Stuff You Should Know - How Meth Works

Episode Date: November 16, 2012

You know how when you do a lot of crystal methamphetamine you get meth mouth, where your teeth decay? Of course you don't! So check out this in-depth look on the most widely-abused hard drug in the world. Even tweakers will learn something new. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey buddy, if you don't mind if I plug my Movember page real quick. Please do. I am growing a moustache this month for Movember for cancer research, specifically male prostate cancer research. That's right. And you can donate to my team, which would be pretty cool because you know, you get a free podcast and that'd be nice to throw a little money toward cancer research.

Chuck's being nice here. Give him some money. He's growing out facial hair to help a charitable organization engage in really important scientific research. That's right. And you can go to mobro.co slash Charles Bryant. And that's my page. Or just go to the Movember site, type in Charles Bryant in the search bar and look for the picture of me. There's only a couple of us out there. Chuck's wearing a red shirt. That's right. Yeah. So what is that again? That's mobro.co slash Charles Bryant. Yes, thank you in advance. Yeah, that's a nice Chuck. All right, let's get to it. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. What up, yo?

Did you say it's an asterisk? What up, yo? What up, yo? I got my fat stacks. What is that? This is my breaking bad tribute. Oh, this is about Matt. I've only, it's how are they chose about? You knew that. Okay. I saw the first couple of episodes. I was like, Hey, that's pretty good. And I don't have time in my life for this right now. Yeah, I didn't either. But I'm marathoning it now. Yeah. And I have gotten through halfway through season four. And there's how many, what did they just, they're on real time now? Oh, they started it. It's not over. I thought there was like a finale. I think it's some in two parts. I think they did the first eight and then they're taking a break and then the last eight of season

five. That's it. Oh, that's the end. I think that if I understand that is the end of the series. Well, why don't you tell everybody what happens at the end? I don't know yet. Well, tell everybody what happens at the end of seasons one, two and three. You know, they cook a lot of math and sell a lot of math and people get killed. Spoiler alert. Yes. And you end up talking like Jesse Pinkman. If you watch the show, if you watch 18 episodes over the course of four days, you end up saying a lot of things like fat stacks and what up, yo? What is a fat stack money? Yeah. Okay. And I would call you the name for female dog because he uses that word about eight times an episode. Really? Yeah. Gosh, the potty mouth on TV today. That's cable.

Yeah. We're cable. We don't say things like that because we're clean boys. You said female dog. Oh my God. I feel like we're on our way to baseball practice. Uh, so yeah, we are talking math, breaking by something only. Have you ever seen the salt and sea? Yeah, boy, that was good. Spun never saw that one, but I know that one's about math. That was okay. Spun was a little tough to watch. It was one of those that it's like, we want to take you inside the mind of a meth user. Yeah. Yeah. American pie too. Porkies. Yeah. Yeah. Jaws too. Yeah. All about math. All of them about math, which is surprising because a lot of those aren't. But if you wanted to know everything there is to

know about meth without using it, you have turned to the right place because this episode covers meth pretty hard. Yeah. And that's my recommended version of getting to know about meth. Yeah. It's to not use it ever. And just to listen to us talk about how awful it is. But you're still going to feel pretty freezy by the end of this episode, you know, because my boy Tom Sheave, yeah, good article, the female dog, uh, what he, uh, he wrote a great article on meth. I asked him once, I was like, why are some of your favorite articles? Cause I was looking for ones to do episodes. He's like meth. He's like, it was really good. And then he launched into this discussion about the history of it, which is pretty fascinating. Awesome. So let's talk about meth.

If you do a little bit of meth, how long will you be high for, Chuck? Well, it depends what you call a little bit, but it could be anywhere from three to six hours to 24 hours. Yeah. Or if you keep using it, you could be up for days. Yeah. Which is apparently something that people like to do. They don't just take a hit of meth. I've seen hit. There is this frontline, there's a frontline micro site about the meth epidemic. And they kept calling it a hit. I'm like, what is a hit? Oh yeah. They call it the little baggie that you buy on the street. They call it something I'm breaking back. I can't remember. That stacks? No, that's the money. Oh yeah. You make them selling it. Female dog? Nope. That's everyone

on the show. I don't know that. Well, frontline called it a hit, but if you, if you do meth, if frequently you're not going to just, you know, take a hit of meth and then be like, well, that's it for me. Yeah. I'm going to go to work and I'm fine. Don't ever need to do this again. Yeah. You know, you'll be like, oh, a half hour is past. I think I should do maybe a little more and then a little more. And now I'm up for eight days in a row. Yeah. Until my body blacks out and I fall over and get some sleep. Can we talk street names real quick? Sure. Because that's always fun. Meth, crank, speed, chalk, ice, glass, crystal, crystal meth. Tina. Really? Tweak. I lived in Yuma, Arizona, as you know, lots of meth users there. You can tell. Oh,

