When did vaporization become a common ROA for methamphetamine?

[peacelovedope]

As far as I am aware, meth seems to be the only amphetamine in which smoking (vaporization if you want to be technical about it), is practiced commonly as an ROA. Personally, I find the history of the whole drug using subculture to be very interesting so I am wondering if anyone knows anything as to when, where, and how this practice originated.

I am aware that the clandestine synthesis of methamphetamine started to become prevalent in the U.S. in the 60's when stricter regulations were placed on pharmaceutical amphetamines, but I have only seen references to I.V. use and insufflation from this time period. The only bit of information I have seen in regard to the origin of this practice is a bit on the erowid meth timeline stating that smoked tweak started to become common in the 80's. This made me recall that a law was passed in 1980 that restricted access to methylamine causing many cooks to switch to ephedrine/pseudoephedrine resulting in more potent d-methamphetamine largely replacing racemic meth; could this also be related to the increased popularity of the smoking trend during this time period?

I know it's impossible to pinpoint the exact spot where something like this began, but if anyone has any info at all (or even better, happened to be there at the time) it would be greatly appreciated because there doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there right now.

Thanks in advance-PLD

 

[Tryptamino]

the late 80's is when it became a popular. I don't know exactly when and how it started being smoked, but my guess is that someone who had experience smoking other chemicals off foil (heroin) just decided to try it to see if it would work.

Here's a Methamphetamine Timeline, you should give it a read, you might find it interesting.

And while I think this topic belongs here in DC, I feel like OD would have the best answers, so maybe I'll post a link to this thread in the OD social or something.

 

[peacelovedope]

Your foil hypothesis seems very plausible, and I'm assuming that people have been smoking heroin that way for quite some time so smoked speed may very well precede the 80's. I could see how someone experimenting with different smoking methods could move on to a lightbulb to minimize vapor loss, and the next step would naturally seem to be someone with glass blowing knowledge refining the idea into your typical meth pipe. But I guess the knowledge of someone who dabbled back in the day would be needed to determine when those started becoming popular...

Also, do you think there's any correlation between the rise of smoking and the switch from methylamine to pseudophedrine in clandestine syntheses? Both events occurred in the 80's so I think there's at least a slight chance they could be related.

Thank you for your quick response and insight, and it would be very awesome of you to put up a link in OD social. Those cats do know their tweak.

 

[Tryptamino]

well methylamine im guessing was hard to get, which is why meth was only a biker thing for a while (it was basically treated like a coke substitute, so it wasnt that common, and since they were treating it like coke, they never tried to smoke it in any way that would actually work. also i imagine that the standard methylamine recipe at the time may have yielded a non-smokable form of meth, rather than the standard crystal HCL that you find today.

the pseudoephedrine method was simple, however, and cooks were able to make large batches of meth in an apparently crystalline form, and then perhaps was when my theoretical heroin user tried smoking meth in the same manner as heroin.