How Meth Works

some money. He's growing on facial here to help a charitable organization engage in really important scientific research. That's right. And you can go to mobro dot c O slash Charles Bryant and that's my page, or just go to the November site. Type in Charles Bryan in the search bar and look for the picture of me. There's only a couple of ups out there. Check's wearing a red shirt. That's right. Yeah, um, so what is that again? That's mo bro dot CEO slash Charles Bryant. Yes, thank you

in advance. Yeah, that's nice, Chuck. All right, let's get to it, Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always, this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, What up yo? That's written down? Even sisters? What up? What up? Yo? I got my fat stacks? What is that? My breaking bad tribute? This is about Matt I've always is not what that shows about you? Do that. 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. Um, but I'm marathoning it now 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. 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. Let's tell everybody what happens at the end of season's one, two, or three. You know, they took a lot of meth and sell a lot of meth and people get killed spoiler alert, Yes, um and you end up talking like Jesse Pinkman. If you watch the show, if you watch eighteen 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 song. Oh god, I feel like we're on our way to baseball practice. Uh so, yeah, we are talking meth breaking bets on the only Have you ever seen the Salt and Sea? Yeah? Boy, that was

good man. Um Spun never saw that one, but I know that one's about math. That was okay, um Spun is a little tough to watch. It was one of those that's like, we want to take you inside the mind of a math user, like yeah, um American Pie two uh, porkies, Yeah, yeah, jaws too, all about math. All of them about meth um, which is surprising because a lot of those aren't. But if you um 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. And that's my recommended version of getting to know about math. Just did not use it ever and just to listen to us talk about how awful it is. But you're still gonna feel pretty freezy by the end of this episode. You know, because my boy Tom Sheaf Yeah, the female dog. Uh. He he wrote a article on me. I asked him once. I was like, what are some of your favorite articles, because I was looking for once to 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 myth. If you do a little bit of meth, how long will you be high for Chuck? Uh, Well, it depends what you call a little bit, but it could be anywhere from three to six hours to twenty four hours, or if you keep using it, you could be up for days. Yeah, which is apparently something that people like

to do. Uh. They don't just take a hit of meth. I've seen hit There was this front Line there's a front Line micro site about the meth epidemic, and they kept calling it a hit, and I'm like, what is a hit? Oh yeah, they call it the little baggy that you buy on the street. That call it something I'm breaking back. I can't remember at stacks. Now that's the money you make them selling it female dog. Nope, that's everyone on the show. I don't know that. We'll

probably called it a hit. But if you, if you do meth 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 gonna go to work and I'm fine, don't ever need to do this again. You know, you'll be like, oh, half hours passed. I think I should do maybe a little more and then a little more and I'm up for eight days in a row 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 um tweak. I lived in Human, Arizona, as you know, lots of math users there. Um you can tell oh yeah, you tell me that one story? Was it that? Like the washing? The car. Yeah, You're like, I'd be going home from you know, a saloon at two thirty in the morning and there's people out washing their cars under the floodlights,

and you're like, no, that's not really funny. You wonder what's going on there or their gardening or something with floodlights on. Um. Anyway, Yuma's got a lot of drugs. I mean, it's like a mile from Mexico. UM. And they called it tweak. They called like it could be tweak, could be the noun for the drug, like get some tweak a tweaker or was someone who did it? Um tom sites a state that you eventually, yeah, is tweaking. Yeah, that's why I took a slight issue because in Uma

they were just called tweakers. It was called tweaking. It's called tweak. Um 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, So they used to tweak for basically every facet. And I don't know if that was a regional thing or not. Ghack, that's another one. Really, it's an ugly word. Crank was the old days. That was like that's when the motorcycle, yea bike or crank yeah,

or rucker crank. Yeah, all those days like we were you know, in the Hell's Angels were taking greenies. Greenies for this speed, like pharmaceutical speed. Yeah, that's what. Until two thousand six, baseball players were very famous for taking greenies. Real. Yeah, and a lot of athletes actually have been known to abuse amphetamines because you know, jacksie up and you win the race. Yeah, you know, ye, all right, that's enough

for the street names. Okay. Um, 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, Um, it stimulates your central nervous system to produce dopamine, and your brain is flooded with dopamine. So all of a sudden, you have um hyperactive movement because dopamine controls and regulates

movement of your body. Yeah, um, you feel really really good because dopamines related to feelings of euphoria and a sense of well being. Um, and you your emotions may become heightened. Yeah yeah, thanks, I think so. Um. The problem is, as with all, um 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. There you

have it. You're addicted to meth, right and um. The downside of that, aside from spending extra money to get to the same place, it's about a million downsides, right, um, is that if you ever do decide to quit meth, your dopamine receptors have shrunk. The number of dopamine receptors in your brain of s they don't function quite as well.

