Just thinking about a therad I started inspired by my recent incompetently not buying pseudophedrine, it’s really really really easy for me to buy it here if I engage brain, and in fact I did so after buying that scammy phenyl-whatever stuff the next day. All you do is go to a pharmacist and say “can I have some pseudophedrine please?”. No ID or whatever needed, no stigma, all totaly respectable.
ANYWAY - the reason it’s so different to the US as far as I can understand it is cause meth is really popular in the US, and it’s made from pseudophedrine. Meanwhile, in the UK it’s a really obscure drug used by very few people indeed. Although amphetimine itself is moderately popular. And everyone loves ecstasy.
So I don’t know which of those two categories is a fairer way of putting it (.e. does US love meth loads, or does UK dislike it loads) but there’s definitely a huge difference* - what causes it? Or is there no particular GQ answer and it’s just a preference thing?
*I know shit loads of druggies and I don’t think I know anyone who has taken meth in the UK. I’ve never heard of it even anecdotally. The only thing I’ve ever heard is of it being taken by the gay community, but that was an article I read in the guardian a while back. It cannot be anything like what it is the US.
What makes meth appealing in the US is that it’s cheap, because it’s easy to make and distribute domestically. The UK doesn’t have anywhere near the number of wide open spaces where one can make meth unmolested like the US does, and so meth would mostly have to be imported. That means the price would reflect the same smuggling costs as the other drugs people would rather be doing, so why bother.
Is that definitely the case? UK marijuana tends to be homegrown by vietnamese gangs in abandoned houses. Don’t see why that can’t be done for meth.
Astro - The Sun CAN be used as a reliable source if you know what you’re doing and are super familiar with it, but in general should be considered complete rubbish.
Meth is a drug that has found it’s way into Europe on the back of bikie gangs who are expanding like crazy. So expect clamp downs on cold tablets pretty soon.
You never hear any mention of it amongst prisoners, whereas there is plenty to talk about just about everything else.
Amphetamines don’t get much mention these days either, used to be a topic of converstion among prisoners.
If I were any judge I’d say heroion use is declining, cannabis use is going up - in prisons the change to drug testing regimes means that the imperative to take heroin has reduced. There is quite a procedural and technical reason for this that would probably bore dopers.
Doesn’t meth production involve large amounts of smelly & toxic fumes ? I’d think it’d be more difficult to hide that from the neighbours than a cabbage patch in the attic.
It COULD be done but maybe a UK Vietnamese gangster who doesn’t have a problem growing a marijuana plant might be hesitant to risk blowing himself up making bathtub meth. And also you can smell meth for blocks around and cooking it keeps the smell on you, are the abandoned buildings that remote where no police or citizens would walk by and smell the foul chemical stench? Usually in the U.S. it’s made in shacks in the woods where no one is around for miles.
Yeah I’ve worked in the criminal justice system on the East Coast and we never had anybody who got caught with meth. A lot of cocaine and heroin. A couple of people with amphetamine pills. Even an Ethiopian immigrant with a trunk full of khat. No meth though.
“Yeah I’ve worked in the criminal justice system on the East Coast and we never had anybody who got caught with meth”
While this anecdote may be true for the poster, readers should not believe that no one on the East coast of the US ever gets arrested for meth or that it is even rare.
I’m not sure why, but the only comparative data in thread was linked by astro in the very first reply and ignored. What it said is that there isn’t a huge difference between parts of the UK and the US. The US falls into the top 10 countries for amphetamines, with 1.8%. It’s behind Australia (2.1%). The UK falls out as Scotland 1.2%, England 1.1%, Isle of Man 0.9%, and Ireland 0.4%.
So, apparently despite the OP’s perceptions, use of methamphetamine in parts of the UK probably isn’t that far off that of the US. The more interesting question, albeit a IMHO type question, is “why does the US freak out so much over drugs?” or “why does the US media and law enforcement trumpet methamphetamine abuse so loudly?”
Well, around here where I live the uproar wasn’t so much that people were doing meth as the randomly exploding sheds/homes/hotel rooms/trailers/cars driving down the road. The way you “cook” meth from pseudoephedrine is hazardous and prone to fire and/or explosions. And fire spreads to other peoples’ stuff.
Since we started limiting pseudoephedrine purchases we’ve had less stuff going >boom< in the area.
