Although we are hearing more and more about it, meth is not a new drug and has been around for decades. Methamphetamine is closely related to the drug amphetamine. Amphetamine was first synthesized in 1887 in Germany by a scientist named L. Edeleano, who named it phenylisopropylamine. During the 1920s, researchers investigated it as a decongestant and as a medical treatment for depression and other medical ailments. By the 1930s, retailers marketed amphetamine as Benzedrine, an over-the-counter decongestant. Later in the decade, physicians prescribed amphetamine for narcolepsy, ADHD, and depression. During World War II, the military used amphetamines to keep soldiers ready and available for duty. As medical use of amphetamines spread, so did abuse.

In 1919, a Japanese chemist named A. Ogata produced the first methamphetamine. Meth is more powerful and easier to manufacture than amphetamine. During World War II, the Japanese military used meth to improve military performance. It was also sold over the counter in Japan to increase work performance and endurance during the war. Following the war, its use, including intravenously, became epidemic in Japan, as supplies were readily available. It has been suggested that Adolph Hitler may have been a heavy user.

After World War II, Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine) and Methedrine (luvoamphetamine) became readily available in the United States. College students, truck drivers, motorcycle gangs, and athletes used the drug to stay awake, improve concentration, and performance. By the mid-1960s, people were using meth in San Francisco and parts of the West coast. By 1970, the drug declined following the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which restricted the production of injectable methamphetamine. However, it had made inroads in the gay community by the late 1970s. Meth use popularity spread in California during the late 1980s. Hawaii, California, and Arizona were some of the earliest and continue to be the hardest hit states. In 1996, Congress passed the Methamphetamine Control Act of 1996, which doubled the maximum penalties for possession, and increased the penalty for the possession of equipment used to manufacture methamphetamine.

By the 1990s, some young adults found meth to be a popular alternative to cocaine and heroin. White motorcycle gangs controlled production and distribution of meth before the 1990s. Small home labs and Mexican-based criminal organizations eventually took over production and distribution of methamphetamine. Mexican-based criminal organizations established “superlabs” in California and Mexico that were capable of producing large amounts of highly pure methamphetamine. In Congressional testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, authority Donnie R. Marshall reported that about 85 percent of all methamphetamine used in the United States in 2000 was produced by these superlabs. During the 1990s — and to the present — another shift occurred as cooks started to produce meth in small, home-based clandestine labs typically located in rural or suburban communities.

The meth on the streets today is often more powerful than that available in earlier years. Today, meth cooks have refined recipes to the point that some batches have as much as six times the potency of meth cooked in the 1960s. This meth is not always sold on the street, but rather cooks circulate (give or sell) it among friends and acquaintances.

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