In meth we trust

Two riveting books look at methamphetamines past and present -- from miracle cure to today's drug scourge -- and why sleep-deprived, sex-obsessed America craves crank.

By Elizabeth Hand

Read more: Drugs, Books, Memoirs, Science, Drug Abuse, Reviews, Book reviews

Aug. 16, 2007 | Heroin, developed in 1898 by a chemist at the Bayer Laboratory in Germany, derived its name from the German "heroisch" (heroic), and despite everything we know about the horrors of heroin addiction, smack still manages to be marketed as sexy in advertising and art. Whereas "meth" rhymes with "death" and sounds like "mess": an ugly word for an ugly drug that seems unlikely to benefit from an image update anytime soon.

Even its myth of origin is tainted, deriving from a probably apocryphal story of the drug's development by Hitler's chemists to fuel a robotic, remorseless army of Nazi storm troopers. So says Frank Owen in "No Speed Limit: The Highs and Lows of Meth," his gripping sociocultural history of a substance that has demonstrated a malevolent, near-viral ability to adapt to shifts in taste, popularity, population, production and distribution.

The synthetic methamphetamine has a horticultural analog in ephedra vulgaris, used for millennia by the Chinese as an herbal remedy for asthma and other breathing ailments. In 1887, a Japanese scientist identified ephedra's active ingredient, ephedrine, a chemical similar to adrenaline. The same year, the German L. Edeleano used ephedrine as the base to create phenylisopropylamine, now known as amphetamine.

But because the substance seemed to have no useful medical applications, the malign genie remained in the bottle until the 1920s, when ephedrine was first used to treat asthma in clinical trials in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, a Japanese scientist developed a more powerful synthetic version of the drug that came to be known as methamphetamine. In 1927, a British research chemist at UCLA named Gordon Alles resynthesized Edeleano's drug for use as a bronchiodilator, and subsequently sold the formula for use as an over-the-counter inhalant.

The new drug, christened Benzedrine, was initially marketed as a miracle cure, "used to treat obesity, epilepsy, schizophrenia, cerebral palsy, hypertension, 'irritable colon,' 'caffeine mania,' and even hiccups." By the 1950s, variations on its chemical theme included Dexedrine, whose "gentle stimulation will provide the patient with a new cheerfulness, optimism, and feeling of well-being"; Norodin, "useful in reducing the desire for food"; Desoxyn, for "When she's ushered by temptation"; and Syndrox, "For the patient who is all flesh and no will power."

All these testimonials originated in medical journals, and the drugs were targeted at women, mostly as "pick-me-ups" and diet aids. But even prior to the 1950s, amphetamine and methamphetamine had begun to leave their mark upon the American heartland. During World War II, factories at the San Diego naval base provided troops overseas with Benzedrine. Owen claims "GIs consumed an estimated 200 million pills," causing untold numbers of soldiers to return stateside with an amphetamine habit.

After the war, some former servicemen took jobs in Southern California's defense plants, where amphetamines' "ability to make boring and repetitive mechanical work seem fascinating and meaningful" no doubt came in handy. The San Diego area was also the 1948 birthplace of the Hell's Angels, whose later habit of transporting illegally manufactured methamphetamine in the crankshaft of their bikes gave the drug its street name, crank.

Owen, a British journalist and the author of "Clubland," an account of the designer drug Special K, does a mostly deft job of juggling the myriad elements of crank's sordid history, including its impact upon our legal, chemical, cultural and even religious landscape. "No Speed Limit" has sometimes jarring shifts in chronology and mood, as Owen jaunts from the drug's late-19th century origins as a plant compound to its current vogue as a signifier for white trash, as well as its privileged spot in the early-21st century Index of Truly Bad Shit.

Owen points out that neither of these contemporary impressions of crank is unassailable. Meth has cut across class lines as both "mother's little helper" and a frighteningly powerful libido enhancer adopted by the gay club scene in the 1990s. Statistical evidence suggests it is nowhere near as prevalent as for other highly addictive substances.

In 2005 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Survey on Drug Use and Health (doomed to be a flawed sampling, as drug users often lie about their habits) estimated that 10.4 million Americans over the age of 12 had tried meth, with 512,000 classified as regular users. Still, that's a mere drop in the syringe when compared to 59.9 million regular tobacco users, and 121 million regular drinkers.

But whatever their costs in health and lost productivity, tobacco and alcohol are legal drugs, whereas meth is an illicit industry that now turns hundreds of millions of dollars in profit, most of it for Mexican drug cartels. Owen shows us the human face of meth abuse -- not surprisingly, an ugly one it is. A child watches her mother strip the heads off matches so she can soak them in acetone to extract phosphorous, one component in home meth manufacture. Vacant-eyed men obsessively masturbate to online porn, and toddlers sleep on the floor of their daycare center, next to a room where meth is being cooked. (Readers who want even more livid images can go to this site started by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office in Oregon, where Deputy Bret King has assembled before-and-after mug shots of meth users in the county detention center.)

Yet the most riveting parts of "No Speed Limit" deal with the ways in which the manufacturers and distributors of the drug have consistently and disturbingly evaded efforts to stop its dissemination. This drama plays out like an illicit chemical variant of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon, with numerous characters stepping into the role of Road Runner. Chief among these is the renegade chemist Steve Preisler, who pseudonymously authored "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture" and "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture," tomes that helped spur the rise of mom-and-pop meth labs.

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