yeah. You told me that one story. Was it like the washing the car? Yeah. You're like, I'd be going home from, you know, a saloon at two 30 in the morning and there's people out washing their cars under the floodlights. And you're like, no, that's not really funny. I wonder what's going on there or their gardening or something with floodlights on. Anyway, Yuma has got a lot of drugs. I mean, it's like a mile from Mexico. Yeah. And they called it tweak. They call like, it could be tweak, could be the noun for the drug, like get some tweak, a tweak or with someone who did it. Tom sites a state that you eventually as tweaking. Yeah, that's why I took slight issue because in Yuma, they were just called tweakers. It was called tweaking. It's called tweak. Yeah.

Do you want to tweak? It could be a verb or we are tweaking. It's been quite some time since I've tweaked. It's been a week since I've tweaked. Yeah. Yeah. So they used tweak for basically every facet. And I don't know if that was a regional thing or not. Gack. That's another one. Really? It's an ugly word. Crank was the old days. That was like, that's when the motorcycle gang was involved. Yeah. Biker crank. Yeah. Or trucker crank. Yeah. All those days. Yeah. Like we were, you know, in the Hell's Angels. We're taking greenies. Greenies for this speed, like pharmaceutical speed. Yeah. That's what until 2006, baseball players were very famous for taking greenies. Really? Yeah. Big time. Huh. And a lot of athletes actually have been known to abuse

amphetamines because, you know, jacks you up and you win the race. Yeah. You know. Yeah. All right. That's enough for the street names. Okay. Meth happens to be highly addictive and it's highly addictive following the same route that any stimulant addicts you with. I think that was correct ultimately. Yeah. It stimulates your central nervous system to produce dopamine and your brain is flooded with dopamine. So all of a sudden you have hyperactive movement because dopamine controls and regulates movement of your body. Yeah. You feel really, really good. Yeah. Because dopamine is related to feelings of euphoria and a sense of well-being and your emotions may become heightened. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I think so.

The problem is, as with all drugs really, is that you cannot naturally reproduce the sensation. So you do more of the drug and then like with all drugs, your tolerance builds up and you need more of it to reach that sensation that you're striving for. Right. And there you have it, you're addicted to meth. Right. And the downside of that, aside from spending extra money to get to the same place. There's about a million downsides for sure. Right. Is that if you ever do decide to quit meth, your dopamine receptors have shrunk. The number of dopamine receptors in your brain have shrunk. They don't function quite as well. And you are dopamine deficient, which means that when you get off the meth, which is the only thing that's really increasing your dopamine levels

any longer, you're going to encounter sensations of utter hopelessness and depression. Yeah. And that will likely feed back into a vicious cycle where you go back on the meth so that you can not feel depressed or hopeless any longer. So it's very, very tough to quit that cycle of addiction. If you want to know more about addiction, we did a pretty cool. Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah. Episode on addiction itself. But yeah, it's pretty standard stuff. Well, yeah, the good news is your dopamine levels will over time reset to normal. In pretty much all cases, I did see that they, one of these surveys or not surveys, but studies, they found that even a couple of years after ceasing it,

the brain did not recover in some areas after two years of abstinence. So there could be some like long lasting, maybe not permanent, I don't want to say that word, but long lasting effects. Right. If you get your hands on some meth and you're like, I'm going to do this, there are generally four ways that people take meth. The most common is to snort it. Second is to smoke it. Third is to shoot it. And then some people take it orally, which I can only imagine will cause stomach ulcers to sweet. Yeah. Because this is really, really toxic stuff. Yes. At the very least, if you're smoking it, you will get something called meth mouth. Yes. And if you are not around your dinner right now, you can go Google image pictures

of meth mouth. Man is tough to look at. Yeah. If you ever want to never ever do meth, then go look at pictures of that or Google meth before after. Oh, the mug shots. Yeah. Did you see the one that, so it's a public service announcement. This sheriff in Arizona, Oregon, probably Arizona. It was some sheriff's deputy started noticing people coming in that were on meth and realizing that this is like their second or third or fourth time in and he started collecting their mug shots and created this basically like before and after of mug shots of people who do meth and like the results are staggering because it also has the length of time in between the pictures. So sometimes two months, sometimes two and a half years and people will age like 10, 20 years in like a year

or two just from doing meth hardcore. And meth mouth in particular is really like Chuck says, extremely disgusting and hard to look at. I've seen some pictures of some pretty horrible stuff in my lifetime and the math mouth is really tough to look at. Yeah. Your teeth like fall out, crack and fall out. Yeah. First they decay, then they crack, then they fall out and you might have sharp jagged little stumps left with the exposed darkened gums. And they're not quite sure exactly what causes meth mouth, but they think it's a combination of things. One, they think it's the harsh chemicals that the drug is made from. They think that the constriction of the capillaries and the blood vessels going to your mouth makes them wither and die. So then the tissue decays.

