What Is Meth Made Of? How Is Crystal Methamphetamine Made?

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• What is Crystal Meth?
• What Does Methamphetamine Look Like?
• What is Meth Made From?
• A Worldwide Epidemic of Addiction
• The Deadly Effects of Meth
• How Methamphetamine Affects People's Lives
• The Stages of the Meth “Experience”
• History of Methamphetamine
• The Truth About Drugs

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Email Address WHAT IS METH MADE FROM? A crystal meth laboratory

Methamphetamine is a synthetic (man-made) chemical, unlike cocaine, for instance, which comes from a plant.

Meth is commonly manufactured in illegal, hidden laboratories, mixing various forms of amphetamine (another stimulant drug) or derivatives with other chemicals to boost its potency. Common pills for cold remedies are often used as the basis for the production of the drug. The meth “cook” extracts ingredients from those pills and to increase its strength combines the substance with chemicals such as battery acid, drain cleaner, lantern fuel and antifreeze.

These dangerous chemicals are potentially explosive and because the meth cooks are drug users themselves and disoriented, they are often severely burned and disfigured or killed when their preparations explode. Such accidents endanger others in nearby homes or buildings.

The illegal laboratories create a lot of toxic waste as well—the production of one pound of methamphetamine produces five pounds of waste. People exposed to this waste material can become poisoned and sick.

“Welfare money was not enough to pay for our meth habit and support our son so we turned our rented home into a meth lab. We stored the toxic chemicals in our refrigerator not knowing that the toxins would permeate [go into] the other food in the icebox.

“When I gave my three-year-old son some cheese to eat, I did not know that I was giving him poisoned food. I was too stoned on meth to notice, until twelve hours later, that my son was deathly ill. But then I was so stoned it took me two hours to figure out how to get him to the hospital five miles away. By the time I got to the emergency room my boy was pronounced dead of a lethal dose of ammonia hydroxide—one of the chemicals used to make meth.” —Melanie

REFERENCES

1. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Statistical Bulletin 2008
2. Interpol report on Methamphetamine, 27 September 2005
3. “Methamphetamine Facts & Figures,” Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2008
4. Narconon International information on methamphetamine, www.narconon.org
5. Newsweek, “The Meth Epidemic: Inside America’s New Drug Crisis,” 8 August 2005
6. State of Hawaii, Office of Lt. Governor news release, 31 October 2007
7. “County knocks meth use,” 9 July 2008, SignonSanDiego.com
8. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration news release, 15 February 2008
9. United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime report on Methamphetamine, 1998
10. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System 2007 study, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
11. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report on Methamphetamine, October 2005
12. U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse report on Methamphetamine, May 2005
13. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report 2008
14. “National Methamphetamine Threat Assessment 2008,” National Drug Intelligence Center, U.S. Department of Justice

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