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Info on PMA
•   From Dr Jester Wraith
•   Subject: Re: PMA...What's The Deal?

So kids, ya want a little info on PMA ? aka Para-
methoxy-amphetamine, or 4-MA...
Heres the dirty deed...

So the level of drug chemistry has gone way down
in recent years, and one of our not so friendly
MDMA subs or adulterants is PMA... Heres
the "411" : PMA is an easy chem to make, you
could start with anise oil (at any
herb/homeopathy) shop, then we isolate the
anisealdehyde, and turn that into our
nitropropene, namely 1-(4-methoxyphenyl)-2-
nitropropene, we react this with LAH, and do that
whole jazz, poof PMA !!! Its easy. So what are
the effects ? Well this is far from an empathogen
or psychedelic like MDMA and MDA, it is basically
a bizzare speedy kinda high, maybe a little too
high... Allow me to explain... A major metabolite
of amphetamine is 4-hydroxyamphetamine, from
oxidation at the 4-position. This happens to be
the metabolite of PMA, and PMA is quite potent,
50-80mg is a dose, however on the street it is
sold as MDMA and a dose is in the hundreds of mg..
I have had this stuff, and I knew I was taking
PMA, but I wanted to try it, its not very good,
like eating far too much speed and getting that
drunk, drugged sensation, definively NOT ANYTHING
like MDMA or MDA... Its not psychedelic, your
heart pounds, you sweat, mydriasis, heart
palpitations, your mind recoils in horror and
disgust of this nasty shit. Here are some other
lovely side effects muscle spasms, increased
blood temperature increased blood pressure,
increased body temperature (fever), increased
pulse rate labored breathing, nausea & vomiting
convulsions, coma & death...

So send a message to those stupid kitchen chem
bohabs and dont buy this product, and if you make
this and sell it as MDMA, you should have your
sex organs removed...



johnboy
AdministratEr

quote:
Does an "ecstasy" overdose raise your body
temperature to 108 degrees?

06-Mar-2001
Dear Straight Dope:

In the past week or so, I have seen several news reports (local papers, MSNBC.com, etc.) about an additive in some "ecstasy" tablets (PMA, I believe) that raises body temperatures to 108 degrees and has killed six people in the Orlando area. Alarm bells rang as I noticed no names or dates mentioned, as well of the abundance of the phrase "according to drug agents." Even more suspicious, one victim's temperature was reported to remain at 106 degrees even four hours after death! I only have a bachelor's degree in biology, but somehow I don't think this is possible. Cecil, is this another scare tactic from our drug czars, or is there some truth to this story? --Dan Fraser
SDSTAFF Hawk replies:

Drug enforcers may use scare tactics, but this isn't one of them. Those news reports contain more fact than fiction, and the facts are pretty frightening. Curiously, however, the roots of this story lie not in biology, but in the law.
Writing an enforceable drug law is no simple task. If the law is written too broadly, it will inadvertently criminalize all sorts of harmless and even beneficial substances. In outlawing marijuana, for example, legislators couldn't simply ban the marijuana plant, commonly known as hemp, because it's also used to make rope, birdseed, and other useful products. Instead the law had to be narrowly written to criminalize only the bad stuff, as legislators saw it. This can get pretty involved. In my home state of Louisiana, the law describes marijuana as "all parts of plants of the genus Cannabis [except] the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, anufacture, salt, [etc.,] (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil, or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant," blah blah blah.

When it comes to manufactured drugs, things get a little easier. You simply state that it is illegal to possess any substance with a given chemical structure (or any compound that contains said substance). This description can get down to the level of a molecular formula. An example of this is cocaine. Legislators couldn't just outlaw "cocaine-like compounds," because then we'd have to arrest dentists and physicians for possession of analogues such as novocaine, benzocaine, and lidocaine. Instead they banned cocaine hydrochloride, the technical name for the white powder people snort with those little spoons. Then somebody came up with the off-white, rock-like substance known as crack. Crack is cocaine, period (the hydrochoride group has been removed). Since crack is not chemically identical to cocaine, for a time in some jurisdictions it was legal.

You see the problem. In order to make drugs laws workable, lawmakers make the language highly specific. Maybe too specific. Enter designer drugs. These drugs mimic the "desirable" effects of a recreational drug but are sufficiently different chemically as not to be illegal.

From a drug lord's perspective designer drugs have another advantage--they make it harder to detect the clandestine labs where many illegal drugs are manufactured. These labs, which are really not much more than kitchens, use readily available chemicals known as "precursors." One way for the authorities
to monitor illegal drug making is to monitor sales of the precursors. After all, who the heck needs a thousand packages of nasal decongestant? But drug makers are on to the fact that government watchdogs are on to them.

Designer drugs help them avoid detection by using substances that aren't monitored.
It's akin to having a recipe for spaghetti but buying ketchup instead of tomato sauce:
you get something that looks close, but in reality isn't. Maybe catastrophically so.

That brings us to MDMA and PMA. "Ecstasy" is the street name of methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. As its name implies, it's a variant of amphetamine, but technically it's not a designer drug. First synthesized early in the last century, MDMA was patented by Merck in 1914, long before the club and rave scene. Common street names include "e," "XTC," "Adam," "STP," "X," "clarity," and "lover's speed." Paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMA) is a designer-drug variant of MDMA--or at least an attempt at it. First synthesized in the 70's, it never became popular as a recreational drug for two reasons: low amusement value and high toxicity.

