4-Метилтиоамфетамин: Тарихы, Зерттеулер және Қауіптері

Chemical compound

4 Methylthioamphetamine (4 MTA) is a designer drug of the substituted amphetamine class developed in the 1990s by a team led by David E. Nichols, an American pharmacologist and medical chemist, at Purdue University. It acts as a non neurotoxic highly selective serotonin releasing agent (SSRA) in animals. 4 MTA is the methylthio derivative of amphetamine.

In 1997, the Forensic Science Laboratory of the Netherlands received reports of three unrelated drug deaths. The substance in question was a new ring substituted amphetamine derivative. In 1998 two additional cases of this still unknown compound were added to the list, and the incidents were reported to the IPSC (Institut de Police Scientifique et de Criminologie, University of Lausanne, Switzerland). In both the Netherlands and Switzerland, the unknown compound was encountered in the hydrochloride salt form, and pictures of the different tablets were compared to each other. After an investigation, it appeared that in other European countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany the derivative was also encountered. The new drug even got as far as Australia. After analytical research, the compound was identified as 4 methylthioamphetamine (4 MTA). This was an already known compound originally only intended for pharmacological studies on animals. The studies of 4 MTA by David Nichols were then linked to the tablets found in all the different countries.

4 MTA was developed by the research team led by David Nichols Nichols intentions were to discover how MDMA worked in the brain to eventually find a positive use for it in psychotherapy. Nichols studied thereby molecules with similar structure, including 4 MTA. Between 1992 and 1997 they published three papers on the effects of this drug in rats and the idea that it could potentially be used in the treatment of depression and be a potential replacement for Prozac. Without the knowledge of Nichols and his team, others synthesized the drugs into a tablet. These tablets were known by their street name, 'flatliners'. Nichols' laboratory had published that the rats perceived the effects of 4 MTA to be like those of ecstasy, which was probably the motivation for its production and distribution to humans. 4 MTA was briefly sold in smart shops in the Netherlands, though was soon banned by the Dutch government after serious side effects started to emerge. The Union of Smartshop Owners decided to leave it out of their assortment after they discovered the drug had only been tested on rats. It was also briefly sold on the black market as MDMA during the late 1990s, mainly in the US, but proved unpopular due to its high risk of severe side effects (several deaths were reported) and relative lack of positive euphoria.

In a procedure analogous to the production of other amphetamines, 4 MTA has been prepared from 4 (methylthio)phenylacetone by the Leuckart reaction and the reaction byproducts have been characterized.