Ever been in love? You’ll know the rush. That’s chemistry at work. Our brain produces molecules such as 2-phenylethylamine, the mood enhancer also found in chocolate. But eating chocolate won’t make you fall in love – enzymes in your liver break it down before it gets to the brain. Chemistry does explain why certain drugs produce similar mood-enhancing effects and also why they can become a problem.
With a structure closely related to phenylethylamine, pure crystalline methamphetamine was first made in 1919 and its cousin, amphetamine, in 1887. Smith, Kline and French marketed a nasal inhaler containing amphetamine (“Benzedrine”) for nasal congestion in 1932; people soon found that it rapidly released stimulating neurotransmitter molecules such as dopamine.
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