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.

Review by Elizabeth Hand for salon.com

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.

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