And um, 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, and that will likely feedback into a vicious cycle where you go back onto meth so that you can not feel depressed or hopeless any longer. So it's very very tough to um quit that cycle of addiction. If you want to

know more about addiction. We did a pretty cool yeah UM episode on addiction itself. But yeah, it's pretty standard stuff. Yeah. And the good news is your dopamine levels will over time UM reset to normal UM in pretty much all cases. I did see that they one of these surveys are not surveys but studies. They found that even a couple of years after ceasing it, UM, the brain did not cover 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. Um. If you get your hands on some meth and you're like, I'm gonna do this. There are generally four ways that people take meth. The most common is to snort it. The second um 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. Too sweet, Yeah, because this is really really toxic stuff. Yes, at the very least, Um, 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 and is tough to look at. Yeah, if you ever want to never ever do meth, then to look at pictures of that or google uh meth before after, Oh the mug shots. Did you see the one that? So it's a public service announcement. The sheriff

in Arizona, Oregon. It was some sheriff's deputy started noticing people coming in um that we're 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 age like ten twenty years

and like a year or two just from doing a math 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 math mouth is really tough to look at. Your teeth like fall out, crack and fall out. Yeah, first they decay, then they cracked, then they fall out, and you might have sharp, jagged little stumps 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 um, 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 um, they think that it also gives you dry mouth.

So your saliva, so your saliva um isn't present any longer to to keep the harsh acids that the digestive acids that are present naturally in your mouth. The saliva is out there to wash it away. So they just grind down on your teeth, and then you yourself, while you're tweaking, are grinding your teeth. So those four things in conjunction basically account from meth mouth. They think, Wow, it's nasty. Oh, it's nasty stuff. Um, your heart rate is gonna really shoot up. You were going to be

more alert. You're gonna 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 in your place in the world. You might feel superhuman or intelligent or empowered. Um, you are none of those, which is the ironic thing. Um. And this one is the none of It's funny. This

one is unusual. Is the mundane tasks like you hear reports of like methods who take apart their television and put it back together the time. Um. But there's a breaking this won't spell anything. There's a breaking bad scene where where Jesse's trying to get some tweakers out of out of a house into the front yard and he goes and gets a shovel and the guys like, what are you doing. He's like, I know, I can't remember

what he called him, I know methods and he might dogs. Yeah, And he went and started digging a whole the front yard and one of him just comes out and he's like, what are you doing. He's like, what does it look like? I'm digging this hole? Man, I gotta 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, it's dude he's never met before, is out there just

digging this hole. To China, and that's like the mundane task you can get a meth head preoccupied with and they will put together that puzzle for two days. Tom points out that this is that makes us very alluring for somebody who's say an assembly line worker who has to do repetitive tasks for eight hours at a stretch. Once they do met, they're suddenly like, Wow, this is really fascinating work that I do here. And also the time just went by lickety split, and now I can

go do more maths. Right, yeah, let's go party, because that's you know, that's your workhead stash that you keep your party and stash at home. I would guess. Um. In addition to the mush mouth um, one thing you'll see a lot on Breaking Bad and in the photos is these scabby lesions on your face. And I wasn't sure what that was. I thought it might be somewhat 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 her face until I have a hole in my cheek. But I think it starts out with an actual blemish from the chemicals, like was it being excreted through your skin? Um, you're probably not going to ever get really fat if you are addicted to meth. Um, you're you're appetite just like not there. Um. 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. Um. And eventually, if you stay on the meth, you will eventually freaking lose your mind basically, and you will hear things and see things and experience psychosis and hallucinations and uh.

