Methamphetamine synthesis: The major problem with methedrine synthesis is procuring the precursors. Phenyl-2-propanone is the most direct precursor to my knowledge and is (unfortunately?) at Schedule III controlled substance. It has no pharmacological activity and yet the DEA saw fit to regulate it around 1975. The first synthesis I will give uses this in as a starting material. Actually it is still possible to find this substance tucked away in store rooms in many universities that presumably purchased the compound before it was controlled. A friend of mine came across 500 mls made by Eastman Kodak in the stock room at Princeton. I purchased 100 mls when I lived in England many years ago and did my first run using it. The reaction can be completed in about 6 hours giving about 60% yield; I am a biologist, not a chemist so someone who knew what they were doing could probably improve on that. Reagents: 1-phenyl-2-propanone 20 gm EtOH 100 ml Methylamine 40% in water 100 mls Aluminum foil 20 gm Mercury II Chloride 150 mg Reflux above mixture with stirring for two hours in 500 ml round bottom flask. Concentrate rxn mix under reduced pressure at room temp. Pour on to ice cold KOH sol'n (60 gm in about 200 mls water). At this step, big problems can happen. A great deal of heat is liberated. Add very *slowly* and keep in an ice bath. Heat will degrade your product in to god knows what and just might end up on the ceiling, if you are not careful.) Extract solution w/ 125 x 3 mls ethyl ether. Recover organic layer. Extract ether with 3N HCl 25 x 3 mls. Add 30 mls 6 N NaOH solution (cold) to acid solution, add more if solution is not very basic. Extract basic solution with 25 x 3 mls of ether. Dry over anhydrous sodium sulfate, filter. Rotovap. off ether (distill under reduced pressure if you want to get fancy but it is not absolutely necessary) and redissolve in anhydrous ether, 100-200 mls. Bubble dry HCl gas (made my dropping conc. HCl onto conc. Sulfuric acid) through mixture and methedrine HCl should ppt. as white fluffy powder. Filter off meth and repeat for second and third crop. Keep the first for yourself and sell the rest. The subsequent crops can be pink or purplish and are still effective pharmacologically but they are not very clean. I hope this was what you are after. If it is, drop me another line and I will give you the synthesis for the phenyl-2-propanone. That synthesis is much nastier, more dangerous and takes a lot more expertise. Now the pitch: Methedrine is a heinous chemical. I can handle most drugs, except meth. I first did this synthesis for kicks. It quickly became a lot more than that. I started mainlining it and things got really out of hand. I would up in the emergency room twice, the psych ward once, got kicked out of Johns Hopkins University lost my job at NIDA and very nearly killed myself and a bunch of other people. Actually, if you want more information, I would much rather talk about that-- if only to discourage.... well, maybe just to warn people to be *very* careful when dabbling in CNS stimulants. Speed may not kill but it can fuck you up very bad.