There are several different types of amphetamines, which are stimulants. Crystal methamphetamine or simply 'crystal meth' is an illegal form of the drug. Here's what you need to know.
What Is Crystal Meth?
This methamphetamine cracks back instantly, failure to crackback or a large delay indicates impure product. No MSM is present in this methamphetamine (it sublimates around 250 degrees, while methamphetamine has a higher vaporization temperature). 5 Common Meth Withdrawal Symptoms - Meth is the most powerful stimulant drug on the market, and because of its potency it is highly abused for its effects. However, meth is highly addictive, and people who abuse the drug are likely to go through withdrawal symptoms once they stop using it.
The chemical n-methyl-1-phenyl-propan-2-amine is called methamphetamine, methylamphetamine, or desoxyephedrine. The shortened name is simply 'meth'. When it is in its crystalline form, the drug is called crystal meth, ice, Tina, or glass. See the table below for other street names of the drug. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant.
How Is Crystal Meth Used?
Usually, crystal meth is smoked in glass pipes, similar to how crack cocaine is used. It may be injected (either dry or dissolved in water), snorted, swallowed, or inserted into the anus or urethra.
Why Is Crystal Meth Used?
Females often take crystal meth because it can cause extremely rapid weight loss. However, the effects are short term. The body builds up a tolerance to the drug so weight loss tapers off and stops around six weeks after taking the drug. Also, the weight that is lost is regained once a person stops taking methamphetamine. For these reasons, combined with how addictive the drug is, methamphetamine tends not to be prescribed by doctors for weight loss.
Some people take meth because of the long-lasting high that it gives. Methamphetamine causes numerous neurotransmitters to be released in the brain, producing a sense of euphoria that may last as long as 12 hours, depending on how the drug was taken.
Methamphetamine is popular as a stimulant. As a stimulant, methamphetamine improves concentration, energy, and alertness while decreasing appetite and fatigue.
Methamphetamines are also taken by people who are feeling depressed. They may be taken for their side effect of increasing libido and sexual pleasure.
What Are the Effects of Methamphetamine Use?
This is a list of effects associated with pure methamphetamine use. Because of how it's made, crystal meth is never pure, so the dangers associated with taking the street drug extend beyond these effects.
Common Immediate Effects
- Euphoria
- Increased energy and alertness
- Diarrhea and nausea
- Excessive sweating
- Loss of appetite, insomnia, tremors, jaw-clenching
- Agitation, irritability, talkativeness, panic, compulsive fascination with repetitive tasks, violence, confusion
- Increased libido
- Increased blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate, blood sugar levels, bronchodilation
- Constriction of the walls of the arteries
- In pregnant and nursing women, methamphetamine crosses the placenta and is secreted in breast milk
Effects Associated With Chronic Use
- Tolerance (needing more of the drug to get the same effect)
- Drug craving
- Temporary weight loss
- Withdrawal symptoms including depression and anhedonia
- 'Meth Mouth' where teeth rapidly decay and fall out
- Drug-related psychosis (may last for months or years after drug use is discontinued)
Effects of Overdose
- Brain damage
- Sensation of flesh crawling (formication)
- Paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, tension headache
- Muscle breakdown (rhabdomyolysis) which can lead to kidney damage or failure
- Death due to stroke, cardiac arrest or elevated body temperature (hyperthermia)
Physical and Chemical Properties of Crystal Meth
- Crystal meth may be distinguished from other drugs and compounds by its properties. The compound forms two enantiomers (compounds which are mirror images of each other), dextromethamphetamine and levomethamphetamine.
- Methamphetamine hydrochloride salt is a white crystal or crystalline powder at room temperature that is bitter-tasting and odorless, with a melting point between 170 to 175 °C (338 to 347 °F). It readily dissolves in water and ethanol.
- The free base of methamphetamine is a clear liquid that smells like geranium leaves. It dissolves in ethanol or diethyl ether and mixes with chloroform.
