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Comment by caymanjim | Hacker News Reader

This article triggers a few of my pet peeves about drugs. Crystal meth is not "the purest, most addictive form" of methamphetamine. It's methamphetamine hydrochloride, which is basically the only form that you'll ever encounter. It's exactly the same as prescription pharmaceutical pills, although without the inert fillers used to make tablets. Street meth is not likely to be very pure, either. The article implies that "crystal meth" is some supermeth and is different from some nebulous non-crystal meth. It's just meth. There's no need to call it "crystal meth".

They also can't stop themselves from mentioning MDMA. The "MA" does indeed stand for "methamphetamine", but the effects are entirely different, and the safety profile is massively different. It's confusing and disingenuous to even mention MDMA in an article about methamphetamine.

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Generally speaking in the context of meth as a street drug “crystal” meth is the purer form of meth, compared to other illicit preparations. It is called “crystal” because of the formation of large Meth HCl crystals, which only form when the concentration of meth in the solution being precipitated is high. Otherwise you get a powder of the same substance, generally at a lower purity. Crystal is still likely to be a racemic mixture of L/D-meth with various impurities, but fewer impurities than other forms made in the wild. By contrast Desoxyn (the pill you mention) is pure D-meth, which is far more potent than L-meth or a racemic mixture. You will almost never find enantiomerically pure meth outside of the context of Desoxyn, so in fact crystal meth is not, “the same as prescription pharmaceutical pills” because the legal, Rx form is markedly stronger.

In short, you’ve ignored both the issues of impurities and cutting agents in illegal meth, and the important stereochemistry.

The issue of mentioning MDMA, while it may offend your sensibilities, does make sense in terms of being in the same family as methamphetamine and amphetamine. They do have different effects, but they share a similar chemistry.

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/eu-drug-markets/201...

In addition both substituted amphetamines seem to be neurotoxic in similar ways. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231568/

The difference in outcomes between meth and MDMA abuse may well have more to do with typical patterns of use and abuse rather than a fundamental difference in pharmacokinetics. If you’re going to feel as you put it, “triggered” by an article at least be so as a result of valid concerns based on the science.

You make good points. I'll back off a bit on my claim that "crystal meth" is just meth, especially because you've pointed out how in crystal form, it's more likely to be purer. And you're absolutely correct that Desoxyn is pure D-meth rather than the racemic mixture.

I think, however, that when mainstream news is discussing meth, they're generally referring to the more generic problem of meth abuse, in any form. I may have jumped the gun on dismissing crystal as "just meth", vs messier street variants, but I don't think that, as a street drug, the problem is particularly with variants (purer crystal vs perhaps less-pure powder forms). I admit I probably overstated that "meth is just meth".

Everything you say is accurate and clarifying, so thank you for that. And I regret my use of the word "trigger", considering the weight that word unfortunately carries now.

>It's exactly the same as prescription pharmaceutical pills

Note that methamphetamine is rarely if ever prescribed — the (non-meth)amphetamines commonly prescribed for ADHD have different safety profiles as well. (And, of course, you’re supposed to take them orally, which makes them less recreational due to slower absorption.)

They prescribe methamphetamine in the US as Desoxyn for ADD (albeit rarely).

No, they don't. Methamphetamine and amphetamines are quite different. Methamphetamine is neurotoxic and crosses the blood brain barrier at twice the rate that amphetamines do. Equating the two is misleading, wrong, and will create stigma

https://www.drugs.com/pro/desoxyn.html

Methamphetamine hydrochloride IS methamphetamine. I don't know how that can be stated more clearly.

Edit: in addition they are very much the same. They cross the b/b barrier at different speeds (add mentioned) and are metabolized at different rates due to the additional methyl group but otherwise their pharmacological actions are very much the same. The differences in effects are almost entirely covered by the 2 potentially mentioned rates differences. To argue otherwise is to ascribe produced sociological effects which we create by now we treat the drugs to their inherent pharmacology which is just plain wrong.

Note that absorption and metabolization rates can affect the safety profile; for example, this is why acetaminophen is generally safe at lower doses, but quickly becomes hepatotoxic at higher doses, because different metabolic pathways come into play:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_poisoning#Pathop...

Methamphetamine is a prescription drug in US, brand name Desoxyn.

Methamphetamine by itself isn't neurotoxic, but the additives it is commonly cut with usually are.

Preface: my psychiatrist prescribes me amphetamines and methylphenidate at my discretion.

I asked him if he would ever prescribe me Desoxyn and he said he would never do that. I asked him if he would prescribe it to be if I was diagnosed with a terminal illness - he said he’d consider it.

Food for thought.

I see this all the time in popular media writings on drugs. Similarly if there is some scientific result about cannabis, most of what you'll read just can't resist using words like "pot" to describe it.

One of the first things my PhD supervisor told me is that whenever he reads a news article about something he really knows about, it's almost always wrong, and not just a bit wrong, fundamentally wrong. This has been my experience too.

> This has been my experience too

This is so common that there is the related "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" about how you still accept articles on topics you don't know anything about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

And this is why people trust the media(and unfortunately scientists) less.

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