Meth

I found this to be interesting. I had never thought about where meth came from to start with.

One of the earliest uses of methamphetamine was during World War II when the German military dispensed it under the trade name Pervitin.[6] It was widely distributed across rank and division, from elite forces to tank crews and aircraft personnel. Chocolates dosed with methamphetamine were known as Fliegerschokolade ("airmen's chocolate") when given to pilots, or Panzerschokolade ("tank chocolate") when given to tank crews. From 1942 until his death in 1945, Adolf Hitler may have been given intravenous injections of methamphetamine by his personal physician Theodor Morell as a treatment for depression and fatigue. It is possible that it was used to treat Hitler's speculated Parkinson's disease, or that his Parkinson-like symptoms which developed from 1940 onwards resulted from using methamphetamine.[7]


After World War II, a large supply of amphetamine stockpiled by the Japanese military became available in Japan under the street name shabu (also Philopon, pronounced Hiropon, a tradename)[8]. The Japanese Ministry of Health banned it in 1951; since then it has been increasingly produced by the yakuza criminal organization.[9] Today methamphetamine is still associated with the Japanese underworld, and its use is discouraged by strong social taboos.[citation needed]

In the 1950s there was a rise in the legal prescription of methamphetamine to the American public. According to the 1951 edition of Pharmacology and Therapeutics by Arthur Grollman, it was to be prescribed for "narcolepsy, post-encephalitic Parkinsonism, alcoholism, ... in certain depressive states... and in the treatment of obesity."[citation needed]

The 1960s saw the start of significant use of clandestinely manufactured methamphetamine as well as methamphetamine created in users' own homes for personal use. The recreational use of methamphetamine continued into the 1980s. San Diego, California was described as the "methamphetamine capital of North America" in the December 2, 1989 edition of The Economist[citation needed] and again in 2000, also with South Gate, California as the second capital city