Methamphetamine

Methamphetamine has been a drug which has continually plagued mankind over the 120 years of its existence. Meth's cousin, amphetamine, was first synthesized in 1887 in Germany by Lazar Edeleanu, a Romanian chemist. At first, amphetamine was considered a rather useless chemical byproduct of ephedrine. Amphetamine did not really come into its own until the 1920s. It came to be regarded as a miracle drug with the potential to cure a wide variety of medical conditions. Commercially marketed as Benzedrine, it was mainly intended to clear nasal congestion. Soon, the drug was used by otherwise healthy people simply for its intense high. Amphetamines were also widely used in WW2 as a means of reinvigorating fatigued soldiers. The combination of widespread military use and the voluminous amounts of the drug which became military surplus after the war led to a boom in amphetamine abuse.

All of this was a precursor to methamphetamine; amphetamine heralded the way for its more lethal and somewhat newer relative. Actually, methamphetamine was quite old itself. The crystalline chemical, easily dissolvable in water, had been first created in Japan in 1919. Much easier to make and much more potent, meth tablets came into widespread use during the 50s and started to supplant amphetamines in habitual drug users. During the 60s, injectable methamphetamine took the abuse of the drug to new heights. Such widespread proliferation of the drug worried the government, which included it in the 1970 Controlled Substances act. Methamphetamine was now illegal.

The production of methamphetamine is both very profitable and very dangerous. The price has been devaluated to "only" $3000/ pound due to the increased output of illegal laboratories, but still the allure of easy money has proved too much for many people. The most common way is through the "Red, White, and Blue" process involving phosphorous, pseudoephedrine, and iodine, respectively. These chemicals are then mixed in a poisonous stew which creates hydroiodic acid, which undergoes more processing to become methamphetamine. This form of production is very popular because these chemicals are easily available either in household products or in over the counter cold medicine. Nonetheless, the seeming simplicity of manufacture is tinged with lethality as phosphine gas, a product of the phosphorous ingredient, is exceedingly toxic and flammable.

There is, however, a popular alternative, no less dangerous, process called Birch Reduction. It is an improvised modification of a process devise by Arthur Birch, a renowned Australian chemist. The modifications include the substitution of lithium, procured from batteries, for much rarer metallic sodium. The lithium is then combined with liquid anhydrous ammonia to create unrefined methamphetamine. The risk factor is enormous; both of the compounds used are extremely reactive with one another. Thus, it comes down to which kind of death the producers prefer more: a fiery explosion or painless asphyxiation with a side dish of incineration, besides the more mundane economic factors which influence what method is used.

Legally, methamphetamine is used to combat