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#127 METHYL-DOB
4-BROMO-2,5-DIMETHOXY-N-METHYLAMPHETAMINE
SYNTHESIS: To a
solution of 6.0 g of the free base of
2,5-dimethoxy-N-
methyl-
amphetamine (see recipe under METHYL-DMA) in 30
mL glacial acetic acid there was added, dropwise and with good
stirring, a
solution of 5.5 g
bromine in 15 mL acetic acid. The
reaction became quite warm, and turned very dark. After stirring an
additional 45 min, the mixture was poured into 200 mL H2O and treated
with a little
sodium hydrosulfite which lightened the color of the
reaction. There was added 20 mL concentrated HCl, and the reaction
mixture was washed with 2x100 mL
CH2Cl2 which removed most of the
color. The aqueous.
phase was made basic with 25%
NaOH, and extracted
with 3x100 mL
CH2Cl2. The removal of the
solvent from the pooled
extracts under vacuum gave 1.8 g of an oil which was
dissolved in 10
mL IPA, neutralized with concentrated HCl, and diluted with 100 mL
anhydrous Et2O. No
crystals were obtained, but rather an oily and
somewhat granular in
soluble lower
phase. The
Et2O was decanted, and
the residue washed by grinding up under 3x100 mL
Et2O. The original
decanted material was combined with the three washes, and allowed to
stand for several h. The product
4-bromo-
2,5-dimethoxy-N-
methylamphetamine hydrochloride (METHYL-DOB)
separated as fine white
crystals which weighed, after filtering and
air drying, 0.3 g and had a mp of 149-150 °C. The
Et2O-in
soluble
residue finally set up to a pale pink mass which was finely ground
under a few mL
acetone. Filtration and air drying gave a second crop
of product as 0.9 g of pale lavender solids, with a mp of 143-145 °C.
DOSAGE: greater than 8 mg.
DURATION: probably rather long.
QUALITATIVE COMMENTS: (with 8.0 mg) At an hour and twenty minutes, I
was suddenly quite light headed. An hour later I must say that the
effects are real, and generally good. I am spacey--nothing tangible.
And a couple of hours yet later I am still aware. My teeth are
somewhat rubby, and as things have been pretty steady for the last
three hours, this will prove to be long lasting. There are a lot of
physical effects that may be kidding me into providing myself some of
the mental. At the sixth hour, I find that this is almost entirely
physical. My teeth are tight, there is a general physical tenseness,
my reflexes seem exaggerated, and my eyes are quite dilated. All of
these signs are lessened by the eighth hour, and do not interfere with
sleep at the twelfth hour. There is no desire to proceed any further,
at least at the present time. Mental (+) physical (++). Next day,
slight impression of persistence of toxicity.
(with 10 mg) Nothing
psychedelic, but awfully hard on the bod. The
next day (24 hours later) I had a severe response to 5 milligrams of
psilocybin.
EXTENSIONS AND COMMENTARY: The mention above, of the 10 milligrams of
METHYL-DOB followed by 5 milligrams of
psilocybin, leads to some
interesting speculation. The usual pattern that is seen when two
psychedelic drugs are taken too closely tog
ether is that the second
experience is less effective than would have been expected. This is
the property that is called tolerance, and it is frequently seen in
pharmacology. The two exposures may be to a single drug, or they may
be to two different drugs which usually have some properties in
common. It is as if the spirit of the receptor site had become a
little tired and needed a while to rest up and recuperate. When there
is a demand for a repeat of full effectiveness, the user will
customarily increase the dosage of the drug that is used. It is one
of the built-in protections, in the area of
psychedelics that, after
one experience, you must wait for a period of time to lose the
refractoriness that has set in.
The measure of the degree of tolerance that can be shared between
different drugs, called cross-tolerance, can be used as an estimate of
the similarities of their mechanisms of action. In other words, if A
and B are somehow seen by the body as being similar, then a normally
effective dose of A will make a next-day's normally effective dose of
B weaker than expected. Or not active at all. And B will do the same
job on A. If two drugs are different in their ways of doing things in
the body, there is most often no cross-tolerance seen. This was
described for
MDMA and
MDA, and is the basis of the argument that they
act by distinctly separate mechanisms. A person who used what would
be held as an active dose of
MDMA for several days lost all response
to the drug. He was tolerant to its effects. But an exposure to an
effective dose of
MDA at the time that tolerance to
MDMA was complete,
provided a normal response to the
MDA. The drugs are not
cross-tolerant and the body recognizes them as distinct individuals.
But for one drug to promote, or to exaggerate, the effect of another
is called
potentiation, and can be a clue to the dynamics going on in
the brain or body. Here, admittedly in only a single report,
METHYL-DOB had somehow sensitized the subject to a rather light dosage
of
psilocybin. But there have been other reports like this that I
have heard of, from here and there. I have been told of an experiment
with the dextro-
isomer of DOM (this is the inactive optical isomer) at
a level that was, not surprisingly, without any effects. The
researcher had a severe reaction the following day with what was
referred to as "poor" hashish. A similar form of
potentiation has
been commented upon under the recipe for TOMSO, where an inactive
drug, and a most modest amount of
alcohol, add tog
ether to create an
unexpectedly intense intoxication. But note that in each of these
cases, it is a
phenethylamine interacting with a
non-phenethylamine
(
psilocybin is an
indole, hashish is a non-
alkaloid terpene thing, and
alcohol is, well, alcohol).
The bottom line with METHYL-DOB is, as with the other N-
methylated
psychedelics, that it is way down in potency, and probably not worth
pursuing.
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