And then they think that it also gives you dry mouth. So your saliva isn't present any longer to keep the harsh acids, the digestive acids that are present naturally in your mouth. The saliva is not there to wash it away. So they just grind on your teeth. And then you yourself, while you're tweaking, are grinding your teeth too. So those four things in conjunction basically account for meth mouth, they think. Wow. It's nasty. Oh, it's nasty stuff. It's beyond nasty. Your heart rate is going to really shoot up. You're going to be more alert. You're going to be breathing quicker. You'll be sweating a lot. You're going to be very talkative about everything. Or you're going to go into a room and sit around and rock and think about yourself and your place

in the world. Yeah. You might feel super human or intelligent or empowered. You are none of those, which is the ironic thing. Right. And this one is the none of it's funny. This one is unusual. Funny is the mundane tasks. Yeah. Like you hear reports of like methods who take apart their television and put it back together in the course of a day. Fascinated the whole time. But there's a breaking, this won't spoil anything. There's a breaking bad scene where Jesse's trying to get some tweakers out of a house into the front yard. And he goes and gets a shovel and the guy's like, what are you doing? He's like, I know, I can't remember what he called him. I know methods. Anyway, I know these female dogs. Yeah. And he went and started digging a

hole in the front yard. And one of them just comes out and he's like, what are you doing? He's like, what's it look like? I'm digging this hole, man. I got to find it. And the guy just kind of wanders out looking and then he's like, you mind taking over? And all of a sudden this dude, he's never met before is out there just digging this hole to China. And that's like the mundane task that you can get a method preoccupied with. Right. And then we'll put together that puzzle for two days. Straight. Tom points out that this is that makes us very alluring for somebody who say an assembly line worker, yeah, who has to do repetitive tasks for eight hours at a stretch. And once they do meth, they're suddenly like, wow, this is really fascinating work that I do here. Right. And also

the time just went by lickety split. And now can go do more math. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go party. Yeah. Because that's, you know, that's your workhead stash that you keep your party and stash at home, I would guess. In addition to the mush mouth, one thing you'll see a lot on Breaking Bad and in the photos is these scabby lesions on your face. Yeah. And I wasn't sure what that was. I thought it might be some with the chemicals or the burning. I think it's a little of that too. Well, it's also just scratching, scratching your face, scratching your face, scratching your face until I have a hole in my cheek. Yeah. But I think it starts out with an actual blemish from the chemicals like that was it being excreted through your skin. So nasty. You're probably not going to ever get

really fat if you are addicted to meth. Yeah. Your your appetizers like not there. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of people like the I guess that effect of it if they feel fat, but they don't really care about their teeth, then meth probably seems like a logical alternative. Well, and we'll get into this, but it was speed is what diet bills were for many, many years. Yeah. And eventually, if you stay on the meth, you will eventually freaking lose your mind. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. And you will hear things and see things and experience psychosis and hallucinations and part of that is the drug at work and part of that is beating your body up and being up for days and days. Yeah. Yeah. Eventually, it will get the best of you. There is no rosy outcome. Yeah. If

you're doing meth. What's nuts about meth is that like it is all of Nancy Reagan's fibs and distortions and outright lies about other drugs brought to life. Yeah. Like you really do murder your loved one with a claw hammer because you perceive them to be the devil. Yeah. Like you really do like scald your your three year old niece to death with hot water because you've been up for too many days to know what you're doing. Like you do steal a tank and drive it through downtown San Diego and then are shot to death by the police. Like that stuff happens on meth. No lie. No exaggeration. Yeah. I think I meant to look this up. It seemed like recently I read a story about this lady that broke into Walmart or not broke in but was in Walmart through the

door. Yes. I'm in Walmart. No. And started to try and cook meth in the Walmart. She was so messed up. She got all the ingredients and started the process. I might be wrong, but it's one I remember reading that lately. Well, I think that's one of the problems. One of the big dangers with meth is there's so many so many addicts who know how to make the drug that they're addicted to. Yeah. Like you if you're a junkie you can't just make your own heroin. Like you have to harvest poppies or if you are a cokehead you can't like where you're going to get your cocoa leaves. You know like meth is made from what used to be at least until a couple of years ago readily available ingredients. All right. You know what's just sad? I looked up meth in Walmart and it's happened more than once.

