Talk:Methcathinone

Don't know if this is the right place or way to ask questions on Wikipedia,but I would like to know if the chemical composition for methcathinone will be different when made of Psuedoephedrine, than Ephedrine?

UserHJ

The article states that methcathinone releases "radio labled dopamine" from the brain. Shouldn't "radio labled" be removed, as this is just how this effect was dicovered?

You're right. Fixed it. Btw, remember to sign your name. When in the talk page.--Ddhix 2002 08:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Neil

The comparison between caffeine and methcathinone is misleading. Methcathinone is nowhere near caffeine and has probably the same intensity of effect as methamphetamine. Also corrected details where I could see differences with experience. Neil (I'll sign up as a user if I do any more editing.) Hope I didn't make much of a mess of the edit. :)

Also backed up from experience there are two forms of the drug. One is less potent without having been cut. Something to do with the manufacturing process having not been completed. If I recall the less potent one is called Cathinone. I think this should be included in the document as well as it explains different perceptions of strength.

Actually, I believe that even methcathinone can come in two forms. NOT Cathinone vs Methcathinone, but 2 forms of methcathinone. The street term was "rocked up" versus "not rocked up". ClintJCL (talk) 01:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

See Freebase (chemistry) vs. salt (chemistry). Сасусlе 01:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Sources of information

The changes were from experience. It will probably be better to back the information up from credible sources such as:

http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/speedy_drugs/93hq0034.html

Refs?

What? Sodium hypochlorite can be used to make Methcathinone? How?

-ert

NaOCl is an oxidizer. That really doesn't need a reference.--141.154.232.5 14:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It'll go all the way to benzaldehyde. -ert

That really DOES need a reference

Sodium hypochlorite cannot be used in the manufacture of methcathinone, also potassium permanganate is said to be low-yelding then high-yelding reactant in the same paragraph... The reference [1] shouldn't be trusted since it has been edited as follow :

[editor's note: My reservations about the above post come from the fact that it looks almost exactly like a combination of the permanganate method published by Zhingel et al. in J. Forensic Sci. 36 (1991): 915-20 (this is in the Methcathinone FAQ 2.2, towards the end of the FAQ.) and the hypochlorite method of oxidizing alcohols I've seen in a number of recent organic chemistry laboratory textbooks. The original poster may just have replaced the steps in the permangante method, with those from the hypochlorite method. Of course, this may be exactly how the original poster developed a synthetic protocol that maybe does work.]

Here is another article [2] that could be read trustfully :

Potassium permanganate and potassium dichromate produced methcathinone in high yields. Two significant impurities were found when pseudoephedrine was reacted with potassium permanganate. Oxidation of pseudoephedrine with sodium hypochlorite resulted in the formation of benzaldehyde and N-(phenylmethylene)-methanamine.

--Littlebmx 14:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

regardless of refs, the section was written by an undergraduate with very little practical experience. Many of these oxidations, especially the chromate and permanganate oxidations, are exceedingly nasty, time consuming, and a huge hassle. modern laboratory synthetic methods make use of reagents that are simply unavailable to clandestine chemists. If your goal is to discuss its clandestine synthesis, then put that information into a subheading with that title. none of you know the methods used in industrial preparation of these drugs, and even if you are an undergraduate doing research in an O-chem lab, it is unlikely that you are very familiar with such oxidations, and even less likely that you have performed them more than once.

I swear, I always laugh at what people post in situations like this. like when someone posts a reaction done in neat t-butanol at 20 degrees C. or that some polymer is commonly synthesized by anionic polymerization (anionic polymerization is super sensitive, and requires specialized setups that are actually exceedingly rare), and when people assume that graduate students are routinely running birch reductions, reactions using carbon-tet as solvent, doing prep-scale diazonium reactions as the first step in a 12 step synthesis (LOL).68.6.52.200 (talk) 07:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

"Shiny White"

What is this "shiny white" effect described on the page when they compare methamphetamine to methcathinone?

