Addiction podcast examines the new “shake-n-bake” method of making methamphetamine. Dr Darryl Inaba expands and includes a look at the chemistry involved, with left- and right- handed molelcules.
Transcript of podcast (click to listen):
Welcome to the CNS pod cast featuring Dr Darryl Inaba, Research Director for CNS Productions.
CNS: Hi and welcome once again to the addiction pod cast from CNS. Im Howard LaMere here with Darryl Inaba. Darryl, whats in the news?
Darryl: Its very fascinating in the news this week, out of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas, the central belt of our country is having a just a birth in, or a burst rather of methamphetamine addiction and I thought historically when we have these upper – downer trends, they usually last only about ten to thirty years. And weve been on an upper trend ever since cocaine just took hold in 1980. So we should we should be on, waning down, it appeared earlier in Oregon and all over the country that methamphetamine was starting to wane but all of a sudden its starting to grow again and, and the stories coming out of the mid-west and that part of our country is beginning to explain why theres, theres been a new process or a new way of making methamphetamine which they hadnt seen before that is exploded and made it really practical for people to have methamphetamine again, and its called the shake and bake method. Just a
CNS: Not chicken.
Darryl: Not chicken, but its still amazing that, the street chemist can come up with such ingenious ways to get access and medication, not to the medication but to the drugs they want. Its sort of like when theres a will theres a way and when most of the states like Oregon, restricted, and nationally theres a law that restricted access to pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in Sudafed for colds, congestion. That was the main ingredient for making the new methamphetamine base chemical we thought that it would disappear or at least take another ten or thirty years before theyd figure out another way to make methamphetamine. But what has come about is a process actually more; it seems like a more efficient process where they can take the Sudafed that is available. Many states restrict it to maybe a package of 24 or 30 tablets that you can buy, and you can only buy two packages of that and they make you buy it straight from the pharmacist behind the counter and that would eliminate, we thought, the massive amounts of Sudafed that could be used in of course manufacture of methamphetamine. But the shake and bake method, just takes a two liter soda bottle, plastic soda bottle. I think one of the secrets were they found out that a instead of anhydrous ammonia, they can actually take ammonium thats available in some of those cold packs, the instant cold packs and use that plus a whole host of just household chemicals. Throw it all, crush up the Sudafed, throw it in this bottle, put all their additives, it looks god-awful when its done, theres actually some videos on, on U-tube and stuff showing people making it up and it looks just like a murky darkish bunch of chemicals that are thrown into this bottle. You shake it up and you have to keep the bottle sealed because theres a chemical reaction, you can actually see lightning, or actually sparks that are occurring within the liquid themselves with the gas that the concoction produces if it, if it gets enough oxygen, its been known to explode. So again its a dangerous thing, a toxic chemical thing, but I think whats important to me or astounding rather to me, is that it seems to be more efficient than the old ways of making methamphetamine. Theyre able to take the limited amounts of Sudafed, say thirty tablets, or thirty milligrams, and if you convert all of that effectively in 100% to methamphetamine youre, youre probably going to end up with about close to gram of methamphetamine, so theyre cooking up in these bottles, hits or grams at a time that are sufficient to maintain their habits and to, and to perpetuate their habits and were seeing an outbreak again or an increase again, of methamphetamine across the United States.
CNS: So is this a do it yourself?
Darryl: Yeah, its, its I like that part of it, it sort of cuts out the middle man, I mean the trafficker because its kids have even learned how to do it and theres been news stories where part of the process is you have to shake it up good and then they put it, they get on their bicycles and ride. I guess theyre all jazzed up anyway and it provides enough shaking so that it bakes in the bottle but yeah it cuts out the cartel, it cuts out the trafficking, and its do it yourself until the government even further restricts Sudafed from getting out to the street.
CNS: Which this is too bad, because its a really good cold medicine.
Darryl: Absolutely you know the, the pharmacies and the pharmaceutical firms and the government says they should, we should be instead using a similar type of chemical called phenylephrine. But the thing is right now is phenylephrine a decongestant is impossible to convert into methamphetamine, so theres been some advocacy of switching everything on the counters, the Sudafeds and all that decongestant cold pills to phenylephrine. But people that have taken that have pretty much testified its not as good as Sudafed. Sudafed is much more effective so they rather would have the Sudafed and the Sudafed story is interesting
CNS: Well, you cant even buy that anymore, can you? I mean do you have to have a prescription?
Darryl: Well, almost like that, you can get it from, in Oregon its very much restricted, across the country it was restricted but its, its available behind the counter, some states make you sign for it and its available only in limited amounts. They, they thought if you could keep somebody from getting thousands of pills then you can control methamphetamine. But people, as you mentioned enjoy it and effects tremendously effective for colds and congestion so the government allows you to buy packages of 24 tablets or two packages of 24 tablets which they thought would be impractical to convert to methamphetamine. But it just amazing how the street can come up with ways of more efficiently converting it to methamphetamine and therefore makes methamphetamine available for street abuse.