Part of that is the drug at work, and part of that is beating your body up and being yeah, yeah, eventually it will get the best of you. There is

no rosy outcome, yeah, if you're doing math. But 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, like you really do murder your loved one with a claw hammer because you perceive them to be the devil, like you really do, like um, 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 exagger ration. Yeah that 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 in Walmart through the door. Yeah, I'm I'm in Walmart, um now 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 l 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. 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 coke heead, you can't like where you're gonna get your coca 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, it's just sad. I looked up meth and Walmart and it's

happened more than once. 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 lady was while was open successful. Don't don't mind me, I'm just shopping for tents and uh so, okay, let's talk about the history

of meth amphetamans is pretty interesting. Ah. There is a rumor that I had 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 Two with tons of meth amphetamines. Like they were jacked up on meth and fighting, which is the

most psychotic idea I've ever heard. The Nazis on meth sounds like a some sort of speed metal band or something, you know, or like a weird musical. Yeah, it says this one stat in one four four month period in German military was fed more than thirty five million speed tablets. Thirty five million speed tablets in the 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, dexadrine and benza drene. And then the Japanese had their own kind of crank um military grade yeah, crazy, yeah, And so there was that was a big thing in World War two, 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 so they

were consuming less food like that. Think about that, yeah, um, 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 in March fifty five miles before an hour before collapsing basically like without Yeah, and this the Germans had this thing called per viting pervitin or proviting probably pervitin, and that was

their meth. And apparently towards the end of the war they were like, Okay, the providing's working pretty good, but let's see what we can do to really jack these guys up. And they the Nazi scientists cam up with d I X and it was three milligrams of providing mixed with five milligrams with cocaine and five milligrams of a pain killer all combined. And apparently this thing never got our hit the street because the Allies. The Allies invaded and probably did it all whatever they could find,

and it went away. It was wiped off the face of the earth. Cocaine, meth and pain killer in a pill. Yeah, that's crazy. But we should go back even further. Prior to World War two, uh, thousands of years ago in China, in India and Pakistan, there were trees, a group of shrubs known as a fedra. Yeah, they have a an active ingredient that was isolated in eighteen eighty seven by

a Japanese chemist, ephedrine. It's an amphetamine and uh, shortly after that, um, somebody turned ephedrin into a methamphetamine by adding a methyl group to it, and then after that somebody turned it into crystal methamphetamine, which is meth. Yeah. That's a long crystal meths has been around. Yeah, it just seems like a newer thing. Yeah, you would think,

like maybe from the sixties or seventies. So after the war, after World War two, um, when everybody was on speed, people came back from the front saying, hey, we really like the speed. Uh. It became available publicly in Germany during the war. This stuff was available publicly, the pervitin. Yeah, but the dexigen and benzagrine became available in the United States I think during the war as well. But it became very popular in the fifties and sixties for like

you said, a number of reasons like dieting. Well, yeah, and before that was what's scary is is they like the early drug days, we found out we're just crazy, this crazy weird land where they were making these new things like LST and tweak And they say in the early days of crystal meth they it didn't even have a purpose yet and the people were just giving it to patients and just hey, try this out, like you need to pick me up. Like the stuff seems to

work pretty well. Are you depressed? Like, try this stuff, you might not be so depressed. And uh, then it got a little more specific and they're like, all right, we can use it in any depressants and diet pills, right, legitimate, yes, you know. And so ben'za Dreen and decks of Dren came about jet Carouac wrote, um, on the road is that true? Yes, that sounds I've always heard that like a three day No, it was longer than three days.

It was three weeks. I see, that was it? Yeah, But taped together a bunch of paper and that and wrote it all the way down. Um, and it turned out to be a hundred and twenty ft long. On the road was interesting. Yeah, Carowac definitely knew his way around a benny. Well he a bottle and whatever else. Yeah, he mentioned something on the road. Yeah. They they're like

a minor character almost. Yeah. I read that and Big Sir while I was traveling through Big Big was awesome because it had that one moment in it where he's like, you can't fall off a mountain. It was so awesome. It makes such understands like, sure, you can fall down a mountain and you're probably gonna die opinion where you fall, but you can't fall from the top to the bottom, like you can't fall off a mountain. I just thought that was so neat because it like drilled right into

my head just the way he meant it to. Right then, Yeah, he was. He was quite the method though. Yeah he was speeding. Yeah, speed freak, I guess. And there they friendly have made that to a movie. Yeah, is it it's coming out or did it? I think very soon? Who's in it? Um, because I remember being excited about it, but well, that's Whylight girls in it, which yeah, but who was playing? Uh, I can't remember who's playing? The two guys Cassidy yeah and Jack. Well that wasn't Jack,