24.200.159.238 19:53, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Shiny white from own experience

Clean and very bright effect. Everything is shining and warm. Addicts describe this as the effect in crystal meth which they are trying to duplicate in subsequent uses.

From [[3]]

 In an article about his son's addiction to methamphetamine, a California writer who has also experimented with the drug put it this way:
 [T]his drug has a unique, horrific quality. In an interview, Stephan Jenkins, the singer in the band Third Eye Blind, said that 
 methamphetamine makes you feel 'bright and shiny.' It also makes you paranoid, incoherent and both destructive and pathetically and 
 relentlessly self-destructive. Then you will do unconscionable things in order to feel bright and shiny again.[23]

Neil

Effects

It might be worth mentioning that the effects of this chemical, at least the ones listed, are almost identical to benzylpiperazine. Just a thought... Gabethenerd 06:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"Shiny White -- really gotta fix this"

"Methcathinone's effects differ in various characteristic ways to that of methamphetamine. The effects seem to be of somewhat similar intensity to methamphetamine, differing in the nature of the shiny white effect which characterises the first few methamphetamine uses, and the dopamine and serotonin.effects are quite apparent and also produce a shiny white effect which is quite different to that of methamphetamine and is more localized to the head."

This is absolutely absurd. In no way does this qualify as encyclopedia-worthy content or style. "A shiny white effect which is...more localized to the head." Imagine a doctor coming up to you, saying, "We're prescribing you a stimulant which may be a little different to what you're used to. Along with increased pulse, sleeplessness, anxiety, and damage to the dopaminergic system in the brain, you can also expect A WHITE SHINY FEELING WHICH IS LOCALIZED TO THE HEAD."

No, a doctor wouldn't say that. Nor would a pharmacologist. Or a biologist. Nobody. So, don't say it. 'Cause it's rubbish. Your personal experience DOES NOT go in an encyclopedia. That isn't one of those somewhat stupid rules about encyclopedias, it's one of the sensible ones. And claiming something as an "effect" means a *reproducible effect* (as well as a meaningful one -- after all, what the hell does that even mean, a "shiny white effect"??!?!?). You don't put "engenders shopping" in the list of effects, just because you shopped while on the drug. Sorry. Methcathinone may not be well studied, and you may think you're filling a void in the understanding of the mathcathinone experience with your anecdote, but it's just not appropriate or meaningful. If there was some sort of wide spread anecdotal consensus about SOMETHING MEANINGFUL ("shiny white" is a color, not an effect of a drug!!!!!! the statement conveys nothing to readers, however meaningful it may be to you) then, labeled as such, it might be a good thing to include in an article about a medical topic where there is a lack of clinical info.

And, no, citing the Third Eye Blind guy, and what he said about *methamphetamine*, does not count as a citation for you making an *opposite* claim about *methcathinone*! Creative, I'll give you that, but not legitimate citation.

Someone clean this up, or I'll try to get around to it.

The whole article is a mess. Remember: we want articles ABOUT drugs, not written while incapacitated BY drugs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.70.65 (talk) 08:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

I have added some verifiable information about affinities, I have removed the false statement at the top of the article about it having a higher affinity for the serotonin transporter than amphetamines, and I have removed the "shiny white" paragraphs. Subjective stuff like this are better off on somewhere like lycaeum.org or the vaults of erowid.

There is still a whole lot of stuff that needs citing. Woood (talk) 01:07, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

First synthesis

The claim that methcathinone was first synthesized and/or patented in Germany in 1928 seems to have originated from J. McGivney's 1994 article entitled "MADE IN AMERICA: THE NEW AND POTENT METHCATHINONE" printed in "Police Chief" magazine (abstract). I'm unable to find a full text version, so I don't know if he cites this claim, but the more reliable Cozzi et al, 1998([4]) cites a 1928 JACS paper by Hyde, Browning and Adams([5]) - from the University of Illinois, Urbana, not Germany.