No way. It was like a woman in St. Louis, a man in Ohio like cooking, trying to cook meth inside of a store. That's crazy. While it was open or closed? I think the one-way deal is while it was open. It's probably not a successful plan. Don't mind me. I'm just shopping for tents. And effedrine. Right. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course. Yes. They can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse

our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hi. I'm comedian and parent Ophira Eisenberg. You may recognize my voice from MPR or the Moth. I have a new podcast called Parenting is a Joke. Every episode I talk with a comedian

about their careers and about being a parent. Guests include actress, producer and writer Katherine Reitman. I have a rule that my kids are not allowed to be friends with kids with lame parents. I'm like enjoy them at school. And stand up comedian Chris Gethard. I was so cool like five years ago. I had my own TV show. I had subway posters with my face and now I'm picking a bobby pin out of another human being. We talk about teeth, teen angst, Nietzsche, workaholism, eating sticks and debating whether or not our six-year-olds should watch The Godfather. Listen to Parenting is a Joke on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, your kid doesn't think you're funny. Learn more hard

truths on Parenting is a Joke. So okay, let's talk about the history of methamphetamines because it is pretty interesting. There's a rumor that I'd heard years and years ago that it was the Nazis who came up with meth. And as I grew a little older, I was like, that's not true. And it turns out it isn't true. But what is true is that the Nazis supplied their infantrymen, their airmen, their sailors, everybody in the German military during World War II with tons of methamphetamines. Like they were jacked up on meth and fighting, which is the most psychotic idea I've ever heard. Yeah, Nazis on meth sounds like some sort of speed metal band or something. Yeah, or like a weird musical. Yeah, it says this one stat in one four month period.

In 1940, German military was fed more than 35 million speed tablets. Say that one more time. 35 million speed tablets in a four month period, fighting the war. Can you imagine? And it wasn't just us, though. I mean, I'm sorry, it wasn't just them. No. Americans and the Brits were, what was it, Dexadrine? Yeah, Dexadrine and Benzadrine. Yeah. And then the Japanese had their own kind of crank. Military grade. Yeah, crazy. Yeah. And so there was that was a big thing in World War II was supplying the boys on the line with as much meth as they could possibly take and keeping them up and angry, keeping them eating less. Yeah. So they were consuming less food like that. Think about that. Yeah. And just turning them into basically like literal fighting

machines almost. Wow. I did see that the apparently the Germans tested it at first and found a soldier could march 55 miles in an hour before collapsing basically, like without stopping. Yeah. And this the Germans had this thing called the pervitin. Yes. Pervitin or pervitin, probably pervitin. And that was their meth. And apparently toward the end of the war, they're like, okay, the pervitin's working pretty good. But let's see what we can do to really jack these guys up. And they the Nazi scientists came up with D I X crazy. And it was three milligrams of pervitin mixed with five milligrams of cocaine and five milligrams of a painkiller all combined. And apparently this thing never got out or hit the

street because the allies, the allies invaded and probably did it all. Whatever they did. And it went away. It was wiped off the face of the earth cocaine meth and painkiller and a pill. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. But we should go back even further. Yeah. Prior to World War Two. Thousands of years ago in China in India and Pakistan, there were trees a group of shrubs known as a federa. Yeah, they have a an active ingredient that was isolated in 1898 1887 by a Japanese chemist. A fedrin. It's an amphetamine. And shortly after that, somebody turned a fedrin into a methamphetamine by adding a methyl group to it. And then after that, somebody turned it into crystal methamphetamine, which is meth. 1919. Yeah, that's how long crystal meth's been

around. Yeah, it just seems like a newer thing. Yeah, you would think like maybe from the 60s or 70s. Maybe. Yeah. So after the war, after World War Two, when everybody was on speed, people came back from the front saying, Hey, we really like the speed. Yeah. Yeah. It became available publicly in Germany during the war. This stuff was available publicly that perviton. Yeah. But the dexigen and benzodrine became available in the United States, I think during the war as well. But it became very popular in the 50s and 60s for like you said, a number of reasons like dieting. Well, yeah. And before that, what's scary is, is they like the early drug days we found out were just crazy. This crazy weird land where they were making these new

things like LSD and tweak. And they say in the early days of crystal meth, they didn't even have a purpose yet. Yeah. And they people were just giving it to patients and just, Hey, try this out. Like you need to pick me up. Yeah. Like this stuff seems to work pretty well. Yeah. Are you depressed? Like try this stuff. Sure. You might not be so depressed. And then it got a little more specific and they're like, All right, we can use it in any depressants and diet pills. Legitimate use. Sure. You know, and so benzodrine and dexidrine came about Jack Kerouac wrote on the road. Is that true? Yes. I've always heard that like a three day. No, it was longer than three days. It was three weeks. I see. Oh, was it? Yeah. But he taped together a bunch of paper in that and wrote it

