Discussion on US street drug purity

[Snafu in the Void]

Due to /r/drugs getting NSFW tagged this week I'm going to retire from there.

I was recently berated and called pathetic the other day in /r/drugs for trying to suggest and showing evidence that street meth in the US is not 97% pure, and far from it. It's a cesspool and the majority of people there are uninformed teenagers.

It's actually a major concern of mine. There is no real moderation of information there. It's not real harm reduction and very far from it.

/r/drugs is a drug chat room for uninformed young people

 

[S.J.B.]

I was recently berated and called pathetic the other day in /r/drugs for trying to suggest and showing evidence that street meth in the US is not 97% pure, and far from it. It's a cesspool and the majority of people there are uninformed teenagers.

It's actually a major concern of mine. There is no real moderation of information there. It's not real harm reduction and very far from it.

/r/drugs is a drug chat room for uninformed young people

The DEA's sampling program has been showing that seized methamphetamine has had an average purity around 97% for years (Google "National Drug Threat Assessment", for some reason Bluelight always blocks the link). If you've got solid evidence contradicting that, I would be curious to see it.

 

[Snafu in the Void]

The DEA's sampling program has been showing that seized methamphetamine has had an average purity around 97% for years (Google "National Drug Threat Assessment", for some reason Bluelight always blocks the link). If you've got solid evidence contradicting that, I would be curious to see it.

It gets cut as it trickles down through the dealer network. It's misleading to say meth is 97% pure. What crosses the border is not what people get (I assume the DEA is testing the meth they seize at the border, which is unadulterated).

It's important to distinguish what is coming from the source and what the end user is using.

Illicit Drug Purity in U.S. Varies with Distance from U.S.-Mexico Border | UAHS Office of Public Affairs

opa.uahs.arizona.edu

The analysis found that the purity of all three drugs declined as distance from the border increased, though there were differences by drug type. Methamphetamine purity declined continuously with distance, with one exception: it jumped in the northeastern United States (more than 1,500 miles from the border) during 2000-2004, probably due to imports of methamphetamine from Quebec and Ontario, Canada, which began in the early 2000s.

Distance

<50

>50-300

>300-600

>600-900

>900-1200

>1200-1500

Meth

71%

70%

58%

42%

34%

37%

(Meth purity by distance from the Mexican border)

This is also from awhile ago and I assume it's even worse now, and the different synthesis now makes it even worse as well. My pseudo-educated guess would be that, for the average person, meth is 20-50% pure in 2022 in the US (this data is a bit dated and there is a significant downward trend in purity since early 2000's).

I've lived near the border in Arizona and other states, there is generally a big difference in quality based on location in my personal experience with meth, cocaine and heroin. My last meth experience it was so incredibly cut I went through 2 grams in in a day or two, which would have been far beyond fatal overdose if it was 97% pure.

Meth is very easy to cut and recrystallize, people mistakenly think that big crystals = more purity, which is simply untrue.

Admittedly I'm only thinking about the US it may be wildly different in other parts of the world.

anyways, sorry for going off topic on this thread, bit irrelevant

 

[S.J.B.]

It gets cut as it trickles down through the dealer network. It's misleading to say meth is 97% pure. What crosses the border is not what people get (I assume the DEA is testing the meth they seize at the border, which is unadulterated).

The DEA's Methamphetamine Profiling Program takes samples from all over the country, from both small and large seizures, although they do "[place special emphasis] on high-value port-of-entry (POE) and foreign samples." It does seem reasonable to assume that street-level methamphetamine should be to some extent lower than the average, although I don't think twenty-year-old data is very enlightening on that point from a quantitative perspective.

This is also from awhile ago and I assume it's even worse now, and the different synthesis now makes it even worse as well. My pseudo-educated guess would be that, for the average person, meth is 20-50% pure in 2022 in the US (this data is a bit dated and there is a significant downward trend in purity since early 2000's).

The case is in fact the opposite -- methamphetamine purity in the U.S., on average, has significantly increased since the early 2000s:

 

[Snafu in the Void]

The DEA's Methamphetamine Profiling Program takes samples from all over the country, from both small and large seizures, although they do "[place special emphasis] on high-value port-of-entry (POE) and foreign samples." It does seem reasonable to assume that street-level methamphetamine should be to some extent lower than the average, although I don't think twenty-year-old data is very enlightening on that point from a quantitative perspective.



The case is in fact the opposite -- methamphetamine purity in the U.S., on average, has significantly increased since the early 2000s:

I'm curious if they check for the actual composition of the meth? You have so many people saying meth has changed over the last 20 years, it's not the same or nearly as good as it used to be, similar to MDMA. Seem conflicting to this data.

Do they account for L-methamphetamine within the samples or other changes? If meth is as pure as ever why doesn't it seem like that to so many people?

‘I Don’t Know That I Would Even Call It Meth Anymore’

Different chemically than it was a decade ago, the drug is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[S.J.B.]

Do they account for L-methamphetamine within the samples or other changes?

This chart gives the percent of L-methamphetamine in the samples since 2011:

 

[cyrilio]

I was recently berated and called pathetic the other day in /r/drugs for trying to suggest and showing evidence that street meth in the US is not 97% pure, and far from it. It's a cesspool and the majority of people there are uninformed teenagers.

It's actually a major concern of mine. There is no real moderation of information there. It's not real harm reduction and very far from it.

/r/drugs is a drug chat room for uninformed young people

We are going to actively search for more mods to keep a closer eye on posts like yours to make sure they get approved.

 

[cyrilio]

The DEA's sampling program has been showing that seized methamphetamine has had an average purity around 97% for years (Google "National Drug Threat Assessment", for some reason Bluelight always blocks the link). If you've got solid evidence contradicting that, I would be curious to see it.

looking at Drugdata,org it seems like there's plenty of meth in the US.

 

[Lil'LinaptkSix]

Wondering if the purity tests are done: Domestic manufacturer, imported, at street level, somewhere in the supply chain, at the source or includes all.
I just do not see the meth purity reported maybe its all hype. Maybe its fear. IDK but imported meth would be different than home made any day imo. Nobody has had their hand in the cookie jar and untouched.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

@Snafu in the Void @S.J.B. @cyrilio @6am-64-14m & DC forum mods

Humble apologies to all. The posts above were accidently pulled from an ANNOUNCEMENT (they didn't belong there), but I forgot to uncheck them when moving other posts around so they came with. In separating them from the other posts I was intentionally moving, I needed a new thread to put them in, and a forum, so I am sending these to DC. If there's a more appropriate home for the posts, I defer to any moves you mods see best.

 

[S.J.B.]

@Snafu in the Void @S.J.B. @cyrilio @6am-64-14m & DC forum mods

Humble apologies to all. The posts above were accidently pulled from an ANNOUNCEMENT (they didn't belong there), but I forgot to uncheck them when moving other posts around so they came with. In separating them from the other posts I was intentionally moving, I needed a new thread to put them in, and a forum, so I am sending these to DC. If there's a more appropriate home for the posts, I defer to any moves you mods see best.

You know what TLB, I think these are actually better off in their own thread. Especially after the work I put into those lovely graphs!