As a pedantic correction was used to make meth. Once the supply ran out it became just one more step to make whatever it needed other ways.
Practically speaking, lots of things are used to make meth. I had to give ID last time I bought acetone. Which is crazy for all sorts of big brother reasons.
I’m not a chemist, but as I understand it, meth isn’t too often made with PE anymore, yet, it sits behind the counter forever now.
Obviously this isn't reflective of any actual history, but in the first season of Breaking Bad, one of the early innovations that the main characters made to how they produced meth was coming up with a method that avoided needing PE. If I remember correctly, they instead used methylamine, which is an amusingly smart choice by the writers because it literally starts with the word "meth" but has absolutely no utility when making meth, so they didn't have to worry about people getting any ideas from the show.
Phenylacetone, acetic acid, and methylamine are the ingredients in the Breaking Bad process. There are some fictional aspects, such as the blue color, but the process is real and has become the dominant method of producing meth. It's more cost-effective as I understand it, so removing restrictions on pseudoephedrine probably wouldn't have any effect on the meth supply today.
It's used in the P2P method and is a DEA List 1 chemical. It's definitely real chemistry, not fake chemistry. Much of the chemistry on the show was close enough while being vague enough not to actually help anyone who couldn't read the voluminous research papers on the matter.
Interesting! I must have misunderstand whatever explanation I heard about this back when watching it (which isn't super surprising in retrospect, given that my chemistry knowledge is limited to having taking AP chem in high school, which I'm now realizing was over a decade ago...)
They did throw in some red herrings, deliberately, I think, but the vibe overall was real enough. But honestly the show in general is pretty lackluster from a chemistry nerd standpoint (as is the synthesis of illicit substances in general, real snoozefest of gross white powders turning into gross illegal white powders), there are a bunch of youtube channels doing chemistry that is both more interesting AND won't cause visits from the nice people at the three letter agencies.
Sigh. If they put it back out where smurfs could gather it they would start using it again.
Its interesting how Americans are so trained to interpret everything as a failure of government we will find a way to think that the law that prevents meth makers from using sudafed is outdated because meth makers are prevented from using sudafed.
They've already come up with better, cheaper, more efficient methods. They don't need Sudafed anymore, so removing the stupid restriction won't affect meth production at all.
Do you actually believe this? It seems completely ignorant of human behavior to me.
You see, it's not about dealing with large-scale operations. It's about keeping that one neighbor you have who always makes poor choices from grabbing 1000 boxes of Sudafed and blowing up their house. They don't care what the industrial process is, they care what they can get away with in their living room.
Throttle access to pseudoephedrine sufficiently and they will look elsewhere. Make it easy to get and they'll DIY. You know, I even admire the DIY spirit involved. I just don't admire the externalities.
The subtext of your argument is that you think you can legislate away human behavior.
There is a cheap process to make meth, and there’s another process that involves Sudafed. Banning Sudafed does not stop meth production. But here you are still supporting a ban on Sudafed - because of what some theoretical person might do with it ignoring that they’re doing it now without it.
I don’t believe this is a logical failure, I believe whatever culture you grew up in imparted this way of thinking.
The culture I grew up in is one where this happened about once a month. Well, before Sudafed became hard to get. Then the rate of it occuring dropped precipitously.
It's almost like people in fact do base their choices on what's easily available.
Yup. A while back, I was stopped at the register buying less than a liter of acetone and denatured alcohol (for cleaning molds and bonding surfaces for advanced composites) at the same time — forbidden. So I checked out one and paid, then checked out & paid for the other in two immediately sequential transactions. The check-out woman and I shared a small chuckle at how (in-)effective those measures were...
Practically speaking, lots of things are used to make meth. I had to give ID last time I bought acetone. Which is crazy for all sorts of big brother reasons.
I’m not a chemist, but as I understand it, meth isn’t too often made with PE anymore, yet, it sits behind the counter forever now.