I agree with Placebo. I am saying in shorthand (remember shorthand?) what he said in a few more words. He is correct. High temperature doesn't make meth tweaky. Meth is meth. There isn't a thing about the meth molecule that makes it tweaky. If its meth, its meth. And pure meth isn't tweaky. You can clean most of the tweak out of street meth with multiple recrystallizations, at the expense of the weight of tweaker substances in the meth.
The real "tweaky" crank I have had has been associated with hot cooks and less-than-stellar post-reaction workups. I agree the tweak comes from by-products for the most part, and in part from intermediates, and not from the meth itself. Meth is meth. The chemcials that make crank tweaky are not meth, they are something else. Its these
other things in the mix that make you go nuts, induce paranoia, make you hear the folks outside the third floor window, and see the DEA surveillance team in the trees. (I remember the night I was certain Santa Anna and the entire Mexican Army was hiding in a field behind my lab, waiting for dawn to attack.)
High reaction temperatures help create the by products that taint meth and make it crank, or make it tweaker dope. They can combine with meth to make a product that keeps you up but gives you tweaker's paranoia and insanity.
I am less prone to concur with Placebo that less-than-clean feedstock is the source of the problem. I am not saying that it
cannot be a contributing factor, but from experience I know that even with
very clean feedstock, hot cooks (particularly the dry, hot, and fast cooks) will yield a product full of tweaker characteristics. I've had it happen with feedstock from a very clean pill source, and with feedstock pulled from a two-inactive pill formulated to be pulled pulled with MeOH alone which was recrystallized twice after an alcohol extraction. I've had it happen with feedstock extracted from the same pills by an a/b, which also was recrystallized before reacting it. I recognize that less than pure pseudo may contribute to the byproduct formation in the meth reaction; I merely emphasize that heat, particularly in conjunction with a drier type rection, is a primary contributor to the tweak often found with methamphetamine.
I agree completely with Placebo's comment, "No matter how you cook it, clean, dirty, hot, cold, fast, slow, birch, I/RP, I/hypo or I/H3PO3. If the end product is isolated and cleaned properly, it will all be as good as each other although yields will vary."
I will note some of the by products have virtually the same solubilities as meth, and are difficult for the clandestine cook to isolate and remove. You can clean most of them out by simple recrystallization techniques... and the number of tweakers I have known that prefer their meth straight from the evap dish before recrystallization confirms the fact that you can separate most of tweaky by products from the real meth post reaction. I remain of the opinion that the best route to really clean meth is to avoid making the byproducts in the first place, and the best way to do that in an rP reaction is with a long wet reflux at a reasonable temperature.
Damn. I agree with Placebo again. I must be getting old, or something like that.
And I recently discovered the newest themometer I had at my disposal neatly disposed in two pieces on the floor. How it got there is a mystery to me. Must be the curse acting up again.