Methamphetamine is a methyl derivative of amphetamine, both of which are stimulant drugs.
During the 50’s and 60’s in the US, methamphetamine was used for medical purposes and could be found in diet pills. In Pharmacology and therapeutics (1951) Arthur Grollman: “Methamphetamine hydrochloride[…]is a potent analeptic and, like amphetamine, has been used in the treatment of narcolepsy, postencephalitic parkinsonism, alcoholism, and in certain depressive states[…]and in the treatment of obesity”.
Incidentally, an interesting yet highly disturbing film that deals, in part, with the dangers of prescribed drugs (in this case, an amphetamine-based diet pill) is Requiem for a dream. It’s a depressing tale of how a mother attempts to crash diet using prescription pills before her appearance on a TV quiz show; meanwhile, her son, girlfriend and their best friend slide deeper into the world of heroine abuse. Ironically, the mother experiences consequences no less dire than the young adults on heroine.
Going back to methamphetamine, though, it was originally used during World War II, when soldiers of the British, Japanese, German and American armed forces took the drug for its performance enhancing effects. Eventually, it would go on to be used in a crystallised form becoming the well-known street drug crystal meth. The term crystal meth first appears in English print in 1969, also in relation to diet pills: “I was really into diet pills for a while, and then somebody offered me crystal meth, and I did up a hit of that, and I just got into doing crystal meth. Just kept on doing it” (Drug Education, Bulletin National Association Secondary School Principals). Smoked through a pipe, snorted or injected, crystal meth induces feelings of euphoria and increased sexual appetite, but also psychotic symptoms including paranoia and violent behaviour.
Dr Owen Bowden-Jones, consultant psychiatrist at the Club Drug Clinic in central London spoke to the BBC in 2013 summing up the use of crystal meth around the globe: “On the West Coast of America it’s a drug of deprivation, in London it seems to be a drug of affluent gay men and in Eastern Europe it’s associated with prostitution.” It certainly doesn’t seem to have taken quite the grip on the UK that it has in the US. In 1989, a journalist for The Economist explained: “‘glass’ or ‘crystal’ in southern California, ice is part of the much wider problem that has now made San Diego the methamphetamine capital of North America” (2 Dec. 45/3). Almost ten years later, in 1997, the Indianapolis Star wrote: “Methamphetamine, also known as meth, crank, ice or crystal, has cut a wide swath through middle America, surpassing the popularity of crack and other drugs in many communities” (18 Apr. d5/1).
In 2009, BBC documentary maker Louis Theroux highlighted America’s problem with methamphetamine in his documentary The city addicted to crystal meth. He visits the city of Fresno of California and follows the police as they struggle with the crystal meth problem. The most distressing part of the documentary is when Louis attends a smoking session between friends at a young man’s house. As they light up and smoke their drugs, two small children run around the house playing. When Louis asks the young dad “Do you ever worry the drugs will have a bad effect on the kids?” he stares back with a vacant expression and replies “I don’t know”.
For the men who brought methamphetamine to the world, how would they feel about their accomplishments now? Japanese chemist Nagai Nagayoshi first synthesized methamphetamine from ephedrine, and chemist Akira Ogata then simplified the process to synthesize methamphetamine hydrochloride in 1919. He went on to become assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tokyo dying in 1978. During his rise to academic success, Japan experienced its own methamphetamine epidemic after World War II when pharmaceutical companies marketed methamphetamine as a cure for sleepiness and depression in the form of Hiropon and Sedorin, and America’s own relationship with methamphetamine was already spiraling out of control.
