The production of methamphetamine has been made more difficult by federal regulations, like the Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005, aimed at controlling the flow of precursor chemicals such as ephedrine and pseudoephedrine (found in some cold remedies), as well as other necessary components. Through theft, subterfuge, forgeries, personal connections and sheer willpower, determined cooks are able to collect enough materials to make some home-grown meth.
basic meth cold cook recipes
Currently, most methamphetamine in the United States is produced by transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) in Mexico.44 This methamphetamine is highly pure, potent, and low in price. The drug can be easily made in small clandestine laboratories, with relatively inexpensive over-the-counter ingredients such as pseudoephedrine, a common ingredient in cold medications.
Starting with cold water lets you heat the egg more slowly, which keeps the whites from getting rubbery. But this method takes longer and gives you less control over the cooking time. (How long it takes the water to reach boiling depends on the size and shape of your pot, among other things.) Starting with boiling water offers more control over timing but this may cook the whites into a rubbery state. And it has another disadvantage: The egg is more likely to crack because the air in the egg has less time to escape as the egg heats up.
Once the key ingredient, a standard component of cold remedies, is brewed with an assortment of more toxic chemicals, it turns into a highly addictive street drug -- methamphetamine -- that can lead to crime and violence and ruin families.
Also known as speed and glass, methamphetamine was initially cooked in home-grown laboratory set-ups, using cold medicine products that contained ephedrine. Meth made from ephedrine was readily available in the majority of the United States until the past decade when pharmacies became required by law to limit the sale of products containing ephedrine. Eventually, the Mexican government joined in outlawing ephedrine, thereby forcing drug traffickers to reinvent the process used to create methamphetamine.
Since the crackdown on ephedrine-based cold remedies, the production of meth has changed, giving rise to newer chemical makeups like P2P meth. Replacing ephedrine, meth is now produced with chemicals like:
Beginning this weekend, if you have a cold, you'll have to get your drugs behind the counter. You'll also have to show photo ID and sign a logbook. That's if you want any medication like Sudafed or Claritin D, drugs that contain pseudoephedrine or ephedrine. Those ingredients are used to make methamphetamine. NPR's Alex Cohen has more.
COHEN: Theoretically, limiting purchase amounts will prevent people from hording pills to cook batches of methamphetamine. In Oklahoma, the first state to ban over the counter sales of drugs with pseudoephedrine, meth lab seizures have dropped by 90 percent. But, Bishop says, meth labs may not be the only ones thwarted by such rules.
Ms. KERRI HOUSTON (Frontiers of Freedom): Many pharmacists have expressed to me their fears they're going to see a gun in their face and people demanding cold products so that they can go off and make them in the home grown meth labs.
The active ingredient in methamphetamine is pseudoephedrine. It is used as a decongestant in cold medications to unblock stuffy noses and clogged sinus passages. Making pseudoephedrine into meth involves a number of different chemicals.
What Is Crystal Meth Made From? Meth is made either by extracting or hydrogenating amphetamine or methamphetamine from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine or by synthesizing the drug from other chemicals. In the 1960s and 1970s, many producers synthesized the drug from precursor chemicals. After restrictions were placed on these chemicals, they switched to extraction or hydrogenation of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. They extract ephedrine or pseudoephedrine from pharmaceutical products such as cold medicines and synthesize the product with mixtures and filters.3
Not surprisingly, bloggers loved this one. In February and March, the story made a bit of a ripple in the blogosphere, spurring intense back-and-forth in the comment sections. Could meth really be manufactured in a mini-coffee pot? Even if it could, would anybody cook it up in a hotel room?
A large haul of precursor chemicals in Laos since the end of last year has revealed` the new recipe being used by the methamphetamine cooks of Asia and the routes crime groups are using to get raw materials from Chinese factories, through Thai ports and into the narcotics labs of the Golden Triangle.
A batch of meth used to be "cooked" over a periodof days in dangerous clandestine laboratories using noxious and flammablechemicals and open fires. The old homegrown meth also required substantialquantities of pseudoephedrine, a medicinal ingredient found in coldmedications.
Shake and bake cooking is also known as "one pot cooking"and it requires as little as a 2 liter plastic soda pop bottle for production.A few pills are mixed with some commonly available noxious chemicals, themixture is shaken, and a chemical reaction produces powdered methamphetamine,with a toxic sludge byproduct.
Although the new method is easy, it's no less dangerous;shaking sets of a volatile chemical reaction that can easily lead to dangerousexplosions. People have died while making shake and bake meth, and because the"cook" is holding the bottle when it explodes, burns tend to besevere.
