Professor Pamela Peters
HUS 1400: Alcoholism & Other Drug Abuse
Methamphetamine
I choose Methamphetamine as my topic for discussion. The reason I choose it is a two part answer. The first reason is I want to learn more about the drug, the side effects, and the precursors needed to manufacture it. The second reason is I work in law enforcement and would like get a better understanding of the reasons why people become addicted. In hopes of gaining a better understanding so I could try to help the subjects I come across while working.
Methamphetamine first came about in a form known as Amphetamine and later morphed into the drug we now know as meth. Amphetamine was created in a lab in 1887 by a Romanian chemist Lazar Edleanu at the University of Berlin. The drug was not used medically until Gordon Alles began to use the drug to treat asthma and colds in the 20’s. The drug became popular all over the world for treating allergy, asthma, and cold type symptoms.
The actual first usage of Methamphetamine was by the Japanese in 1893. Most of the world’s military …show more content…
Some ADHD and ADD medications, such as Ritalin is a form of Methamphetamine. However the most widely abused form is powder or crystal like pieces. The abused form of Methamphetamine, crystal meth, can be created by two widely different styles. The first is what is called the one pot or shake and bake method. The ingredients (for the purposes of this paper they will not be listed) which contain mostly poisons and corrosive liquids are mixed together in a single container. This methods yields only a small amount of the drug, usually only approximately 1-3 grams. The one pot method is extremely dangerous for the person making the drug known as the ‘cook’ (, http://youtu.be/FTGm43yYpTQ). The second is in controlled laboratories known as ‘super labs’ which produces the drug hundreds of pounds at a time but is usually safer for the