Methadone ==> Dipipanone?

[SpecialGuy69]

the structural similarities between Methadone and Dipipanone are well known, but I've never seen a Dipipanone synth using Methadone as a precursor. I've been wondering why that is, and the only explanations I can think of are:
-Dipipanone is just too obsure to have a lot of attention from underground chemists
-It's isomer prohibitive, like going from OTC l-methamphetamine to d-methamphetamine
-its cost/effort prohibitive to use methadone as a precursor- like how its easier to use other precursors besides dxm to make levomethorphan
-its just not worth changing methadone into Dipipanone, any gains in potency/rush are negated by low yields
-nobody has thought of this before (hopefully this is it!)

So, as you can see, all you have to do is complete the carbon ring of methadone, and flip around the ketone group. See below:

Methadone:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Methadone.svg/119px-Methadone.svg.png
Dipipanone:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b2/Dipipanone1.png/120px-Dipipanone1.png

So, am I correct (I'm comparing them side-by-side for the first time as I write this and I'm worried about these being isomers and not as alike as I thought)

Whats up? Possible? Cause I and lots of other people have plenty of methadone, would be pretty awesome if they could turn it into something much more awesome, like this.

Also- anyone tried dipipanone? is it as great as people (on erowid and wiki- my only sources of experience reports right now) say?

[robojunkie]

Well off hand I'm not certain of the potency involved in this trade off, but assuming its a good one, it would be possible, via methyl iodide (so called "exhaustive methylation") which would put three methyls on the N, giving methadone methyl iodide, which is all set up for either Hoffman-like eliminantion (double bond between the N carbon and the one before) or better yet, Sn2 conditions with an excess of piperidine, which would displace the nitrogen cation to give trimethylamine, a near gas, which could be easily lost in the reaction if heated, driving the equilibrium all the the way to completion, so it wouldn't be that hard, and methadone in america is a mix of the R/S or d/l or (+/-) isomers so you'd get both. However, this reaction would likely give an enamine of piperidine, the way one is formed in the PCP synth, although Sn2 conditions are less likely to promote this (acetone/DMSO/etc and carbonate or other weak base) than if one tried Sn1 in ethanol and had the cation intermediate, though this would also be effective due to the charged leaving group, the secondary cation being too far from the tertiary carbon, though this is by no means guaranteed cause you may get a hydride transfer (move the cation one C closer to the tert-C, at which point you'd like get a near instantaneous migration of one of the terminal methyl groups where the cation was, so now the new one is tertiary, next to the quartenary C, and also leaving the center the N needs to be without a necessary carbon. You'd also nearly certainly get imine or enamine formation (this is like ketone to enol except with an oxygen instead of nitrogen) at the 3 ketone position.

Nonetheless, I think it could be done, any enamines/imines are easily hydrolyzed in acidic water back to the ketone, the Sn2 would be a very good bet with the piperine via the methyl iodide adduct, and should all else fail, instead of methylation/substitution one could probably oxidize it to a Mannich base and react it with a large excess of piperidine, generating a large excess of the piperidine enamine, which could easily be reduced to the cyclic amine with a typical metal hydride, but this is complicated with two additional steps, making the ketal first with ethylene glycol and acid catalyst, and removing it at the end, so as to avoid reduction here.

I'd have to look up the potency data to really see if this would be worthwhile for anyone, as well as seeing if its been done. BTW, the classical methadone synthesis methadology would make preparing this derivative more difficult due to the use of diphenylacetonitrile anion with the quaternary aziridine (3 membered ring with a nitrogen and two C's, one with a methyl and the N with two methyls, so you'd need this but with the N having the cylclic "spiro" compound with a piperidino/aziridine spiro cation, which I imagine would be as difficult to prepare as it is to say). Sn2 elimination of trimethylamine seems to be the most likely route from done.

[Papa Verine]

You might as well have been typing in Arabic. This is way over my head. But Robojunkie, I hope you're putting all your knowledge to good use somehow, somewhere...

[underide]

I've never tried dipipanone but i have used a considerable amount of Palfium (dipipanone's close relative) before it went off the market about 4-5 years ago.

I think Palfium (dextromoramide) was on a par with heroin in terms of euphoria, especially injected. Probably a little unexpected because it's also chemically related to methadone although it's NOTHING like 'done in effects. Palf has pretty short half life (4-5 hours )
It seems to be highly unstable in terms of unpredictability. Good number of unexplained OD's over here from people who had a considerable tolerance and only used around equipotent amount of it.
Those pills were extremely fun while they lasted though,
I imagine dipipanone is quite similar to Palfium

[nick]

Memories.

Yeah,I've done a fair bit of dipipanone.It's available in England as Diconal and it's the best pharm hit out there.I'm fond of palfium,but diconal is a better deal.

Hell,I'd kill for some diconal right about now.....or any other time.

[Levity]

I consider myself pretty bright, but I'm with Papa V on this one when I say, "Wha?"