Red phosphorus needed to reduce elemental iodine (I2) to HI and to recycle reformed I2, is collected from matchbook striker pads or road flares. Pseudoephedrine is extracted (via water or alcohol and coffee filters) from OTC cold medicine. The paraphernalia characteristic of this method is seen as the agents storm through the house: coffee filters, match books, road flares, iodine tinctures, boxes and blister packs of OTC cold medicine, and mason jars of transparent red and yellow solvents (from removing the red wax coating and extracting pseudoephedrine from cold medicine respectively).Īs may now be obvious, the popularity of the Nagai method stems from the ease of obtaining the necessary chemicals. The Nagai method is portrayed twice in the pilot episode (S.1E.1): first when Walt's DEA agent brother in law, Hank Schrader, and his DEA pals raid Jessie's lab while Walt rides along, and then again during the Winnebago cook scene. A skilled chemist like Walt understands the chemistry allowing him to alter or adapt the synthesis as necessary. As Gus’s assistant Victor in “Box Cutter” (S.4E.1) states, “It’s called a cook, because everything comes down to following a recipe.” Walt appropriately asks him, “What happens when you get a bad barrel of precursor? How would you even know?” and “What happens in the summer when the humidity level rises and your product goes cloudy?” These are important points that someone just following a recipe may not be able to deal with. In fact, cooking meth can be extremely dangerous because a lack of chemical knowledge puts the cook (and anyone else nearby) at serious risk of injury. In the same manner anyone can learn how to cook a fancy meal, anyone can be taught to cook meth regardless of chemistry education-cooking meth may be just a little more explosive.

When it comes to making meth, the difference between cooking and synthesis should be acknowledged. Many believe the first clandestine labs originated in the California bay area from this environment around 1962. This supply began to wither in the 1960s as law enforcement prosecuted over-prescribing doctors and placed pressure on pharmaceutical companies to withdraw certain products. By the 1950s stimulants became a regular part of the American routine, and a flourishing black-market in diverted pharmaceuticals soon developed. Meth’s psychostimulant effect does not seem to have been noticed until the mid-30s when Friedrich Hauschild discovered it at the Berlin based pharmaceutical company Temmler.

N-methyl-1-phenylpropan-2-amine or methamphetamine was first synthesized from the naturally occurring alkaloid ephedrine by Japanese chemist Nagai Nagayoshi in 1893 while researching the structure of ephedrine.

The clandestine prophecy