- Although crystal meth is a persistent pollutant in soils, it is degraded by bleach or within 30 days in wastewater that is exposed to light.
Where Does Crystal Meth Come From?
Methamphetamine is available with a prescription for obesity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and narcolepsy, but crystal meth is a street drug, made in illegal labs by chemically altering over-the-counter drugs. Making crystal meth usually involves reducing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, found in cold and allergy medicine. In the US, a typical meth lab employs something called the 'Red, White, and Blue Process', which entails hydrogenation of the hydroxyl group on the ephedrine or pseudoephedrine molecule. The red is red phosphorus, white is the ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, and blue is iodine, used to make hydroiodic acid. Making crystal meth is dangerous to the people making it and dangerous to the neighborhood where it's being made. White phosphorus with sodium hydroxide can produce poisonous phosphine gas, usually as a result of overheating red phosphorus, plus white phosphorus can auto ignite and blow up the meth lab. In addition to phosphine and phosphorus, various hazardous vapors may be associated with a meth lab, such as chloroform, ether, acetone, ammonia, hydrochloric acid, methylamine, iodine, hydroiodic acid, lithium or sodium, mercury, and hydrogen gas.
Street Names for Crystal Meth
Crystal meth goes by a number of names:
- Batu
- Biker's Coffee
- Black Beauties
- Blade
- Chalk
- Chicken Feed
- Crank
- Cristy
- Crystal
- Crystal Glass
- Crystal Meth
- Glass
- Go-Fast
- Hanyak
- Hiropon
- Hot Ice
- Ice
- Kaksonjae
- L.A. Glass
- L.A. Ice
- Meth
- Methlies Quick
- Poor Man's Cocaine
- Quartz
- Shabu
- Shards
- Speed
- Stove Top
- Super Ice
- Tina
- Trash
- Tweak
- Uppers
- Ventana
- Vidrio
- Yaba
- Yellow Bam
Crystal meth is short for crystal methamphetamine. It is just one form of the drug methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine is a white crystalline drug that people take by snorting it (inhaling through the nose), smoking it or injecting it with a needle. Some even take it orally, but all develop a strong desire to continue using it because the drug creates a false sense of happiness and well-being—a rush (strong feeling) of confidence, hyperactiveness and energy. One also experiences decreased appetite. These drug effects generally last from six to eight hours, but can last up to twenty-four hours.
The first experience might involve some pleasure, but from the start, methamphetamine begins to destroy the user's life.
...and 2 1/2 years later
What is Methamphetamine?
Methamphetamine is an illegal drug in the same class as cocaine and other powerful street drugs. It has many nicknames—meth, crank, chalk or speed being the most common. (See the list of street names.)
Crystal meth is used by individuals of all ages, but is most commonly used as a 'club drug,' taken while partying in night clubs or at rave parties. Its most common street names are ice or glass.
It is a dangerous and potent chemical and, as with all drugs, a poison that first acts as a stimulant but then begins to systematically destroy the body. Thus it is associated with serious health conditions, including memory loss, aggression, psychotic behavior and potential heart and brain damage.
Highly addictive, meth burns up the body's resources, creating a devastating dependence that can only be relieved by taking more of the drug.
Crystal meth's effect is highly concentrated, and many users report getting hooked (addicted) from the first time they use it.
'I tried it once and BOOM! I was addicted,' said one meth addict who lost his family, friends, his profession as a musician and ended up homeless.
Consequently, it is one of the hardest drug addictions to treat and many die in its grip.
'I started using crystal meth when I was a senior in high school. Before my first semester of college was up, meth became such a big problem that I had to drop out. I looked like I had chicken pox, from hours of staring at myself in the mirror and picking at myself. I spent all my time either doing meth, or trying to get it.'
—Anne Marie
REFERENCES
Fake Meth Crack Back Patterns
- Interpol report on Methamphetamine, 27 September 2005
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration news release, 15 February 2008
- United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime report on Methamphetamine, 1998
- U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse report on Methamphetamine, May 2005
