desoxyn, Methadrine ephedrine (depending (aka ephedrone,
'speed', 'crystal' on position of hydroxyl) 'jeff', 'cat')
(Sudafed, Suphedrine)
(Maxilert, Mini-thins)
there is no legitimate medical use for either cathinone or methcathinone.
H H
HCH HCH
\ /
_____ O C bupropion (Wellbutrin)
/ \ !! H / \
< 0 >-C--C--N HCH an anti-depressant that smells
\_____/ ! H H kind of like cat, and is useful
/ HCH in ADHD because of its ability to
Cl H block dopamine reuptake.