I have now found a new favorite "Scientific" paper · 6:33am Aug 6th, 2017
Ever have trouble finding pseudoephedrine because of pesky government restrictions on buying America's favorite nasal decongestant due to stupid meth-heads trying to synthesize meth from it?
So were the authors of this paper, who came up with an entirely reasonable and rational approach to solving the problem:
Pseudoephedrine, active ingredient of Sudafed®, has long been the most popular nasal decongestant in the United States due to its effectiveness and relatively mild side effects [1]. In recent years it has become increasingly difficult to obtain psuedoephedine in many states because of its use as a precursor for the illegal drug N-methylamphetamine (also known under various names including crystal meth, meth, ice, etc.)[1,2]. While in the past many stores were able to sell pseudoephedrine, new laws in the United States have restricted sales to pharmacies, with the medicine kept behind the counter. The pharmacies require signatures and examination of government issued ID in order to purchase pseudoephedrine. Because the hours of availability of such pharmacies are often limited, it would be of great interest to have a simple synthesis of pseudoephedrine from reagents which can be more readily procured.
A quick search of several neighborhoods of the United States revealed that while pseudoephedrine is difficult to obtain, N-methylamphetamine can be procured at almost any time on short notice and in quantities sufficient for synthesis of useful amounts of the desired material. Moreover, according to government maintained statistics, N-methylmphetamine is becoming an increasingly attractive starting material for pseudoephedrine, as the availability of N-methylmphetamine has remained high while prices have dropped and purity has increased [2]. We present here a convenient series of transformations using reagents which can be found in most well stocked organic chemistry laboratories to produce psuedoephedrine from N-methylamphetamine.
If you are amused by such things, the whole paper, A Simple and Convenient Synthesis of Pseudoephedrine From N-Methylamphetamine, is only two pages long.
Typical Oregon
This is amazing.
That's hilarious! But I think at this point Costco is still a better, though more boring method—three boxes of 24 tabs cost me about $11 US, and the feds didn't knock (down) my door after, which is a bonus.
Another alternative is to take a trip to London and visit a Boots. "I'll take the big box of Sudafed, annnnnnd that big box of ibuprofen+codeine. What, no ID required for either? Sweet!" Of course it's a little more expensive that way, but meds are cheaper there...
4625338
What's sad is that it is often actually cheaper to travel to other countries for healthcare. This is why we need single payer health insurance now!
Annoy people enough and they will figure a ways around most restrictions. Impressive either way.
Amazing. :D
Yep. Where I am, it's easier and cheaper to buy meth than it is to get sudafed.
You know, this seems like a fairly modest proposal.
I've never found:
Pseudoephedrine to work on me. I've started thinking my sinuses must be immune to it...
Mike
As my momma always said, "Where there's a will, there's a way!"
She never said anything about any terms and restrictions on either the will or the way.
Those idiots! Now that they've published a way to synthesize a precursor to meth, the government's going to have no choice but to start regulating the ingredients. I'm going to personally blame them when I have to start showing ID and signing ledgers to buy N-methylamphetamine.
There doesn't appear to be a Journal of Apocryphal Chemistry. Just that "article".
4627423
I can't imagine there's a huge number of people who write ridiculous chemistry papers for fun on a regular basis.
More's the pity, really.
4627423
They also claim to be from the Department of Chemistry, Miskatonic University. At least that is not something they made up.
From Wikipedia:
Miskatonic University is a fictional university located in Arkham, a fictitious town in Essex County, Massachusetts. It is named after the Miskatonic River (also fictional). After first appearing in H. P. Lovecraft's 1922 story "Herbert West–Reanimator"...