all the way down. Wow. And it turned out to be 120 feet long. Oh, really? On the road was interesting. Yeah. Kerouac definitely knew his way around a Benny. Well, a bottle and whatever else. Sure. Yeah. He mentions them in on the road. Yeah. They're like a minor character almost. Yeah, I read that and Big Sur while I was traveling through Big Sur. Big Sur was awesome because it had that one moment in it where he's like, you can't fall off a mountain. Oh, yeah. It was so awesome. It makes such utter sense. Like, sure, you can fall down a mountain and you're probably going to die depending on where you fall, but you can't fall from the top to the bottom. Like you can't fall off a mountain. I thought that was so neat because it like drilled

right into my head just the way he meant it to you. Yeah. Yeah. He was he was quite the method though. Yeah. He was speak or yeah, speak. I guess. Sure. And they're they finally made that to a movie. Yeah. Is it coming out or did it? I think it's very soon. Who's in it? Because I remember being excited about it, but I forgot. Well, the Twilight Girls in it, which yeah. But who was playing I can't remember who's playing the two guys. Cassidy. Yeah. And Jack. Well, it wasn't Jack. It was Sal, right? Yeah, that's right. I don't know. But it was Jack. Right. You know. And Cassidy was named somebody else or was it Moriarty? Yes. Was it? I think it was. It's been a while. Yeah. It looks pretty good though. You're either thinking of On the Road or the Sherlock Holmes

series. But yeah, so so Kerouac was part of the pretty much popular American culture from housewives to doctors to anybody who were hooked on Benny's or Dexadrine. And eventually it became quite obvious that America was a nation of speed freaks and we needed to do something about it. So the government stepped in and they started controlling speed. Yeah, they one of the things they tried to do is control what they call precursor chemicals, the things you use to make the math. Right. And I guess we'll get into this later. But it hadn't really worked that well over the years because it just we've if one thing we've learned is that there are a certain amount of people that want to do their drugs. There's a certain amount of people

that want to make them and sell them. Yeah. And those numbers don't really change that much over the years. No, despite laws and any efforts by the, you know, legal measures, it's going to happen. So well, let's talk about the 70s real quick because I think it fits with this. Yeah. Like a sterling example of that was the motorcycle gangs like the Hell's Angels. They were making what you would call today crank amphetamines. Right. P2P. They were using a precursor chemical called phenyl 2 propanone and P2P was a pool chemical and they were using it to make crank and it worked pretty well. I mean, I guess it made decent crank and the government outlawed P2P or clamped down regulated its its sale and production. Yeah. And so the outlaw bikers said, well, we'll just have

to figure something else out. I guess some of them looked into the annals of history and realized that a Fedron was out there easily available. You could buy it from the manufacturer legally and they started using that. But there is a big surprise when they successfully made crank using a Fedron. Wasn't there Chuck? Yeah, they found out this junk is twice as strong as the last junk, which I guess was great news. If you were a Hell's Angel cooking speed. Yeah, I'm sure they added a methyl group and it became methamphetamine basically that 1919 recipe was lost to the ages and accidentally discovered by Hell's Angels. That's right. And as Tom points out that would bring the trade and illegal speed to its jittery knees. It's good stuff.

He's got some this this article is definitely worth reading. Yeah, actually that was when P2P was under control. Right. But you know, I had to delight everyone with this pros. Well, should we get to the brothers then and then jump back to how you make it? Sure man. Jesus and Luis, Emma, Emma's Kua. I think so. Emma's Kua, Emma's Kua. They are pretty much one of the big reasons why meth is such a big deal right now. In the 1980s, they were some small time coke runners. Yeah. And they said this is pretty good. Make a little bit of dough. But this meth, meth thing is pretty interesting. So let me go import some effigrin from overseas, make some money. A short time later, mid 1990s, they are responsible for 80% of the meth

in the United States of America. Yeah. Like they took over the whole scene basically. Yes. Well, they created the scene almost. They basically said, we are going to just start importing pure effigrin from manufacturers in like India. Yep. And they did. And they were doing this for years and years and years and they very, very wisely would order it from the factory and then route it through like Europe to Mexico. Yeah. Or South America to Mexico or and never went through the US. So they kept the US customs officials out of it. Right. Well, the US still got their hands on it one time. They seized 3.4 metric tons of effigrin. And we're like, oh, okay, now we know where this high grade speed came from out of nowhere. Yeah,

exactly. And why people are killing their friends with claw hammers all of a sudden. It's because of these guys who are importing this. And now all of a sudden this, this thought to outlaw precursor chemicals kicks back in and they start clamping down on effigrin. Yes. True. And that made a bit of a dent for a little while. Yeah. But like we said, where there is a will, there is a way. And despite the DEA's efforts in the American government, you had temporary licenses granted to people selling it. And the pseudo effigrin basically was like still readily available because there were so many, they basically said, you got to register with us if you want to sell this stuff. Right. They were so overloaded

that they couldn't even process all these applications. But they were overloaded like the people who were illegally selling and producing effigrin and selling them two drug cartels applied for licenses. Yeah. And the DEA was so swampy said everybody just gets a temporary license. So people were for a brief period legally selling effigrin to these cartels. In bulk. Yeah. And imagine they were making pretty good money doing it. Yeah. Which is why they kept doing it. You know, yeah. But eventually that dried up a little bit. And most of the stuff moved to Mexico in earnest. Canada, the super labs, Canada. Do you say it was in Iraq or Iran? Well, Iran's the rising star right now. They had in 2008, there were two meth labs busted in Iran.

