Chapter Two — Secrets

The Leuckardt-Wallach Reaction: An Overview
A good way to produce batches of up to Y, pound in size is by the Leuckart-Wallach reaction. Back
when I was a “producer,” this was the method I liked to use, so it has a strong sentimental attachment to
me. It tends to be a touchy reaction that i f not done correctly will instead give you a bunch of useless red
tar. I still love it nonetheless, as it brings back fond memories. Other methods for converting
phenyl acetone to meth are covered in Chapters I I and 1 2.
A variation on the standard Leuckart procedure is very popular in Europe, and is used to make
benzedrine from phenylacetone reliably. Their batch sizes using this European variation can work up to
over a pound. We’ll talk more about this European variation later. A Russian Advance which uses nickel
in the mixture as catalyst is also worth checking out, as is aluminum salts in the reaction mixture.
The Leuckart-Wallach reaction involves reacting a ketone with two molecules of a formamide to
produce the formyl derivative of an amine, which is then hydrolyzed with hydrochloric acid to produce
the desired amine. In this case, the reaction is shown in the diagram below.
There are several reviews of this reaction in the scientific literature, the best of them by Crossley and
Moore in the Journal of Organic Chemistry (I 949}.
The conditions which favor the production of high yields of fine-quality products are as follows. There
should be a small amount of formic acid in the reaction mixture, because it acts as a catalyst. It should be
butTered by the presence of some free methylamine, to prevent the pH of the reaction mixture from
falling too low (becoming too acidic). The presence of water i n the reaction mixture is to be avoided at
all costs, because this really messes up the reaction. It prevents the phenylacetone from dissolving in the
N-methylformamide, leading to low yields of purple-colored crystal. The recipe I give in a later chapter
for making N-methylformamide makes a product which is perfect for this reaction.
It is also important that the reaction be done at the lowest temperature at which it will proceed
smoothly, and that the heating be continued for as long as the reaction is still going. In this way nearly all
the phenylacetone is converted to methamphetamine.

There is one stumbling block in the path of underground chemists: in 1 979, the DEA made
phenyl acetone illegal to purchase or possess. N-methylformamide i s also risky to obtain, although it is
not i llegal and is used in industries as a solvent.
However, they are both easy to make. And, because of these restrictions, the street price of
methamphetamine has gone above $ 1 00 per gram, while it costs only $ 1 or $2 per gram to make.