I just read about some chemistry reactions and came across the beckmann rearangement which is the conversion of oximes to amides:
It seems to me that if you took alpha-methylhydrocinnamaldehyd and made a oxime out of it and ran it through this reaction you would get N-formylamphetamine, which you could then boil in HCl to get the good stuff. Am I wrong? I my self think that perhaps it wouldn't work with an aldehyde so you would need the corrensponding methyl ketone, in which case you would get N-acylamphetamine which is a bit harder to hydrolize.
Another question, how do you know which side the N moves to? If it moved to the "wrong" side you would get something totaly useless
.
Has anyone got any experimential procedures for a beckmann rearangement?