And in 2010, they busted 166. Wait, from what to what? Two to 166 in two years. Holy cow. Yeah. Iran's like crazy for meth right now. Geez. And apparently in Japan, a gram goes for a thousand dollars. So I bet that's where a lot of it's going to. Really? Pakistan's big on meth. Apparently Southeast, South and East Asia are really fond of meth right now. Huh. Yeah. Boy, that's scary. So jumping back though, they tried to control the sale of pseudo effigrin more and more. And then they just realized that these meth cooks, like the super labs, they're not going into grocery stores and buying pseudo effigrin. I don't know. I think someone more. Oh, I don't think in that quantity. Well, they're buying like cold pills in bulk. They're

still using that as the precursor. Yeah. But in bulk, like they're not walking into right age. Right. Right. Okay. And buying, you know, 300 boxes of cold pills. They will probably raise some red flags. Exactly. But home cooks and people that are into making their own meth for, you know, themselves or their friends break into stores sometimes or sometimes just buy what they call blister packs. They're the little pill packages with the little single pills. You got to pop out one at a time. But they actually have de-blistering machines to do that for you if you're a larger operation, which I didn't, I'd never heard of that. So this whole pseudo fedrin thing, you know how you used to just be able to walk down the aisles and you could buy

pseudo fed and it was right there on the shelf. Well, now you have to buy it from behind the counter because it's federal regulation. Like you can't just sell it out. It's too easy to steal. You have to, you have to interact with a human being who can call the DEA or the cops. You're allowed in a lot of states like no more than one pack. Sometimes you have to show your drivers license. There's all these regulations. It's still not making much of a dent. But, and apparently the reason the big rub to meth, home cooked meth is the pharmaceutical lobby because they're like, well, we don't want our cold medicine to only be available by prescription. Yeah, we're moving along this product. Yeah. But in states where they did make pseudo fed and other like cold

medicines that have pseudo fedrin in it prescription only, they seen a sharp decrease in meth related crime. Oh yeah. So that does work behind the counter doesn't work prescription only apparently does work. Gotcha. Yeah. But those are for home cooks. What's the stat about the super labs? If you are buying meth in the United States, most of that is made by the super labs like you see on breaking bad. So now I've heard that I think this might be out of date. Oh yeah. Apparently in 2009 Mexico finally cave to American pressure and said, okay, we're just outlawing pseudo fedrin imports all together. And so the Mexican cartel said, okay, well, we're just going to move all our huge operations then into smaller operations in California. And now California makes more

meth than the next five top producing states in the country combined. Oh, really? Yeah. But it's all smaller lab. So if one gets busted, who cares, right? Which makes more sense, you know, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Because what was the stat he gave that what percentage was made by the there are only four super labs, but they were making like 80% of the math. Yeah, 4% of labs are super labs, but they're making 80%. And apparently that was true until 2009. Wow. Yeah. All right. Well, that's good. Yeah. Um, you want to talk about making it? Yeah, I guess we we need to talk about making it. This is sort of like the how to grow marijuana. Well, there's some key, you can tell there's key stuff left out here. Yeah, I think one of the, but I guess this means that Tom knows

how to make method from researching this. All right. So here's how to do it, Josh. Um, what you want to do is if you don't have your meth or your, I'm sorry, your effedrin or pseudo effedrin, and it's powder form, you need to separate that from the tablets and the cold medicine. And when you do that by mixing it with a solvent and the solution is in filtered, exposed to low temperatures, and then you can remove the inert material in your left with your pure pseudo effedrin or effedrin. Right. Step one. Step two. You want me to handle this? You're going to make me culpable? No, no, I'll help. You want to take your, your pseudo effedrin, whether you've removed inert materials or you had the pure stuff. You want to mix it with red phosphorus and hydriotic acid,

