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       Dextroamphetamine from catalytic hydrogenation of L-phenylalanine
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IMPORTANT NOTE: There has been quite some discussions about the validity of this
                method, as there are absolutely no references out there to back
                up this statement that a carboxylic acid can be directly reduced 
                to a methyl using catalytic hydrogenation. Be aware of this fact. 

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500g of L-phenylalanine was purchased for (this shit has got to be cheaper
elsewhere, email rcdorks@yahoo.com if you have any info) $260. Anhydrous Ethanol
and Glacial Acetic Acid were also purchased.

Place the following in your hydrogenator du jour;
¥L-Phenylalanine 500g
¥1000ml EtOH
¥500ml of Glacial Acetic Acid
¥50g of Pt/C 5%

(2 hour catalyst prereduction)

Now you may ask, "KrZ, why Pt/C???". Well KrZ knew that this reduction was gonna
take some time, we had to add 3 hydrogens to that carboxylic acid to get the
goodies. Also, Pt/C really doesn't enjoy reducing your benzene ring as much as
Pd/C does, however, Pd/C MIGHT be faster at the reduction and therefore we'd
have a shorter reduction period and lowered or equal ring reduction. Also there
is the possibility of catalyst poisoning... That's up to you to find out. Either
way, I was mildly suprised that it reduced the alcohol as well as it did, I've
always read it was weaker for alcohol reductions, but then agian for other types
of reductions they said it had the exact same activity! Krzy stuff...

Anyways, this mix here had the living piss stirred out of it for a good 22 hours
at 6 atmospheres (~90psi) of H2. When this was done it was filtered 2x through
filter paper to get that expensive catalyst back. Then once through celite to
remove some of that charcoal appearance. Now what happened was everything was
placed in a 4L beaker and 1500ml of 35% NaOH was added dropwise. The whole mess
was then vigorously (hard shaken') extracted with 4x 200ml of DCM, and the
emulsions were allowed to settle (this took some time, about an hour each, and
filering in between did help and some crystals were collected in the filter
after basifiction, NOT WHAT YOU WANT). Anyways, the DCM extracts were dried over
Na2SO4 for 30minutes. Then filtered and the DCM was vacuum distilled, after the
solvent there was a funky oily prerun that was more clear in color than the
amphetamine base and boiled lower. Anyways, the entire top fraction was
amphetamine and there was a little bit of remainder in the flask that was not
attempted to collect. The free base collected was then weighed and came out to
198g in weight (about a 48% yield). The base was disolved in IPA (600ml) and a
0.5 molar equivalent (0.75 mols) of 98% H2SO4 was dripped in (75g), immediate
(but slow) crystal formation commenced and the beaker was placed in the fridge
overnight with a watch glass on top to collect the final 265g of D-Amphetamine
Sulfate.

The dope thing about being able to get L-phenylalanine in pure form (as you can
all do if you put your mind to it, ask around  ) is that you get pure
D-Amphetamine back. And if you methylate this with exactly one equivalent of
paraformaldehyde in GAA/EtOH again you can get straight D-methamphetamine! This
is the notorious shit right here, highly dangerous, may cause neural explosion
attempts to complete far to many tasks at once. Don't blame me if your body
spontaneously combusts. More details on the methylation play-by-play to come...
