Talk:Methamphetamine

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WP:NOTHOWTO

Why does this article have an "Illicit production" section? Is there any good reason this article gets an exemption from WP:NOTHOWTO? Most articles on synthetic drugs don't have such a section. Selery (talk) 12:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that is just laugh out loud funny. There is an illicit production section because there is an illicit production epidemic with methamphetamine. "Most articles on synthetic drugs don't have such a section." Maybe that's because most synthetic drugs are not made illicitly, even if they have a potential for abuse, you cannot illicitly produce most synthetic drugs yourself. This is a methamphetamine phenomenon, and what's laughable is that you think it's some sort of instruction manual? I can't dignify that with an answer, and I shouldn't even have dignified this with a response. It's a ridiculous notion that you have introduced, and I suggest you do some more research to educate yourself. I wasn't trying to be rude, it's just offensive to the people who have contributed to the whole article, and that includes this section. Editor182 (talk) 15:14, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you are upset and offended, but yes, I do think the synthesis descriptions act as a basic instruction manual. Would you object to rewording the section in less procedural terms, on principle? Selery (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

That policy says that an article should not read like a how-to manual - it's not a call for censorship but a matter of style. We don't say "first add this, then this, shake, wait 15 minutes". We do explain the process conceptually. I've looked up this article just now because I saw perhaps the same AP article you did, namely http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501367_162-57363650/ap-impact-meth-fills-hospitals-with-burn-patients/ . This makes the shake-and-bake method notable and appropriate for Wikipedia to cover. The current version is indeed woefully incomplete. What makes it moral to cover this is if we use the opportunity and do our job of getting comprehensive information to those who request it, namely, explaining to the would-be soda pop bottle rebels exactly how their procedure can turn into a nightmare. (Have you ever seen Trauma: Life in the ER? It looks like someone shaving meat for a döner...) Now there are indeed how-to sites out there, such as [1] (incidentally, I would not recommend joining in that conversation, as some of the questions seem phrased so as to support a conspiracy charge). There are little nuggets of joy in there like

"Brace yourself for a blowout of biblical proportions. Do yourself a favor.. While your standing there with the bottle still in your hand with your ears ringing so scared your afraid to look at your hand b/c your not sure you still have one. (This happened to me 3 times) When you realize your hand is still intact b/c its still holding the bottle with a gigantic fucking hole in it this is when you have roughly 3 minutes to grab a shitload of kitty litter before the lithium firework display starts. THUD THUD THUD THUD. Fire here, fire there. Oh shit.. now the sodium/potassium nitrate is on fire!!! Panic... throw water on it... j/k.. but I know ppl who freaked out and did just that. Long story short... one guy in particular was burnt so bad his gf took him to the ER b/c they were afraid of LE intervention calling 911. Guess what they came home too?? Punch line... What home!"

Now of course we can't cite a bunch of meth heads gabbing on a forum but we can see if we can use the leads we find in such ways to get to solid sources about how these things go wrong. Chemistry is not innately doomed to blow up; you just have to treat the would-be chemists with respect and foster an adult understanding of what they are contemplating, even if it doesn't seem very wise. Wnt (talk) 17:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with deletion of unsourced statements pertaining to ingredients and precursors and no longer have any concerns with the section in particular.

I do have some general concerns that if we're going to talk about synthesis, we should make an effort to link to authoritative external harm reduction-based guides, but I would prefer that we not talk about the precursors and synthesis process at all. I ask others to join me in keeping an eye on this, and if consensus develops for replacing precursor information or including detailed synthesis information (which I still believe is against WP:NOTHOWTO) that we link to guides specifically designed to reduce harm in production and use. They are not hard to google. Selery (talk) 17:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

"They are not hard to Google" is a terrible excuse. The point of Wikipedia is to make information free, not under the copyright of some private corporation. If you haven't noticed, Google keeps buying up vastly important Internet companies one after another. If you run NoScript, half the sites you visit won't work unless you enable Google scripts on the page. We have no guarantee that one day they're not going to announce from on high that from now on you have to pay a subscription fee every month or else no searches, no scripts, no YouTube, no Yahoo, no maps, no translators. Wikipedia is supposed to be an alternative - a free source of information, not under anybody's lock and key. And by keeping it free, keeping it useful, keeping it competitive with private search engines which, to me, seem largely overlapping in function, by doing so we help reduce the chance such a scenario will develop.

The other issue is that a desperate meth head may be satisfied with the first hit that gives him a simple recipe, without bothering to look on for other pages that might talk about safety issues. Let's make his first hit a good hit.