However, on page 2291 of their article, α-methylamino propiophenone (methcathinone) is footnoted to "Chen and Kao, J. Am. Pharm. Assocn., 15, 625 (1926)", which again, I am unable to find in full text, online or in print. Presumeably, this footnote indicates that methcathinone was synthesized in 1926 or earlier, but where, and by whom, remains a mystery. St3vo (talk) 17:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Edit On 4th december

I've removed an incorrect link to a death. The death was potentially linked to Ketamine and Mephedrone, which is Methylmethcathinone, and not Methcathinone, though as far as I can tell the postmortem was inconclusive, as to whether or not she took them. Additionally methcathinone is a controlled substance in the UK so it cannot possibly be described as a legal high.

Also the street names for the UK are wrong, those removed are also related to Mephedrone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.149.83 (talk) 15:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Chemistry section

Under "Chemistry" the following sentence occurs: It does of course need to be acknowledged that for artificially produced methcathinone one gets a racemic product, unless they use enantioselective terminology. E.g. making a ketal prior to halogenating their propiophenone, followed by deprotection and methamination.

I have no idea what this means, and I doubt anyone but a 'chemistry insider' could decipher it. Which means it is not encyclopedic. Could someone please translate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.128.21 (talk) 06:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Inhibitory effect?

"Methcathinone doesn't have the inhibitory effects seen in other stimulants". What does that mean? This is anecdotal and probably not good material for the article. It would be interesting to know what that term means though. Iownutopia 15:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iownutopia (talk • contribs)

UK Street name

I feel that the line "In the United Kingdom, methylmethcathinone may be known as M-cat" should be removed, as this is referring to a different chemical altogether. While M-cat intuitively suits methcathinone better, the sad fact is most people "on the street" associate the term with the poison that is mephedrone. 91.125.125.223 (talk) 18:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, how does it "lose its ketone"?

Cathinone is related to ene-diols and can isomerize between ketone-amine (more stable) and alcohol-imine forms, however the pure material won't spontaneously revert to its unoxidized form. It can be further oxidized by air if not in salt form (e.g. Hydrochloride). Basic Chemistry of Amino Sugars. The oxidation of alpha phenyl alcohols e.g. benzyl alcohol proceeds under mild conditions like Manganese Dioxide alone. Benzylic Hydrogen of Toluene reacts (needs light) with "Chlorine water" to give Benzyl Chloride. "Sodium Hypochlorite" usually refers to "Laundry Bleach solution", Chlorine gas absorbed in Sodium Hydroxide which contains equimolar quantities of hypochlorite and chloride which on neutralizing (like Hydrochloride salt being used) gives Chlorine gas again. (Potassium Chlorochromate in Pyridine would be more precise but expensive.) A Permanganate procedure is here: http://www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/prep.asp?prep=cv1p0241 Shjacks45 (talk) 06:49, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Methcathinone will not get reduced back to ephedrine on its own...

Not any more so than acetone gets spontaneously reduced to isopropanol. Phenyl ketones are perfectly stable to oxygen and moisture. Aromatic ketones are harder to reduce than aliphatic ketones such as acetone, in fact.

Besides, how can a compound become reduced upon exposure to air? Oxygen is a mild oxidant, so alcohols and aldehydes do oxidize slowly. However, air has no reducing properties whatsoever and is not capable of reducing a ketone to an alcohol.

Get out of a meth lab and crack open a chemistry book...

—– ″Structurally, this occurs when the C=O bond at the Rβ-position is converted into a C-OH bond. Additionally, a dimerization reaction has been observed in solutions of freebase methcathinone, which yields a biologically inactive compound.[6] In other words, basic methcathinone will turn into (& also metabolize to) pseudoephedrine, from which it was synthesized.[contradiction]"

Basically what you said. Even with impurities from the original reaction the conversion back to an OH is unlikely. There's a reason ketone reductions tend to involve a fairly specific set of conditions or reducing agents and why "let it sit out for a while" isn't one of them.

The ordering of these sentences also implies that the last sentence is in reference to the previous, which may be true or not, I don't have access to the journal it references (as usual). 98.222.199.14 (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

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