Walter White is in a long tradition of meth-monsters. Fabienne Hurst traces the drug’s origins to the Third Reich:
When the then-Berlin-based drug maker Temmler Werke launched its methamphetamine compound onto the market in 1938, high-ranking army physiologist Otto Ranke saw in it a true miracle drug that could keep tired pilots alert and an entire army euphoric. It was the ideal war drug. … From that point on, the Wehrmacht, Germany’s World War II army, distributed millions of the tablets to soldiers on the front, who soon dubbed the stimulant “Panzerschokolade” (“tank chocolate”). British newspapers reported that German soldiers were using a “miracle pill.” But for many soldiers, the miracle became a nightmare.
As enticing as the drug was, its long-term effects on the human body were just as devastating. Short rest periods weren’t enough to make up for long stretches of wakefulness, and the soldiers quickly became addicted to the stimulant. And with addiction came sweating, dizziness, depression and hallucinations. There were soldiers who died of heart failure and others who shot themselves during psychotic phases. Some doctors took a skeptical view of the drug in light of these side effects. Even Leonardo Conti, the Third Reich’s top health official, wanted to limit use of the drug, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
Update from a reader:
Uppers in various forms were used in many societies well before the Nazis came to power and every military in World War II used speed.
Marisa A. Miller, a director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, estimated in an article in “The American Drug Scene,” a 2004 book, that during World War II roughly 200 million amphetamine pills were given to American troops. Both the U.S. and British military studied the use of uppers on troops during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. “All of the important combatant nations in World War II used these drugs judiciously in aviation, especially during prolonged and hazardous bombing missions.” wrote Dr. Maurice H. Seevers, a pharmacology professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, in “Amphetamine Abuse,” a 1968 book.
During World War II, Japan’s pharmaceutical industry produced millions of doses of meth which were used by the military and civilians who were supporting the military in manufacturing and other similar industries. When Japan surrendered in 1945, those drug companies simply dumped their remaining product on the market. “After the war, the contract for a large amount of methamphetamine which had been stored by pharmaceutical companies for military use was canceled,” according to one study by a Japanese researcher in “Use and Abuse of Amphetamine and Its Substitutes,” a 1980 book. “The companies tried to sell these stocks on the open market by advertising the drug as one that would inspire the fighting spirits in daily life.”
The first man-made, amphetamine-like substances were reported by a chemist in Germany in 1887, according to “The Amphetamines: Their Actions and Uses,” a 1958 book by Chauncey D. Leake, a professor of pharmacology at Ohio State University. A Japanese chemist, identified only as A. Ogata in studies, first synthesized methamphetamine in 1919.
The Nazis did not create meth. It’s an awful drug, but this argument that says meth is bad because the Nazis made is both wrong and dumb.
The Dish 