This is otherwise known as my sole contribution to LT:

Normal ritalin contains two isomers, a D and an L one, like meth. The d is for dank, the l is for Lot (A biblical man who was surrounded by homosexuals in Soddom and Gamorrah and had his city burned to the ground for all the anal sex between Stupid Noob and Meta) Focalin contains just the D. It is technically just twice as strong as ritalin, but people on the internet treat it like gold. They claim "its nearly as good as cocaine" even though it is legitimently only twice as strong as ritalin. The best argument they have is that the L isomer makes ritalin uncomfortable on high doses. That isn't a good arguement, and doesn't convinse me. I've never came accross Focalin, but if I ever have ritalin, as well as dibenzoyl-D-tartaric acid, I'm down.

Reacting the racemic ritalin with dibenzoyl-D-tartaric acid leaves Focalin inside of a dibenzoyl-D-tartaric acid salt. Basifying this removes the focain, converting to a salt and then rextalizing hooks up the potency. Snorting it gets you high. If you visit Totse.com, expect to get placebowned.

Source:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6100401.html

Thanks for that! Saved for some latter reading!

Clearly I'm not gonna bother reading that, cos patents are dull as fuck at the best of times when you actually need the information buried inside them - I have to read enough of them already...

But... Why use dibenzoyl-D-tartaric acid rather than any other to make the diastereomeric salt? Do they give a reason? (I'm guessing they wouldn't) Does it actually work batter than other common salts?

Just out of interest...

It has been my experiance that focalin is what I get as the generic to ritalin and as far as potency, can't tell the difference.

unless you snort it there's no great feeling from it. You just can focus more easily, that's all. I have focalin, ritalin and concerta and i've taken higher doses then prescribed when i had lots of studdying, there's no great feeling that goes along with it....

And you can't snort focalin anymore, they put little beads in the capsules so it can't work as being snorted

Ever heard of a mortar and a pestle ;)