it was right, Yeah, that's right. I don't know, but it was Jack and Cassidy was named somebody else. There was Moriarty, I think it was. It's been a while either. It looks pretty good though, you're either thinking of On the Road or the Sherlock Home series. But yeah, so so. Carolac was part of the pretty much popular American culture from housewives, two doctors to um, anybody who were hooked

on Benny's or dexadrine and UM. Eventually it became quite obvious that America was a nation of speed freaks and we need to do some thing 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 he used to

make the math and UM. I guess we'll get into this later, but it hadn't really worked that well over the years because it just we if one thing we've learned is that there are 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, and those numbers don't really change that much over the years, despite laws and any efforts by the you know, legal measures,

it's gonna happen. So, UM, well, let's talk about the seventies real quick, because I think it fits with this, like it's a sterling example of that was the motorcycle gangs like the Hell's Angels. They were making what you would call today crank amphetamines. Alright, they were using a precursor chemical called phennel two propenone and P two P 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 um. And the government outlawed P two P or clamped down and regulated it's uh it's sale and production, 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 if fedron was out there easily available, you could buy it from the manufacturer illegally, and they started using that. But there's a big surprise when they successfully

made um crank using if 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 meth amphedamine. Basically, that UM nineteen nineteen 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. Right. Good stuff. He's got some this This article is definitely worth reading. Yeah. Actually that was when P two P was under control. But you know, I had to delight everyone with his pros. Um. Well, should we get to the brothers then, and then jump back to how you make it? Uh? Jeseus and Luis Emma Emma's kua. I think so. They are pretty much one of the big reasons why meth is such a

big deal right now. On the nineteen eighties, they were some small time coke runners and they said, this is pretty good, makeing a little bit of dough. But um, this meths meth thing is pretty interesting, so let me go uh import some adrin from overseas make some money. A short time later, MIDnet nines, they are responsible for eight of the meth in the United States of America. They took over the whole scene basically, yes, well they

created the scene almost. They basically said, we are going to, um, just start importing pure ephedrine from manufacturers in like India, 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 routed through like Europe to Mexico or South America to Mexico or it never went through the US, so they kept the U S customs officials out of it. Well, the U S

still got their hands on it. One time, Uh, they seize three point four metric tons of ephedrin and we're like, oh, okay, now we know where this high grade speed came from. Out of nowhere, um, and white 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 UM thought to outlaw precursor chemicals kicks back in and they started clamping down on a fedron true and that made a bit of a

dent for a little while. But like we said, where there is a will, there is a way, and Um, despite the d e a's efforts in the American government, you had temporary licenses granted to people selling it. Uh, and the pseudo effordrin basically was like still readily available because there were so many They basically said, you got a register with us if you want to sell this stuff. 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 a federan and selling them to drug cartels. Applied for licenses and the d A was so swampy, said, everybody just kids a temporary license. So people were for a brief period legally selling a fedron to these cartels in bulk. And imagine they were making pretty good money doing it, which is why they

kept doing it, you know. Yeah. Um, eventually that dried up a little bit, and um, most of the stuff moved to Mexico. Um in Earnest Canada, the super Labs Canada. Um, did you say it was at Iraq or Iran? Well, Iran's the rising star right now. They had um In two thousand and eight there were two meth labs busted in Iran, and in two thousand and ten they busted a hundred and sixty six Wait from what to what to two hundred and sixty six and two years? Yeah,

Iran's like crazy for meth right now, jeez. And apparently in Japan, a graham 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. Yeah, boy, that's scary. Um. So jumping back though, Um, they tried to control the sale of pseudoeprogrin more and more, and then they just realized that these meth books, like the superlabs, they're not

going into grocery stores and buying pseudo weaprogroen. I don't know, I think some of them are, 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 and buying, you know, three hundred boxes of cold They would probably raise some red fly exactly. But um, home cooks and people that are into making their own math for you know themselves,

