Re:CVS ditches common cold meds after FDA advisers say they'...
by culi on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @07:41PM
(#38007236)
A fun fact is that both Ephedrine and PE are naturally derived from the Ephedra plant. During WW1 and WW2 there was a lot of research into how we can make these chemicals more potent and that's basically how we ended up with meth. Many soldiers came home after WW2 still addicted to meth and for a few years you could actually buy meth at your local drugstore as an OTC.
Not an ingredient -- a precursor. Methamphetamine, pseudoephedrine and and phenylephrine are very closely related:
https://cen.acs.org/content/dam/cen/83/13/8313govpol1imgs.gi...
To convert pseudoephedrine to meth you have to remove a hydroxyl (-OH) group in a way that leaves the resulting molecule in a specific isomer. Doing this at high yield is challenging, but it turns out that if you're willing to live with lots of horrible impurities, you can do it in a cola bottle.