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