are their friends. Um break into stores sometimes or sometimes just buy um what they call blister packs. They're the little pill packages with the little single pills you gotta pop out one at a time. Uh. But they actually have deep blistering machines to do that for you if you're a larger operation, which I didn't had never heard of that. So this whole suit of federan thing, you know, how you used to just be able to walk down the aisles and you could buy a suit of 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 the human being who can call the d e A or the cops. You're allowed in a lot of states, like no more than one pack. Sometimes you have to show your driver's license. There's always 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 they're like, well, we don't want our cold medicine and to only be available by prescription. We're moving on this product. Yeah, but in states where they they did, they did make sudo FED and other like um cold medicines that have pseudo federate in it h prescription only. They've seen a sharp decrease in meth related crime. So that does work. Behind

the counter doesn't work. Prescription only apparently does work. Yeah, but those are for home cooks. Um, what's the stat about the superlabs if you are buying methan United States, most of that is made by the super labs. Um, like you see on Breaking Bad. So now I've heard that, I think this might be out of date. Apparently in two nine, Mexico finally came to American pressure and said, okay,

we're just outlawing pseudo federan imports all together. And so the Mexican cartel said, okay, well, we're just gonna move all our huge operations than into smaller operations in California. And now California makes more meth than the next five top producing states in the country combined. Yeah, but it's all smaller labs. So fun gets busted. Who cares? Which

makes more sense? You know? Interesting? Yeah? Yeah, because what was the stat he gave that what percentage was made by There are only four super labs, but they were making of the methods four percent of labs or super labs, but they're making And apparently that was true until two thousand nine. Alright, Um, you want to talk about making it? Yeah, I guess 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 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 you're I'm sorry, you're efidrin or pseudo efrogron and its powder form. You need to separate that

from the tablets in the cold medicine. And when you do that by mixing it with a solvent, and the solution is unfiltered, exposed to low temperatures, and then you can remove the innert material and you're left with um, your pure pseudo efrogron or efigrin step one, step two. Do you want me to handle this? You're gonna make me culpable. No no, Um. You you want to take your your pseudo effrogen um, whether you've removed your dirt

materials or you have the your stuff. Um. You want to mix it with red phosphorus and hydriotic acid, which I don't know what that is, but red phosphorus is like match sticks. You can get that from like the tip of a match contains red phosphorus. That's why if you see people buying lots of book matches. Then they might be tweaking or making specially their teeth are correct cooking. Yes, Then you filter out that stuff, the red phosphorus. You're

gonna reuse it later. UM. And then you neutralize the remaining acid by adding a lie solution and you add it just says a substance which I like. This is where he gets a little vague. Um is added to bind the meth um 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? Now you have to you have to bubble hydrogen chloride gas, which is through the toxic through the liquid math, and that

turns it into a crystal hydrochloride salt. Right, you're gonna filter that UM. What is left is then dried out and then UM and breaking bad. At least it's on these sheets like cookie sheets, and they break the ice as they call it, and UM or step step on it, which means you add other nasty inert filler to basically cut the drug and make it go go further. Two unwitting purchasers and snorters, and you weigh it, package it, chip it out so in Japan for a thousand dollars

of Graham. That's right. Um, it sounds very easy, and apparently it kind of is if people walk into Walmart and try to do it themselves. UM, the problem is it's extremely dangerous, especially if you're separating um I federan or suit of federan from like an inert material in a cold medicine. 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. Um. You're also inhaling

some really toxic toxic chemicals. UM, up to you. I think thirty two 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 meth amphidamine, you've produced six pounds of toxic materials as a result. Do you want me to go over some of these chemicals? This is what you're snorting or

smoking if you're doing math. Um, potentially gasoline ether paint, dinner free on chloroform, camp stove fuel, uh EPs, and salt red devil Lie drain cleaner, battery acid. Yeah, that's pretty bad. That's fun to snort. Myriadic acid, lithium from battery, sodium metal, um epidrin, iodine. Uh did I say paint there? It's worth saying again. Yeah, So those are some of the chemicals that and you know, breaking bad. They don't

use any of this stuff. That's kind of one of the things is the guy's a chemistry he's very proud of his drugs. And they don't even use cold pills. They make they start from the beginning in a chemistry sense, to make their own. Yeah. And um, it's all very pure and you know, it's not full of all this gunk. And it's blue, which is interesting because that is not that it is a signal that it is impure. It's

