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The Wild Shrub at the Root of the Afghan Meth Epidemic

sigmaprimus 6y ago
Meth is such a gross dirty drug, I often wonder if Cocaine were legally available to drug users if Meth ever would have gotten a foot hold. Same goes with Fentynol's rise due to the criminalization of Heroine and Opium. I also find it interesting to contemplate how many people accept the criminalizing and imprisonment of drug addicts, but who are also currently steadfastly against any sort of mask wearing laws.
- sidpatil 6y ago
  > Meth is such a gross dirty drug, I often wonder if Cocaine were legally available to drug users if Meth ever would have gotten a foot hold. It's dirty due to illicit production methods. Methamphetamine originated as a pharmaceutical (Schedule II in the US), so it does exist in a "clean" form.
  - sigmaprimus 6y ago
    Interesting, I was not aware of that. My only experience with Meth has been interactions with long term addicts who are suffering horrible skin conditions and tooth decay. I guess it really isn't fair to call them gross and dirty, and it makes sense that those symptoms could be caused by poor chemistry.
    - flukus 6y ago
      You've probably had many interactions with meth addicts and had no idea they were addicts. As real as the skin conditions and tooth decay are there are still plenty of people that don't noticeably suffer in the same way because they have better hygiene and nutrition than the people you're thinking of who are probably homeless.
onecommentman 6y ago
A bit “cart before the horse”...no pun intended. From article “But these high, rocky outcroppings are home to a plant that may soon play as central a role in the country’s drug economy as the infamous opium poppy. Rehman...searching for Ephedra sinica, a hardy, sage-colored shrub that grows abundantly across central and northern Afghanistan.” In Chinese medicine Ephedra sinica is known as Ma Huang, part of Chinese medicine for 2000 years. “Ma huang is one of the earliest and best known drugs of Chinese traditional medicine, referenced in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, one of the foundation books of Chinese medicine (about 100 AD). It was and still is used to induce perspiration and to treat the symptoms of bronchial asthma, colds, and influenza.“ https://www.drugs.com/npc/ma-huang.html https://www.drugs.com/npc/ma-huang.html Plants aren’t banned in US or China. Ephedra extracts banned in US since 2006. Unlikely Afghanistan is going to go great guns on this soon. Good discussion from herb mail-order Richters. https://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=Issues/ephedra.html https://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=Issues/ephedra.html
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Not really. BBC reporting from yesterday: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55048147 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55048147 [..] Afghanistan, home to the heroin trade, moves into meth A new report released on Tuesday warns that Afghanistan is becoming a significant global producer of methamphetamine. The country's opium poppy fields are already the source of the majority of the world's heroin, and now this report, by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), warns that crystal meth could eventually become just as big an industry. The boom is the result of a discovery by drug traffickers that a plant commonly found growing wild in parts of Afghanistan, ephedra, can be used to create the key component of meth: ephedrine. "The realisation that you could produce methamphetamine from a wild crop in the mountains has been a fundamental gamechanger," said Dr David Mansfield, an expert on Afghanistan's drug industry and lead author of the report. [..] The team discovered that methamphetamine production was a "two-tiered process", with ephedrine relatively easy to make even for people in poor households, who then sell it on to more specialised "meth cooks". The researchers were able to identify the images of ephedrine labs through the large quantities of waste water and dried ephedra crops left over from the process and dumped outside the buildings. [..]

Meth is such a gross dirty drug, I often wonder if Cocaine were legally available to drug users if Meth ever would have gotten a foot hold. Same goes with Fentynol's rise due to the criminalization of Heroine and Opium. I also find it interesting to contemplate how many people accept the criminalizing and imprisonment of drug addicts, but who are also currently steadfastly against any sort of mask wearing laws.

sidpatil 6y ago
> Meth is such a gross dirty drug, I often wonder if Cocaine were legally available to drug users if Meth ever would have gotten a foot hold. It's dirty due to illicit production methods. Methamphetamine originated as a pharmaceutical (Schedule II in the US), so it does exist in a "clean" form.
- sigmaprimus 6y ago
  Interesting, I was not aware of that. My only experience with Meth has been interactions with long term addicts who are suffering horrible skin conditions and tooth decay. I guess it really isn't fair to call them gross and dirty, and it makes sense that those symptoms could be caused by poor chemistry.
  - flukus 6y ago
    You've probably had many interactions with meth addicts and had no idea they were addicts. As real as the skin conditions and tooth decay are there are still plenty of people that don't noticeably suffer in the same way because they have better hygiene and nutrition than the people you're thinking of who are probably homeless.

onecommentman 6y ago

A bit “cart before the horse”...no pun intended. From article “But these high, rocky outcroppings are home to a plant that may soon play as central a role in the country’s drug economy as the infamous opium poppy. Rehman...searching for Ephedra sinica, a hardy, sage-colored shrub that grows abundantly across central and northern Afghanistan.” In Chinese medicine Ephedra sinica is known as Ma Huang, part of Chinese medicine for 2000 years. “Ma huang is one of the earliest and best known drugs of Chinese traditional medicine, referenced in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, one of the foundation books of Chinese medicine (about 100 AD). It was and still is used to induce perspiration and to treat the symptoms of bronchial asthma, colds, and influenza.“ https://www.drugs.com/npc/ma-huang.html https://www.drugs.com/npc/ma-huang.html Plants aren’t banned in US or China. Ephedra extracts banned in US since 2006. Unlikely Afghanistan is going to go great guns on this soon. Good discussion from herb mail-order Richters. https://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=Issues/ephedra.html https://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=Issues/ephedra.html

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Not really. BBC reporting from yesterday: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55048147 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55048147 [..] Afghanistan, home to the heroin trade, moves into meth A new report released on Tuesday warns that Afghanistan is becoming a significant global producer of methamphetamine. The country's opium poppy fields are already the source of the majority of the world's heroin, and now this report, by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), warns that crystal meth could eventually become just as big an industry. The boom is the result of a discovery by drug traffickers that a plant commonly found growing wild in parts of Afghanistan, ephedra, can be used to create the key component of meth: ephedrine. "The realisation that you could produce methamphetamine from a wild crop in the mountains has been a fundamental gamechanger," said Dr David Mansfield, an expert on Afghanistan's drug industry and lead author of the report. [..] The team discovered that methamphetamine production was a "two-tiered process", with ephedrine relatively easy to make even for people in poor households, who then sell it on to more specialised "meth cooks". The researchers were able to identify the images of ephedrine labs through the large quantities of waste water and dried ephedra crops left over from the process and dumped outside the buildings. [..]