Hmmm, looking at this again there's a chance I misunderstood you - "replacing" is one of those words with two equal and opposite meanings. Could you link an example of a "guide to reduce harm in production" so I get what you mean? (And more sources are always a good thing) Wnt (talk) 20:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I may be mistaken. I've seen some over the past year which look to have been taken down. [2] says, "Erowid was the only website in this sample to contain detailed information on methamphetamine synthesis," but [3] is clearly not a harm reduction site. Nor is it a reliable source, having apparently been composed from monograph e-mails. Selery (talk) 21:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Um, you seem to be replacing informal synthesis instructions sourced to news stories. Do you mean to do that? Would you agree to requiring peer reviewed secondary sources for this sort of thing? 67.6.179.197 (talk) 21:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

So far I've been looking at the section more as news than as science - the fact that there are a bazillion ways to make this simple compound is of some chemical interest, but mostly it becomes notable on account of the burns, explosions, environmental contamination, and the remarkably large and ever-expanding child's chemistry set of compounds now banned to the public because somehow they can be used to make it. I'm sure there are better sources; my philosophy is that one source is better than no source, two are better than one, three... etc. It's very hard to look up technical details about something until you know what you're looking for. So for example, at the moment I don't understand why using mercuric chloride would lead to environmental lead contamination - but a source says it, and until proven wrong my guess is that there's some reason.

I actually wasn't aware that I was "replacing" anything; I'll have to look over the history to see if there are goodies there I can work with. The only recent removal I noticed before was a small unsourced bit. Wnt (talk) 21:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and as for "peer reviewed secondary sources", that's a standard that can't be met here, because we're not speaking of a scientific study but rather a sort of crime. It's not submitted for publication. We have to rely on sources like reporters and police and firefighters for their accounts of what they're run into, because nobody shows up at a meth-maker's doorstep says he's from the local university and he's taking a representative statistical survey of manufacturers and he'd like to start by asking whether the synthesis uses mercury chloride... Wnt (talk) 21:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I just looked at that paper you mentioned. That is quite possibly the worst publication I have ever seen on PubMedCentral. Their experiment involved running a total of nine Google searches, looking at the first 20 hits, and concluding from them a long list of non sequiturs such as that parents can reduce drug use by using netnanny software and Erowid methamphetamine instructions are a threat to public health. I think that there could be some excellent social science done here, by someone willing to work - e.g. to track down a large number of people actually suffering severe burns from these attempts and figuring out what methods and specific reagents they used and seeing if they can explain what went wrong. Wnt (talk) 22:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Selery. The instruction section does not belong in the article. Chessofnerd (talk) 01:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Seperate page for Desoxyn or medical use?

This article is not vary informative in regards to Methamphetamine's use as a prescription drug for the treatment of ADHD. Almost all the information in the article is mostly relevant to abuse or use as a recreational drug. Should there be a second article or at least a section on medical use to make the article as informative as other pages on pharmaceutical drugs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.115.29.186 (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Given that it is a very rarely prescribed drug, I don't think it is justified to create a separate article. I do like your suggestion of creating a section for medical uses/therapeutic uses. A few sentences or paragraph in the lead/intro summarising therapeutic uses would be good as well.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:58, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

That article did exist at one point, but has since been deleted or merged. This article has had a medical use section for years and it's hardly changed so if you have something to add to it, please do. ButOnMethItIs (talk) 03:09, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Archive 4

Archived all talk from 2009-2011 to Archive 4. C6541 (T↔C) 21:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone vandalized the 1st paragraph.

The first paragraph says "Methamphetamine , japaneses and germany make this medicine of bad killing people , in oosaka japan methamphetamine making city do kill japaneses self from 1883 1888 1943 1945 1947 1952 2012 with making 731 unit"Stopde (talk) 11:14, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Who gives a shit? Just revert it. 203.97.127.101 (talk) 08:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Methamphetamine2.png

Looking at this ball-and-stick model of the chemical, why is there a triple carbon-carbon bond in the ring? Shouldn't it only be a double bond? Chris857 (talk) 18:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me as if the benzene ring contains the correct alternating double- and single-bonds. Perhaps the "shininess" of the bonds is making it look to you as if there is a triple bond that is not really there? -- Ed (Edgar181) 18:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Oooh... you are right. I guess there are only 2 bonds, but the reflections (which are less pronounced on the other two double bonds in the ring) made it look different. No problems here, then. Chris857 (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)