a hallmark of the show, this blue meth. But um, these days there are 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 uh, he said, it's not clear why they're doing this. It could be just to standout to market their product, or it could be to throw off test like um on site UM test to see if it's man. They'll drop it in 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. Um. However you make it, whether it's blue, ye're adding you are creating a toxic site. Very like we talked about in UM what what what episode was it? I can't remember about. It was basically like, oh, crime scene remediation or crime scene something. Yeah. Um. And one of the things, one of the big I guess um jobs in the industry is cleaning up meth labs. Uh. Once you do this, you have pretty much rendered a

house useless. Like Tom points out that sometimes when the cops 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 in the wood. Um. And that's if the house doesn't explode all together. The house, the camp site, the camper, the car, the trunk of the car to the back of the van, the motel room, the Walmart had the aisle I'll seven at Walmart. Uh. Yeah, it's

pretty scary stuff. And you know, I'm breaking bad their scientists and chemist and they're wearing all the equipment and they have or they're wearing all the gear and they have all the nice equipment. But that's not like these 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, and uh, 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 combine. Yea, 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. Um uh, I'll just summarize here.

The overall picture is that are that there are less new users, which is good, but the stable level of myth and fhetamine 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 like they're really into it. So if it's not going anywhere, and you know the d e A 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 a hundred and fifty years. It'll it'll dip down and they'll tout some numbers, but then I'll shoot right back up in another country. Maybe, Um, one of eighth graders, one point six of tenth graders, and one percent of high school seniors the lifetime have abused at least once in the prior year to the survey, which those are pretty low numbers, but I was hoping it would be like

point oh one or something like that. Well America, I mean, if there's like twenty three million users worldwide, America's got about two million of them. I'm 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 math. It's just a bad idea. I think that's a great win and get high on life. Go for a natural Hi hi hi b in yours. So that's nice, Chuck, Um.

If you want to learn more about meth and all of the myriad reason why you should not do it. You can type in meth in the search bartow stuff works dot com and this one goes to our drug suite. We've done M D M A L s now we have? Yeah, we did, we did. Uh. We talked about M D M A and them, but not a dedicated show. It was pretty much a dedicated show on M D M A. Yeah. We talked about LSD A bunch of times, how to

grow pot Uh. Yeah, a bunch of stuff. I've that a few more in the Kittie Yeah, we gotta hit crack, we gotta hit creck, and we gotta hit to 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 huiang to get their speed fixed, and well that was it these Mahoian. Yeah. I talked about that somewhere else, and I can't remember where because when I read it, I was like, I don't remember

we joked about this before we did. Ma huang is a stimulant. I wonder what did we did we do like traditional Chinese medicine. At one point, I think my wine might have made it that's right, Okay, I remember now, um wow, So I guess at some point in the recent past I said search bar, right, so I guess since time for listening? That right? Yes, um, quick plug before we start. For my buddy Cameron Esposito, very funny comedian.

She is a Chicago native in is in l A now, but she has started a podcast called Stand Up Mixtape. 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 clubs, some crappy club with people clinking glasses and you know, well that's nice, but this is like pristine, like excellent sound. She host um and host one of her comedian friends, and uh, it's just good stuff. It's very funny, small,

intimate little field. You can like feel it even though you're hearing it. So that's stand Up Mixtape. Is it available in the normal places? Yeah? iTunes? Yep. Cameron Esposito, go see her. She's very funny. She sports at the side mullet All right, um, listener, mail from Asher about just sort of clearing up the want just read it. Hey, guys, I was a prosecutor in the Midwest into prior life, so I was excited to hear your take on criminal records.

Your information was great all around. I wanted to clarify one thing, though, because I used to run into it all the dawn 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 as a person's

criminal record un once the crimeo serious, like vehicular homicide. UM, it does depend on your state, but this is a common misconception. As prosecutor, I saw everything you've ever done from a piddally, from as pittally as a note, seatbelt ticket too, 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 failed 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, I just want to make sure. Ah, I just wanted to make sure to mention this little tidbit for you in case we revisit the topic. Also, I emailed you before about your pronunciation of Nevada. Oh yeah, it still makes me puppy cry every time you must pronounce it.

But unfortunately your podcast is great enough that I can continue to overlook it, or at least until my puppies head explodes. I don't know what that means. Down Math Asher, Asher, clean up buddy. Thank you for writing into UM. If you have a correction, especially if it's nuanced, we love that, you can tweet it to us at s y SK podcast, join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, or you can send us a good old fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com for more on

this and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com