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Comment by JumpCrisscross

5 years ago

> peripheral stimulation but no cerebral effects

What does this mean?

Sorry for the confusing terminology. "Peripheral stimulation" means unwanted stimulation of the body itself, such as suppressed appetite, general jitteriness, and the like. Whereas the cerebral effects are the actual cognitive effects of improved attention/focus/alertness/scanning behavior, euphoria, and that kind of thing.

In general when taking amphetamines for ADHD-type symptoms, you want to maximize the cerebral stimulation while minimizing the peripheral stimulation, because the latter causes [most of] the unpleasant side effects like inability to eat/sleep. Note that some degree of peripheral stimulation is unavoidable regardless of whether one is taking pure d-methamphetamine or not, and also probably some amount of peripheral stimulation is desirable because ADHD is not just difficulty in maintaining focus/attention but also getting the kick in the ass to start tasks in the first place. But in my experience relying on the peripheral stimulation (which, for example, Adderall produces more of than Vyvanse) simply doesn't work long-term, and just makes appetite regulation and the like get totally out of whack.

  • If some of the illicit processing has reached a level of sufficient sophistication to enable removal of the l-enantiomer then I wonder how they go about it. Anyone know?

    As this article shows, there's any number of ways of making MA but separating out it's racemic mixtures has always been considered hard for backyard-ers.

    If this is now commonplace then it does seem to represent a somewhat of a seismic shift in the illicit drugs business model.

    • I don't know precisely but I remember it's something like bubbling d-tartaric acid through the racemic methamphetamine mixture to separate out the d-methamphetamine.

      The overwhelming majority of US meth is cartel-sourced. They have massive superlabs and then transport kilos upon kilos across the border. That's how they have the sophistication to synthesize their own p2p, separate out the enantiomer, etc.

      It's the inevitable result of the war on drugs. You make it near impossible to be a small time cook - due to the difficulty in acquiring precursors, acquiring space to work in where you won't get asked questions, etc - and soon the whole market is ran by mega cartels that operate as de-facto states.

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