• TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz
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      9 hours ago

      Walter White here. Organic chemistry can turn pretty much any molecule into a related molecule if you have enough time and patience. You want to purchase a precursor that’s nearly the same as your desired product but also one that takes the fewest reactions to get there. I don’t know how many reactions you would need to turn this into this but it’s definitely possible.

    • dickalan@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Historical myth: The rumor started in the 1990s–2000s on drug forums (and later persisted on places like Reddit) because people noticed the close structural relationship and assumed “just swap the side chain.” In reality, pharmaceutical companies start from opium-derived precursors (thebaine → oxycodone → etc.) or full total synthesis — they never use naloxone as a starting material to make oxymorphone.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Well of course pharmaceutical companies don’t, they can get cheaper base materials for opioids like the thebaine you mentioned. It was just someone proving it could be done and showing that it could be a potential concern one day. Right now it’s a million times easier to get and cook fentanyl with precursors, so no one would bother with this synthesis. It’s not like consumer nalaxone is cheap for the amount you get.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        9 hours ago

        And for the last 80 years, pharma has been making versions of opioids that are “less addictive”, and MDs fall for it every time like rubes.

  • ameancow@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I almost wrote out a joking idea about mandatory injections of live, healthy viral cultures that all children are required to get for “natural, effective immune system development” but I didn’t want to give the fuckers the idea.