How Much Meth Does Your State Cook? These Maps Show the Drug’s Foothold in America
The most striking thing about the methamphetamine crisis in America can be seen by looking at a single map.
Meth isn’t a big city problem.
Most drugs have been associated with urban life — acid in San Francisco, Prohibition in Chicago, cocaine in the New York nightclubs of the 80s. But meth is a completely different animal: It’s rural, consumed not by monied elite on the East and West Coasts, but by white working-class Americans in the Mid and Southwest.
Meth is a blue collar drug, and you can make it at home. Over the years, its manufacture has been more refined, to the point where it can now be cooked in a bathtub or basement, or a self-made lab.
Methamphetamine is a synthetic chemical, unlike marijuana, which grows naturally. The person making the meth takes ingredients from common cold pills (hence the new restrictions on buying medicines that contain pseudoephedrine). The initial synthesis process is actually very easy, according to Breaking Bad’s chemistry adviser, Dr. Donna Nelson. Making a pure and high quality product is the hard part, she said.
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