A couple of questions popped to the fore when I read the What was the number on the Quaalude pill? thread, one of which follows.
30-35 years ago, before “crystal” methamphetamine started to become widely available, “speed” usually, or often anyway, appeared on the illicit market in the form of “white crosses,” which were tablets scored as if meant to be broken into four doses.
The “714” that is the answer to the above referenced thread refers to the identifying mark that the legitimate manufacturer of Quaaludes imprinted on those devilish pills. I had a psychopharmachology professor while in school that asserted that the “white cross” was the only wholly illegitimate “branding” of an illicit drug that has occurred. That is to say that, while no legitimate pharmaceutical company ever produced a white cross amphetamine product, that nevertheless became a sort of standard that users of the era came to look for.
Is that correct?