Research Chemical Users, Ever Heard of MPPP?

Apparently it's a pretty good time and has effects similar to morphine. MPPP (desmethylprodine) was developed in the 1940s and never marketed nor tested in humans, and I believe that it's still considered a research chemical. I certainly enjoy opioids, but the most interesting thing about MPPP isn't its effects. It's not even MPPP itself that's most interesting, but an impurity commonly created during synthesis of MPPP. This impurity is called MPTP.

MTPT is a compound that was discovered about a decade after a sloppy MPPP synthesis caused a guy named Barry Knudston, a 23 year old opioid addict and graduate student of chemistry, to develop advanced Parkinson's symptoms overnight. Knudston had found a research paper on MPPP in his university library and had been making and using it successfully for months before the fateful sloppy synthesis. Parkinson's doesn't appear overnight, and certainly not in otherwise healthy 23 year old young men. Knudston's case was of great interest to the medical community, but a cocaine overdose took his life before a cause could be attributed to his symptoms.

Knudston's case was an interesting footnote until the early 1980s when heroin addicts began showing up to California emergency rooms literally frozen in place, unable to move a muscle. It turns out that someone else, another underground chemist, had discovered the same paper Knudston had, and began synthesizing MPPP and marketing it to addicts. This chemist made the same mistake Knudston did and produced MPTP during the synthesis. This sloppy synthesis caused his customers to immediately develop irreversible symptoms of advanced Parkinson's disease. These addicts, dubbed "the Frozen Addicts," were quite literally frozen in place, unable to move without psychosis-inducing medication, for the rest of their lives.

Ironically, the discovery of MPTP was a enormous breakthrough in Parkinson's research, as it can be used to induce Parkinson's in laboratory animals. It's a fascinating story. If you're interested in learning a little more about it, I highly recommend the 1986 NOVA episode "The Case of the Frozen Addicts," linked below.

http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_474CF2C8A20B4173988486AC4C605A3C

Anyway, be careful if you use research chemicals, and at the very least be sure to invest in a reagent test kit. The next MPTP is out there, yet to be discovered. While a reagent test kit will not protect you in every case, it'll at least give you a better idea of what you're putting into your body. Be safe guys.


Comments


[5 Points] kaif_veenis:

Ok and what was the point of this thread? Why is it on this sub? Why not on r/drugs or r/researchchemicals?


[3 Points] Joskins:

Yeah we knew about that. You been drinking at the Lost Horse a lot lately?


[3 Points] None:

[deleted]


[3 Points] None:

The next MPTP is out there

This, a lot of people feel fairly safe using the DNM's compared to buying off the street, but one day this ugly head is going to surface in a fearsome manner. Woe, that day, to those users.


[1 Points] elfer90:

https://youtu.be/ZhwMOQcZb7Y


[1 Points] ksosk:

Watch out for opioids with similar structures to MPTP or MPPP, like deschloroloperamide or any esters of loperamide for example. Those would be the next "big" thing, seeing as their syntheses are quite simple. Multiple users report no current ill effects from either, though loperamide has shown to be neurotoxic (in pigs?) when crossing the BBB. I believe they used HPBCD to keep the BBB open, but I'm not sure if it would be pumped back out by the P-glycoprotein pump (without the use of a Pgp inhibitor).


[1 Points] iresearch-chemicals:

http://iresearch-chemicals.com