MDMA's documented effects include feelings of intimacy, a state of relaxation and euphoria, and rushes of exhilaration, as well as enhanced physical sensation. PMA produces somewhat similar effects at low doses--an increase in energy, minor visual hallucinations, and a mild euphoric state. At slightly higher doses, however, PMA suddenly increases the heart rate, blood pressure, and (aha!) body temperature. In one documented case, an individual had a recorded body temperature of 115 degrees F.

After death, a human body cools at the rate of roughly one-and-a-half degrees per hour, a process known as algor mortis. (Factors like ambient temperature, clothing, etc., affect the cooling rate.) After four hours, a body at 115 degrees could have cooled down to 109 degrees. That's close enough to the temperature reported in news accounts to make it unlikely somebody just made this up. A notable difference between MDMA and PMA is that PMA takes about an hour to have a noticeable effect while MDMA takes about fifteen minutes. It's believed that people overdose on PMA because they think it's MDMA. After fifteen minutes with no results they take another "hit," thinking the first one was no good. After another fifteen minutes passes and still nothing, they pop yet another and before you know it, the morgue has another resident.

The six deaths in the Orlando area really happened but the death toll doesn't start or stop there. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, PMA-related deaths in the U.S. go back as far as 1973. That same year nine people died in Canada from PMA ingestion. The next known deaths occurred over twenty years later, when PMA claimed ten more lives. Just recently, three more people died in the Chicago area. There are easier ways to raise your body temperature. Haven't these guys ever heard of a Jacuzzi?

The author, Arthur Young (Hawk), graduated with a B.S. in pre-medical sciences in 1991, after which he went to work for the Acadiana Criminalistics Laboratory as a forensic biology specialist. He would like to extend his appreciation to Ms. Laurette Rapp and Mr. Kevin Ardoin, both of the chemistry section, for their assistance in writing this article.

DIRECT CITATIONS:

Del Cason, T.A., "A Re-examination of the Mono-methoxy Positional Ring Isomers of
Amphetamine, Methamphetamine, and Phenyl-2-propanone" (a paper presented at the
international CLIC meeting in Sydney, Australia, October, 2000).
West's Louisiana Statutory Criminal Law and Procedure, 1994. West Publishing
Company, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Website reference: http://www.dancesafe.org
Website reference: ~ltg/pma.htm"http://ramindy.sghms.ac.uk/~ltg/pma.htm
"Drugs 2001," Playboy, January 2001, pp. 153-158.
Cloud, John, "Ecstasy: Happiness Is A Pill?" Time, June 5, 2000, pp. 63-68.

CITATIONS LISTED IN DIRECT CITATIONS:

James, R.A., Dinan, A., "Hyperpyrexia Associated with Fatal Paramethoxyamphetamine (PMA) Abuse," Medicine, Science and the Law, 38(1):83-85 (1998).
Lora-Tamayo, C., Tena, T., Rodriguez, A., "Amphetamine Derivative Related Deaths"
[in Spain], Forensic Science International, 85(2):149-157 (1997).
Felgate, H.E., Felgate, P.D., James, R.A., Sims, D.N., Vozzo, D.C., "Recent
Paramethoxyamphetamine Deaths," Journal of Analytical Toxicology, 22(2):169-72 (1998).
Byard, R.W., Gilbert, J., James, R., Lokan, R.J., "Amphetamine Derivative Fatalities in South Australia: Is 'Ecstasy' the culprit?" American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 19(3):261-265 (1998).
Coen, Jeff, "Overdoses Push Police to Spread Word on Ecstasy Lookalike Drugs,"
Chicago Tribune, May 19, 2000.
--SDSTAFF Hawk http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdesignerdrug.html



Firehawk1
GreenlightEr

It was really interesting reading up to this point:
"A notable difference between MDMA and PMA is that PMA takes about an hour to have a noticeable effect while MDMA takes about fifteen minutes. It's believed that people overdose on PMA because they think it's MDMA. After fifteen minutes with no results they take another "hit," thinking the first one was no good. After another fifteen minutes passes and still nothing, they pop yet another and before you know it, the morgue has another resident."
I assume he's quoting the time after the dose is taken orally to feel the effects. It sure takes me longer than 15 minutes to feel anything after I drop a pill. I'd say at the minumum 30 min, sometimes an hour or so. Am I just seriously confused here or what???


johnboy
AdministratEr

everyone is different. with some people it can take as little as 15 minutes for the effects of MDMA to be felt, it also may take as long as an hour with other people. with PMA it generally takes a lot longer. few people will feel the effects before at least an hour.  say you are one of those people that usually take 30 minutes to come on. you swallow a pill that you think is MDMA, but is actually PMA (because you are an idiot and havent tested it). you wait half an hour, think "damn it must be weak, i'll take another... and another" and after 3 or 4 pills you are dead. this is the same if your usual come up time is 15 minutes, or 5. you are making a decision based on a false assumption, ie that you are ingesting MDMA. if you decide to take multiple pills on such a false assumption you are risking death.

Remove the assumption part by testing your pills. that way you can make a better decision on what to take, and when. this is the lesson to be learnt from this page. always remember that everyone is different in their response to drugs, and although for you 15 minutes may seem like a very short time, for others it is just right. always err on the side of caution. always remember that almost everyone who has died from PMA has done so because they have taken multiple pills in a short period of time. many of them have also taken other pills and drugs. the best way to stay safe is to stick to one sort of pill, and don't take more than one. if you do choose to cane it, and swallow everything offered to you in a night... well... buy the ticket, take the ride, and on your head be it...

Actual link http://www.bluelight.nu/ubb/Forum6/HTML/006551.html?reload=2