which I don't know what that is, but red phosphorus is like matchsticks. You can get that from like the tip of a match. Yeah. It contains red phosphorus. That's why if you see people buying lots of book matches, then they might be tweaking. Yeah. Or making their own. Especially through their teeth are cracked. Cooking. Yes. Right. What do you do then? You filter out that stuff, the red phosphorus. You're going to reuse it later. And then you neutralize the remaining acid by adding a lye solution. And you add, it just says a substance, which I like. This is where it gets a little vague. Right. Is added to bind the meth. And then you, the liquid meth is drained out at that point and you're left with the crystalline. Is that, is that the point? No,

you have to, you have to bubble hydrogen chloride gas, which is incredibly toxic through the liquid meth. And that turns it into a crystal that hydrochloride salt. Right. You're going to filter that. What is left is then dried out. And then in breaking that, at least it's on these sheets, like cookie sheets, and they break the ice, as they call it. And or step, step on it, which means you add other nasty inert filler to basically cut the drug and make it go, go further. Yeah. To unwitting purchasers and snorters. Yeah. And you weigh it, package it, ship it out. So in Japan for $1,000 a gram. That's right. This sounds very easy. And apparently it kind of is if people walk into Walmart and try to do it themselves. The problem is it's extremely dangerous,

especially if you're separating a fadrin or pseudofedrin from like inert material in a cold medicine. Yeah. You're adding an extra step. You're also adding a solvent, which is that they tend to be explosive. So you have an explosion danger. Yeah. You're also inhaling some really toxic, toxic chemicals. Yeah. Up to I think 32 different chemicals used in making meth. And the byproduct itself produces six times of the actual product that you're looking for. So if you produce one pound of methamphetamine, you've produced six pounds of toxic materials as a result. You want me to go over some of these chemicals? Yeah. This is what you're snorting or smoking if you're doing meth. Potentially gasoline, ether, paint thinner, freon, chloroform, campstow fuel,

epsom salt, red double lie, drain cleaner, battery acid. Yeah, that's pretty bad. That's fun to snort. Muriatic acid, lithium from battery, sodium metal, effedrin, iodine. Did I say paint thinner? It's worth saying again if you did. Yeah. So those are some of the chemicals that and you know, I'm breaking bad. They don't use any of this stuff. That's kind of one of the things is the guy's a chemist and he's very proud of his drug. Sure. And they don't even use cold pills. They make, they start from the beginning in a chemistry sense to make their own effedrin. Yeah. Wow. And it's all very pure and you know, it's not full of all this gunk. Right. And it's blue, which is interesting because that is not, that it's a signal that it is impure. Oh, really?

It's a hallmark of the show, this blue meth. But these days, they're enterprising meth cooks that are dying their meth blue. And the article I read said they're not quite, they call it smurf dope. And I said, it's not clear why they're doing this. It could be just to stand out and market their product or it could be to throw off tests like onsite test to see if it's, they'll drop it in, if it turns blue, said and some think it might be influenced by breaking bad. I wonder. Yeah, I bet you. Yeah, I'm sure it is. However you make it, whether it's blue or they're adding dye, you are creating a toxic site. Very. Like we talked about an episode, was it? I can't remember about it. It was basically like, oh, crime scene remediation or crime scene something. Crime scene

cleanup. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things, one of the big, I guess, jobs in the industry is cleaning up meth labs. Yeah. And once you do this, you have pretty much rendered a house useless. Like Tom points out that sometimes when the cop sees a meth lab and it's a house, they just won't even, they'll disabandon it because they can't resell it. Yeah. I mean, it gets in the curtains and the carpet and the tiles and the wood. And that's if the house doesn't explode altogether. It's a good one. The house, the campsite, the camper, the RV, the car, the trunk of the car, the back of the van, the motel room, the Walmart. Yep. We had the aisle seven at Walmart. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty scary stuff. And you know, I'm breaking bad. They're scientists

and chemists and they're wearing all the gear and they have all the nice equipment. But that's not like these homegrown cooks are not super smart because they're doing this to begin with. And then they might be severely tweaking up for days, not thinking straight. And that's why they will have explosions and try and eat dirt as they're dying because the taste in their mouth is so bitter. Right. And someone's left to clean up the mess. And that's what makes it the number one abused hard drug in the world more than cocaine and heroin combined. Yeah. I saw that. And that's meth. I got a couple of scary stats, I guess we can finish off with some some depressing news. Okay. I'll just summarize here. The overall picture is that are that there are less new users,

which is good. Yeah. But the stable level of methamphetamine abuse is kept. It's basically there's still just as much meth, just fewer new users, the people that are using it are really using it more and more crazy like they're really into it. So it's not going anywhere. And you know, the DEA has it's sort of dipped in years, but risen back. It's just one of those things. It's like any drug like cocaine has been in and out of fashion for 150 years. It'll it'll dip down and they'll tout some numbers, but then it'll shoot right back up in another country. Maybe 1.2% of eighth graders, 1.6% of 10th graders, and 1% of high school seniors. Is that lifetime? Have abused at least once in the prior year to the survey. Wow. Which those are pretty low numbers,

but I was hoping it would be like 0.01 or something like that. Well, America, I mean, if there's like 23 million users worldwide, America's got about 2 million of them. I mean, that's pretty significant. I thought it'd be more than that. I would think so too. That's what I heard. Don't do it. Don't do meth. It's just a bad idea. Yep. I think that's a great way to end it. Get high on life. Go for a natural. High, high, high. Be in yourself. That's nice Chuck. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss y'all. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Or are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm comedian and parent Ophira Eisenberg. You may recognize my voice from MPR or the moth. I have a new podcast called parenting is a joke. Every episode I talk with a comedian about their careers and about being a parent.

