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In the 1990s, the most popular way

to manufacture methamphetamine was the pseudoephedrine reduction method.

Basically, this involved getting your hands on a lot of over-the-counter cold medicine like pseudafed,

crushing up the pills and mixing the powder with a solvent to isolate the pseudephedrine inside.

You then reduced it with chemicals like iodine or red phosphorus. In just a few hours, you had methamphetamine.

But before pseudephedrine came into fashion, meth cooks were limited to what's known as the P2P method.

P2P stands for phenyl2 propanone.

It was the main precursor chemical used to manufacture meth. Meth cooks, whether they were making

it in a lab or a bathtub, mixed P2P with other precursor chemicals to make the drug.

As meth gained popularity in the late 70s, though, phenyl-2 propanone was classified as a controlled

substance, and the common precursors, like ether, were tightly restricted.

Chemical companies started reporting suspicious orders to the DEA.

So, in 1983, when a chemical manufacturer in New Jersey learned that an individual in Atlanta,

with no apparent connection to a laboratory or institution, had just placed an order for 15 drums of ether,

...