Can Synephrine be used to synthesise Methamphetamine?

With the recent world crackdown on Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products, I was wondering if anyone out there has heard of people using Synephrine as a precursor for manufacturing Methamphetamine?

Is this theoretically possible?

 

good question...i had caffeine pills that were 75mg caffeine and 25mg synephrine in each pill...and i didnt really notice the synephrine like i do ephedrine...like its not as good as ephedrine.

 

I dont think you can make any amphetamine from it.
But i do know that you can make amphetamine from PAA
and it is made in the same way has meth.

 

Thanks for the responses so far,

Just a little more info;
Synephrine (or oxedrine) C9H13NO2 appears to be very similar in structure to Ephedrine C10H15NO and also very similar to Methamphetamine C10H15N .

I know little about chemistry but to me it appears that this would be obvious alternative in the manufacture, and is surprising that it hasn’t already been done.

Possibly there is some academic literature out there regarding this. If anyone knows of this a reference would be appreciated.

 

sounds more like Phenylephrine

 

As far as I know there isnt that much difference between synephrine and phenylephrine except for the position of the hydroxyl group, but because this would be removed in the synthesys this wouldn’t really matter.

So I would assume if synephrine could be used in this synth then I would assume that phenylephrine could also.

 

synephrine and phenylephrine are both missing the alpha-methyl carbon...you could reduce the alcohols with HI/P or birch, but it would just give you N-methylphenethylamine. PEA/methyl-PEA aren't active cause they get chewed up by MAO without the alpha-methyl.

 

i don't think so. synephrine is para methoxylated so reduction would yield p-meoMA.

 

it seems that there is a methyl isomerase/transferase that can exchange between the methoxy group and the amine group, or in more practical circumstances it is how you arrive at your starting material, is it pure? has it been tested and what is the structure? in any matter there is doubt as to whether there is an alpha methyl group among any of the alkaloid constituents of Citrus a.

 

Well, you need to remove those two nasty hydroxyl groups, catalytic hydrogenation (60 psi with Pt catalyst) should do nicely. However, you are then left with a two carbon chain instead of the required three; and no methylamine.

 

bmk paa bc pmk mibk