Guests include actress, producer and writer, Catherine Reitman. I have a rule that my kids are not allowed to be friends with kids with lame parents. I'm like, enjoy them at school. And stand up comedian Chris Gether. I was so cool like five years ago. I had my own TV show at subway posters with my face and now I'm picking a bobby pin out of another human being. We talk about teeth, teen angst, Nietzsche, workaholism, eating sticks and debating whether or not our six year olds should watch the Godfather. Listen to parenting is a joke on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, your kid doesn't think you're funny. Learn more hard truths on parenting is a joke. If you want to learn more about meth and all the myriad reasons why you should not do it, you can type in meth in the search bar at houseofworks.com. And this one goes to our drug suite. We've done MDMA. Yeah, we did. We talked about MDMA in the... Oh, but not a dedicated show.

It was pretty much a dedicated show on MDMA. Yeah, we talked about LSD a bunch of times, how to grow pot. Yeah, a bunch of stuff. I've got a few more in the kitty. Oh, you do? Yeah, we got a hit crack. We got a hit crack. And we got a hit. Oh, man, I didn't get to use my favorite line. At the beginning of this podcast, they talked about how ancient Chinese used to use my huang to get their speed fix. And, well, that was it. They used my huang. We talked about that somewhere else. And I can't remember where, because when I read it, I was like, oh, I remember we joked about this before. We did?

My huang is a stimulant. I wonder, did we do traditional Chinese medicine at one point? I think my huang might have made an appearance. That's right. Okay, I remember now. Wow. So I guess at some point in the recent past, I said search bar, right? Yeah, I think so. So I guess it's time for listening now, right? Yes. Quick plug before we start for my buddy Cameron Esposito, very funny comedian.

She is a Chicago native and is in LA now, but she has started a podcast called Stand Up Mixed Ape. Nice. And it is cool because each podcast is like a little comedy LP in that she has moved a comedy show into a studio. So instead of it, some club, some crappy club with people clinking glasses and, you know... I like that sound. Well, it's nice, but this is like pristine, like excellent sound. She hosts and hosts one of her comedian friends and just good stuff. It's a very funny, small, intimate little feel.

Right on. You can like feel it even though you're hearing it. Okay. So that's Stand Up Mixed Ape. Is it available in the normal places? Yeah. DJI tunes? Yep. Cameron Esposito. Go see her. She's very funny. She sports the side mullet.

All right. Listener Mail from Asher about just sort of clearing up the... I'll just read it. Hey guys, I was a prosecutor in the Midwest in a prior life, so I was excited to hear your take on criminal records. Yeah. Your information was great all around. I wanted to clarify one thing, though, because I used to run into it all the dang time. You did Yeoman's work by mentioning that expunged is inaccurate, the records remain and are freely available to law enforcement. Prosecutors and government agencies but merely can't easily be referenced in a subsequent court proceeding and aren't publicly disclosed.

However, you also mentioned that records of traffic crimes are not kept as part of a person's criminal record unless the crime was serious, like vehicular homicide. It does depend on your state, but this is a common misconception. As a prosecutor, I saw everything you've ever done from as piddly as a note seat belt ticket to as major as murder. This often became relevant because my office had some discretion to give you a deferred sentence. Basically, you don't screw up for six months and the charge goes away, but only if you had a clean record. I would, on a daily basis, have people fail to disclose a speeding ticket elsewhere in the state that had been expunged some years back, then be shocked that I knew about it. I love the show, just wanted to make sure to mention this little tidbit for you in case you revisit the topic. Also, I e-mailed you before about your pronunciation of Nevada.

Oh yeah. It still makes me puppy cry every time you mispronounce it, but unfortunately your podcast is great enough that I can continue to overlook it, or at least until my puppy's head explodes. I don't know what that means. Scoundrel. Clean up, buddy. Thank you for writing in, too. If you have a correction, especially if it's nuanced, we love that. You can tweet it to us at syskpodcast.

Join us on facebook.com or you can send us a good old-fashioned e-mail to stuffpodcast at discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jackmove or being robbed.

They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.