Cheap, Nasty, Near You. How Crystal Meth Is Spreading

The party drug known as “crystal meth” or “ice,” around for decades on a limited scale, has been turbocharged by globalization into a favored money spinner for transcontinental criminal organizations. The highly addictive, crystalline form of methamphetamine can be cooked up almost anywhere (as seen on the television series “Breaking Bad”) using a variety of chemical ingredients, legal or otherwise. That has enabled gangsters to elude drug control efforts and deliver ever cheaper supplies, often sold surreptitiously online. The results have been devastating: drug dependence, debilitating psychiatric disorders, violent crime and a brutal war on drugs in such places as the Philippines.

It’s a psychostimulant from the methamphetamine group that includes “speed” and MDMA, also called “Ecstasy” or “Molly.” These accelerate the release of the brain’s pleasure chemical dopamine. Crystal meth, also known by the street names “shard,” “shabu” and “Tina,” is the purest, most potent -- and subsequently, most addictive -- form of methamphetamine. Its ice-like granules can be smoked, injected, swallowed or snorted.