The NDIC reports that methamphetamine use is spreadingrapidly. Reportedly,demand for "meth" is met not from smuggling, but from clandestine laboratoriesthroughout the United States. Recipes to make meth are available on theInternet, and the ingredients, by themselves, are legal and easy to obtain. Theyinclude battery acid, drain cleaner, lye, lantern fuel, antifreeze, hydrochloric acid,anhydrous ammonia, and large quantities of over-the-counter cold medicines fromwhich ephedrine is extracted. The "cooking" process produces a powder, whichcan be taken orally, smoked, or injected. The Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) reports that in 1993, it seized 218 meth labs in the United States; thisnumber increased each year, and 1,600 meth labs were seized in 1998.
Methamphetamine can be produced from readily availablechemicals andquantities of over-the-counter cold medicines. This means that if there is ademand for meth, a clandestine laboratory quickly can be assembled. Reportedly,for an investment of $100, a manufacturer can produce about $2,000 worth ofmeth. It is easy to see how such a large profit margin can be a strong incentiveto produce the substance. Law enforcement officials across the country reportthat there is a rapid increase in the number of clandestine labs that produce meth. By making it a felony to own or possess a place or equipment to produce acontrolled substance, and by providing severe fines and incarceration times forcommitting the felony, the bills would discourage the proliferation of meth labsand should decrease meth abuse.
Dr. Stucky says the switch to smaller labs is a new challenge for police. Because "shake and bake" needs less pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine now kept behind the counter by law to stop meth makers. Plus, "shake and bake" labs can use chemicals like those found in drug store cold packs, for example, instead of anhydrous ammonia. Previously, the ammonia had to be stolen from farms and businesses and the odor gave the big labs away.
Mixing chemicals in clandestine methamphetamine labs creates substantial risks of explosions, fires, chemical burns, and toxic fume inhalation.[3] Those who mix the chemicals (known as "cooks" or "cookers") and their assistants, emergency responders, hazardous material cleanup crews, neighbors, and future property occupants are all at risk from chemical exposure. The long-term health risks such exposure poses are not yet fully known, but one must assume they are significant.
About three to six people working in clandestine U.S. methamphetamine labs die each year from explosions, fires or toxic fumes.[6] One out of every five or six labs discovered is found because of an explosion or fire.[7] A survey of those who cook methamphetamine revealed one-quarter had experienced a fire while cooking and, in one-fifth of these, no emergency services were called.[8] Those present tended to leave the premises without warning others, which is particularly dangerous in multiunit buildings.
Generally speaking, the two lab types present different challenges for police. Although perhaps 90 percent of all labs are of the small-scale type,[20] the super labs account for up to 80 percent of all methamphetamine produced.[21] So, from a supply-control perspective, they are of far greater concern. However, the small labs account for far more explosions, fires, uncontrolled hazardous waste dumping, and child endangerment. This is largely because less-skilled cooks operate the small labs, using more-primitive equipment and facilities. Many small-lab cooks are parents and methamphetamine abusers themselves, and their drug dependency leads them to neglect their children's welfare. So, if the challenge is to reduce explosions, fires, environmental damage, and child endangerment, then the small labs are of greater concern.
Lab cooks can derive some of the chemicals needed to produce methamphetamine from materials available for purchase without regulation at retail outlets. Among these materials are cold and allergy medications, lye, rock salt, battery acid, lithium batteries, pool acid, iodine, lighter fluid, matches, fireworks, road flares, antifreeze, propane, paint thinner, and drain cleaner. (Commonly used equipment includes glass jars, rubber tubing, sports drink bottles, coffee filters, gasoline cans, hotplates, and pillow cases.)
The phenyl-2-propanone method is less common today, largely because its main precursor chemical, phenyl acetic acid, has been strictly regulated and is hard to obtain; it takes longer to produce methamphetamine; and it produces a less pure and less potent form of the drug, a form with worse side effects.[33] Most methamphetamine cooks now use the latter two methods, in which ephedrine or pseudoephedrine is the main precursor chemical.[34] Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are comparatively easier to obtain: they are commonly found in cold and allergy medications. The red phosphorous method also uses iodine. In addition, the Nazi dope method also uses lithium or sodium metal strips and anhydrous ammonia, an agricultural fertilizer, to synthesize the ephedrine or pseudoephedrine. Thefts of anhydrous ammonia from farmers' storage tanks are almost always connected to methamphetamine production.[35] The terms for these various methods can be confusing; they are sometimes confused even in the published literature. Police will need in-depth training in the chemical processes to fully understand the different ways methamphetamine is produced. 2ff7e9595c
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