Did not see that illustration earlier but from China came ephedra, which would be the key component of meth. I don't know if you are around one of the areas where that stuff has taken hold but I'm a lifelong Oregonian and it is a big deal there. At first, people learned how to make it at home cheap. The crowd I hung out with back in the day (before meth) are almost all dead because of it, I think I disassociated myself from that lifestyle in the nick of time 30-some years ago. I have many acquaintances and even some family up there who are struggling with it, very sad. It is worse than heroin in my opinion. And recent legislation only transferred the supply from local to Mexico, I think it actually expanded the market.
There is a lot of money to be followed but one thing is certain - this misery is NOT caused by U.S. guns!
Tightly regulating manufacture and sale of the preceptor chemicals has simply pushed their production down Mexico way where the battling narconistas now have industrial grade facilities cranking out various kinds of meth. This is one substance that would never be considered for legalization. It is a major plague throughout the South. There have been a couple of meth lab explosions in labs set up in motels in this area in the last couple years. The Florida Panhandle seems awash in meth labs and the crazy burn outs the stuff creates. Most of the users seem to be low income whites so it doesn’t get the media attention that anything in ‘da Hood’ does as it lacks sex appeal for librat media types who only want to emote over black homicidal dysfunction so they can link it to their unending narrative of ‘Whitey did this to black folks’.