Even if the person running the lab isn’t using it, they likely have to enlist several so-called “smurfs” to buy pseudoephedrine for them in small purchases at several stores. Not much compensation there, I’m sure, and they likely recruit users. Plus, these kitchen meth labs are hardly professional operations. That’s what’s so nasty about it - you have some goof who pulled a “recipe” off the internet, and doesn’t really understand anything about chemistry or lab procedure, heating up flammable organic solvents on their kitchen stoves.
Ah, that would make sense. Reduce the risk to the guy in charge, and the “employees” come cheap, since you can pay them in product.
And meth would be quite nasty enough just from the effects on its users, even if it didn’t come with the risk of explosions and fires in its production.
I’ve always wondered why they’re called “smurfs.” Anybody know?
I think it has to do with having a large group of small entities to accomplish a goal. I got that from here. I guess it was originally used for money laundering, but its the same principal.
I thought it was because they so often use children. Kids can’t get as much jail time . . . and are cheaper.
Same association is at the root of “smurf attack” for a type of denial of service attack on the internet.
Wow! That is scary!
How does the drug manage to affect their appearance so drastically?
(I am thinking of the disgusting-looking marks on their face.)
The habitual user may feel there is something under their skin and scratch themselves.
40 years ago the most common term for meth was Speed.
One of the most effective anti-drug messages of the late 60’s was “Speed Kills.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,902103,00.html
Here’s the kicker…the government didn’t launch that campaign. Members of the drug community (LSD, dope, etc.) came up with the buttons with those two words on them.
When exactly did crystal meth in its current incarnation hit the streets? I don’t remember it existing when I was in high school in the late 1970’s. We still called it ‘speed’ back then, and it was available illicitly as diverted pharmaceutical products. There was also something called ‘Christmas trees,’ but I can’t remember what those were. But in 1979, There wasn’t meth that you could buy by the gram or partial gram, and nothing that you could smoke. But ten years after that, it was all over the place. The 1985 movie Witness makes reference to the P2P reduction synthesis, so that seems to narrow it down to sometime between 1980 to 1985. I checked the DEA’s web page, but couldn’t find any information there. When did the biker gangs first start manufacturing and distributing the substance?
Common illicit manufacture of methamphetamine goes back into the sixties. The “P2P” process refers to phenyl-2-propanone, also called phenylacetone, which was the basis for the clandestine production largely controlled by the outlaw biker gangs at that time. Around 1980, the FDA restricted this chemical specifically because it was a precursor to methamphetamine. That gave rise to the present methods of manufacture using ephedrine or psuedoephedrine.
Note that amphetamines in general were not strictly controlled following WWII, and were widely available throughout the 1950s, including OTC benzedrine inhalers, and “little white pills” (dexedrine) used by truckers. In 1965, the FDA made amphetamines prescription only, as the level of abuse became apparent. They further restricted in 1971.
So ‘crank’ existed when I was in high school, but it just wasn’t in widespread use at the time?
Methamphetamine was certainly being produced, and I definitely remember hearing the term “crank” in the early 70s.
This article gives a general time line about in keeping with my understanding: