Why are meth labs so dangerous?

[Pantastic]

@Sailboat

In my experience, people have far too little chemophobia.

The guy who writes “Things I won’t Work With” certainly doesn’t have that problem, he humorously details some of the chemical substances he doesn’t want to go near.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/category/things-i-wont-work-with

@CurtC

I guess it’s my impression that the limiting factor is the ephedrine, that’s why some allergy medications don’t sit on the shelf anymore. In the BB episode, what was it in the train car? Ephedrine on its way to the drug manufacturer?

The chemical in the drum they steal early on and in the train car later is methylamine, which has a lot of industrial and experimental uses but also can be used for making meth. In the show they mention that the process they’re using is for ‘old biker meth’ - before the DEA started really cracking down on methylamine, it was commonly used by biker gangs to manufacture meth (IIRC mostly in the '60s and '70s), but it’s so well tracked now that none of the ‘home cooks’ can get ahold of it. Early on they were cooking meth from sudafed (the medications that don’t sit on the shelf), they mention in the show sending ‘smurfs’ to buy it from stores.

[kayaker]

They lack emergency eyewash stations.

[CurtC]

@John_Bredin

(As an aside, Walt’s plan was to kill the crew of a freight train in interstate commerce?! :eek:

The plot of the show has already been explained, but where on earth did you get the impression that the plan was to kill the train crew?

That episode of BB was just loads of fun and excitement. Until the last few seconds. At that point in the series, I was still rooting for Walter, and I was feeling giddy with excitement, right up to the end. Then: “Well, fuck.”

[John_Bredin]

@Marvin_the_Martian

The crew was never harmed. The plan was to pull of the heist in such a way that no one would even know it happened, crew included.

Yes, I gathered that – because Jesse devised such a plan. But if he hadn’t? (Though “Walt’s plan” in my original post maybe wasn’t the right phrase.)

[nearwildheaven]

@Sailboat

In my experience, people have far too little chemophobia. I work in the safety industry and people’s appalling casualness around dangerous chemicals and their willful ignorance about reading labels leads to all kinds of reportable incidents, injuries, and deaths. I’ve known many people who were shockingly incurious about the chemicals they were using or preparing to use, assuming that anything they can obtain (or find in an old shed) must be entirely safe to mis-handle, or the government would have outlawed it.

Many chemicals are relatively inert - UNLESS they are combined and/or heated.

One of the most common potentially deadly combinations is bleach and ammonia. NEVER mix these!

[Loach]

One training class I went to had a video about one meth lab bust. When a cop tested some white powder using one of the field kits it blew off his hand. The basement chemist decided while he was attempting to break into the pharmaceutical industry he would also try out the munitions industry and brew up some home made explosives. Whatever reagent was used in the test kick caused a chemical reaction that made the HME explode.

[skdo23]

nm

[watchwolf49]

@Duckster

Meth Lab Dangers.

This link is dead for me … so I yarded up the USDA’a page “Dangers of Meth Labs”.

With a dozen cases of over-the-counter antihistamines, the first task is to separate the PPA out, and we’ll have to use a solvent other than water … all of which tend to be extremely flammable if not downright explosive (like ether). It gets bad after that …

… not that I know anything about the subject or anything …