Welcome to Bluelight. Your thread has been moved to the discussion forum specific to North & South America as this is pretty obviously a regional question. This question is very borderline with regards to our rules; we don't allow discussion of drug synthesis, but talking about the economics of the drug trade is always interesting. I'll give you a short answer, but will then close the thread as there's not much more to say beyond it turning into something that's beyond the rules.
Most of the kind of MA you're talking about is imported from, among other places, Mexico, where it is produced in large-scale labs which use a variety of different precursors which are sourced in bulk (certainly not Sudafed pills, in pure form.) Pseudoephedrine is not the only route and it is fairly tightly controlled so people have figured out less conspicuous ways of doing the synthesis especially in large quantities, but talking about the specifics is beyond our scope here. We don't go into detail about illegal activities as we're about reducing harm rather than a how-to on breaking the law. As for reducing harm, though, I would tell you emphatically that so-called "shake and bake" meth is full of toxic byproducts and other nasties, and the purer stuff is much less so. But crystals don't necessarily indicate purity, either, there are a variety of chemicals that very closely resemble the crystals of good quality MA, and can even be mixed together to encourage the formation of these nice looking crystals. So really, it's all about knowing and trusting your source, and obtaining a kit to test your drugs.
We encourage everyone, Btw, to make a short post in our forum for
New Member Introductions; welcome aboard, I hope on behalf of all of us you'll find our forum informative and enjoyable and above all that it will help you in making your drug use safer, if you are choosing to use.
Further questions I'd suggest you direct to
Basic Drug Discussion, or, for more complex questions,
Other Drugs (which includes meth and many other things, but is mainly focused on pharmaceuticals and the 'hard drugs.')
That said, there's not much more to say here, so I'm closing the thread.
