The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents.

All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use.

The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance. It’s not an evil drug per se - long history before it was criminalized. Plus that would neuter the cartels and protect people’s health more than pushing it underground.

> The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance.

The phrase “small amount” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this statement.

The government does regulate and control amphetamine and methamphetamine (Desoxyn) as prescription drugs. The former is not all that hard to access. For a while it was as easy as signing up for a service through a TikTok ad and filling out a form, after which you were guaranteed a prescription. Those mills got shut down but it’s not hard to find a doctor willing to write a prescription in your area with some Internet searching (Side note: Lot of people get surprised when they get a prescription from some random doctor and discover that all of their other doctors know about it. Controlled substance prescriptions go to shared databases and it will be on that record for a while)

> It’s not an evil drug per se - long history before it was criminalized

Dose makes the poison, the recreational users aren’t going to be satisfied with your government regulated small amounts.

These discussions always end up with two parties talking past each other because one side wants to focus only on the ideal drug user who uses small amounts and has perfect education and self control, while ignoring that the meth users wouldn’t be stopped from seeking their larger quantities than a theoretical government regulated small amount program would allow.

I should also mention that methamphetamine appears to be quite neurotoxic at recreational doses. Maybe even smaller doses too.

We should also mention that the “long history” you speak of isn’t actually that long and was associated with small epidemics of overuse and addiction, too. It’s not like addiction is a modern phenomenon.

> I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use.

I think the various pieces of evidence presented in the article basically all point against this. Is there a reason you think the evidence in the article is flawed?

Check out the book “The Fort Bragg Cartel” if you’re wondering why drugs are illegal even if legalization makes more sense from a harm reduction standpoint. The highest levels of the military are involved in drug trafficking. Use of drugs by clandestine colonial states goes all the way back to the opium wars. US is nothing new. The deep state funds off the books operations with drug money and possibly human trafficking as well.