[DBrow]

In a year dopers won't be using Sudafed, meth will be more common and cheaper than ever,

Economics suggests that if there were an easier, cheaper synthetic path with available ingredients, they'd be using it now.

The pseudoephedrine-to-meth synthesis is the most direct; it uses a variant of the Birch Reduction to reduce the -OH group on sudofed- that is all it takes.

The "superlabs" use a more complicated path involving hydroiodic acid and a phenyl ketone nicknamed P2K. The components of the P2K path are already difficult to get.

There are only a few economical ways to synthesize meth.

Likewise MDMA (Extacy)- once it became nearly impossible to get saffrole in the USA, domestic availability of E went down and it all comes from overseas now, where saffrole can be more readily obtained.

The difference between the two methods is described here

[DBrow]

Oops, I messed up. The "superlabs" use the HI/red phosphorus method, still using pseudoephedrine as a starting material. HI/P allows for larger batches than the Birch reduction with anhydrous ammonia.

The P2P method uses different starting materials and is much more complicated. Most of the materials needed are hard to get due to existing restrictions.

[Servant of the 9]

In a year dopers won't be using Sudafed, meth will be more common and cheaper than ever,

Economics suggests that if there were an easier, cheaper synthetic path with available ingredients, they'd be using it now.

The pseudoephedrine-to-meth synthesis is the most direct; it uses a variant of the Birch Reduction to reduce the -OH group on sudofed- that is all it takes.

None of the curent methode were used 30 years ago.

There are two chemical engineering geniuses in the federal Slam right now who develop these processes in their heads since they are not allowed pencil and paper, much less reference works and suplies. They are people who could have top jobs in industry if they weren't natural born criminals.

Developing the new methods is their way of 'sticking it to the man' but it is certainly not easy and they aren't going to expend the effort until it is needed.

I haven't got the references to them offhand, and don't have time to look.

So9