Would some one please explain to me why croweacin (2-methoxy-3,4-methylenedioxy-allylbenzene) cannot be used as a precursor to MMDA-3a. What would be the product of converting the croweacin into an amphetamine.
This is what shulgin says:
However, there are two #3's (the methoxy and the methylenedioxy can go onto the three oxygen atoms in a row in two different ways, whereas the three methoxys can go on in just one way) and there can be no #6 (since a methylenedioxy must, perforce, have two oxygens that are adjacent, and there are none to be so found in the 2,4,6-orientation of TMA-6). So, with two possible MMDA-3's it becomes reasonable, in fact essential, to name one of them "a" and the other "b". The "a" orientation occurs in nature as the essential oil croweacin, or 1-allyl-2-methoxy-3,4-methylenedioxybenzene. It thus can allow MMDA-3a to be classified as an Essential Amphetamine, since it can arise, in principle, by amination in the liver in vivo. But in the laboratory, croweacin is certainly not a practical starting material in this synthesis.