In more recent articles about it it seems to be a variation of alpha-PVP (flakka), something called alpha-PHP that is outside of any schedule for drugs. Basically a designer cathinone that is (or was) still legal.
He wasn't totally certain exactly what he'd made, afaik; his neighbor troubles coincided with efforts to get a real chemist to assist him in identifying what he was producing and stabilizing his method.
I smoked alpha pvp in a transit home in Saint Petersburg with some Georgian immigrants thinking it was meth, It made me really really high, and I spent the whole next day crying. I suspect this is a pretty popular drug in Russia.
Unfortunately, yes. I lost friend to it ("alpha"). He is technically alive, but with completely ruined physics.
I've thought, that only opiates could be so destructive, oh, man, I was wrong :-(
