textfiles/drugs/ALT.DRUGS/catstory.txt

The Methcathinone Project, West Coast.
--------------------------------------

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.