CNS: Is it any less you know toxic than the bath tub method, the traditional?
Darryl: In some ways it, its well I dont know because I havent analyzed you know the end product that after they dry it all out and get the powder and its methamphetamine. But the processes that Ive seen used to cook it, just throw it all in these, you know, the under the kitchen counter chemicals into it
CNS: Right
Darryl: And shaking and baking it, it looks god-awful and then what and then what they do with this residual chemicals afterwards is they just throw it out in the gutter and stuff like that. Im sure its causing some toxic residue any place its being used. But the story of Sudafed itself is amazing and it, and it brings to light an interesting thing about organic chemistry and about psychoactive chemicals. Basically organic chemicals or chemicals that contain carbon, if theres a carbon in the series or the compound that is bonded with covalent bonding to four other atoms, so you have to have four very unique atoms attached to a carbon, you can have oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, or other carbon. Those carbons are asymmetric which means that when mother nature puts those together in a synthesis she actually makes a right and left handed molecule with it. A right handed compound verses a left handed compound and all that means is if you can stop this chemical bonding as it occurs and then show how oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen carbon are stuck to a central carbon, you can show that to a mirror and what the mirror does it transposes the bonding, you get all the same atoms but youre getting a right hand and a left hand and it turns out that our body only uses and our receptor sights are configured specifically for a right hand or a left hand compound. In the case of methamphetamine or the what we call the phenyl-isopromines or phenyleph amines, we, our body responds to the stimulatory phase in our brain pretty much to the right handed side of the compound. Whereas if you give the brain a left sided compound it doesnt stimulate the brain too much at all but it stimulates the heart, it stimulates the blood vessels, stimulates the lungs and, and the bronchial tubes and things like that. So thats what Sudafed was. Sudafederon was left handed. Sudafredrine which is in the same chemical family it looks like amphetamine, but is in fact a left handed pure left handed compound. So it basically stimulates your heart, stimulates your sinuses, stimulates your bronchial tubes and things like that but does not stimulate your brain thats why its allowed to be sold over the counter, people dont abuse you know if they do theyre going to end up with a heart attack or something like that.
CNS: Right
Darryl: So, who would think that they would take a left handed Sudafed to make methamphetamine because you know projection would be you take left handed Sudadederin youre going to make left handed methamphetamine. Left handed methamphetamine is still sold in a number of decongestion products like Lytosine. And things like decongestants are sold over the counter, if you look closely some of them are methamphetamine but theyre left handed legal form of methamphetamine whats not going to stimulate your brain. So, I would, I would think, why do that, why even use Sudafed? But amazingly what occurred was that street chemists discovered that if you take pure left handed Sudafed and you convert it to a methamphetamine compound by adding a few carbons on to it and taking off the oxygen, pure left handed Sudafed makes pure right handed methamphetamine. So again the street just figured this out on their own and came out with that great stimulus of methamphetamine and the epidemic we had we thought was going to go away, now the street comes up with another method of, of just taking this Sudafed and basic chemicals that are out there and, and in a very easy synthesis way allowing people to shake and bake it up so that they have their own supply of meth.
CNS: Lets talk a little bit about the sociology of it. Do you think that the stimulant phase is continued because of the, the ever increasing pace of our life?
Darryl: You know theres, theres been a lot of speculation through out the years Dr. Musto wrote a book Addiction, The American Disease, in which he also documents, theres these eras in which there are ten to thirty years where people seek out as a group of people, say our society as the United States, the over all picture of drug abuse is people are interested in and seeking out downers or depressants. And in another ten to thirty years following that where people seek out uppers or stimulants and that these oscillate these cycles oscillate back and forth ever since the eighteen hundreds. Well why does that occur as we talk about what goes up must come down. Is that you know you can only, even speed freaks can only stay loaded on uppers for so long before they crash and theyre so paranoid delusional and so tweaked out and agitated and panicky that they need downers just to come down from it. So theres a pharmacological view that there was a Canadian view that these cycles pretty much match economic cycles. That when we have a depressant or depressed economy people naturally need to feel more energized some how, and so we get more abuse of uppers and then when we have an up economy people tend to just mellow themselves out with alcohol and downers and maybe that has to do with it. There has been speculation about just whats available in the social trends. Well they say people how people interact with each other and, and what theyre interested in as terms of as a group culture or a collective unconscious as Freud once said, how they want to feel. What ever the case may be and, and I dont think Ive found viability for any these theories. It just so happens if you look there does seem to be this upper downer cycle and thats something thats always interested us.
CNS: Well well have to keep a close eye on that one and see where it goes. Thats interesting to put the economic spin on it. Well this has been the CNS pod cast on addiction for this week. I would encourage you if you have any questions or comments for Darryl please send them along we will try to respond to them if we can in the future pod cast. Go to our website you can send an email from there and thats at cnsproductions.com. Thanks Darryl.
Darryl: Thanks Howard
CNS: That wraps our pod for today. Thanks for visiting the CNS pod cast. Please check back soon for the next in the series and visit our website www.cnsproductions.com.