Methamphetamine, commonly referred to as crystal meth, is one of the most addictive drugs in the world. Heavy users will destroy themselves in a few months. Originally it was given by the Nazis to their troops to fight the Blitzkrieg. Now it has conquered the whole world and is used at sex parties in Amsterdam and Antwerp, by former hippies in Prague, by the underclass in the slums of Harare, Cape Town, and Peshawar, by truck drivers in Thailand and workers in the sweatshops in Bangladesh. The largest production centers are in Mexico and Myanmar. But in recent years one lab after another has been found in the border region of Belgium and the Netherlands. Researcher Teun Voeten travelled the world for two years to investigate all sides of the diabolic drug. He explored the bizarre history and pharmacological effects, he talked to homeless addicts in Tijuana and Los Angeles, cartels in Mexico, international drug experts in Bangkok and Kabul. He met with the original crystal meth cooks in Prague, participants of gay orgies in Amsterdam, speed dealers in Holland and the world-famous underground chemist Uncle Fester in Wisconsin. Voeten also spoke to numerous authorities, judges and social workers who are trying to stop the meth epidemic. This book is a wide analysis but above all a strong warning. With a combination of thorough investigative journalism, daring fieldwork, and colorful atmospheric sketches, Voeten draws a very detailed and disturbing picture of a drug that is on a rapid international rise.
Originally, Teun Voeten studied philosophy and cultural anthropology in the Netherlands. He learnt photography by working as an assistant at commercial photographers. Since 1990, he has covered the conflicts in Israel, Rwanda, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Lebanon, DR Congo, Sudan, Libya, and Ukraine for publications such as Vanity Fair, National Geographic, and Newsweek. He was shot by a sniper in Bosnia, nearly executed by drugged up child soldiers in Sierra Leone, kidnapped at gunpoint by Colombian rebels and survived several Taliban ambushes. In the 1990s. Voeten lived 5 months with an underground community of crack addicted homeless and wrote the book Tunnel People. It appeared in Amsterdam in 1996 and in an updated US version in 2010 at PM press. In his book How de Body? Hope and Horror in Sierra Leone (2000 Dutch edition, 2003 US edition, St Martin's Press) he describes the violent civil war in that country that nearly cost his live. In 2012, he published the photo book Narco Estado: Drug Violence in Mexico. Together with film maker Maaike Engels, he made documentaries on the Calais migrant camp in France and a short film on Mexican sicarios. In 2018, he obtained his PhD with a thesis on the Mexican drug war. His totally rewritten study appeared in 2020 as a Small Wars Journal book titled Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism, and the Logic of Cruelty. Recently, Voeten researched drug related crime for the city of Antwerp which resulted in his book Drugs: Antwerpen in de greep van de Nederlandse syndicaten (Pelckmans, Antwerpen, 2020) In 2021, he investigated the world of crystal meth and its global emergence. In 2022, he published 'Drug van de Duivel. De Wereldwijde Opkomst van Crystal Meth.' Teun Voeten still works as a reporter and social researcher at large. He is often asked for guest lectures at top universities world-wide and appears frequently on international talk shows. For his expertise on drugs, warfare, and organized crime, he is often consulted by city and national governments and prestigious think tanks.
Introduction 1 The Bizarre History of Crystal Meth: From State Approved Energizer Drug to the Underground 2 Tijuana: A Failed City in the Grip of Meth 3 Trends in Worldwide Production and Trafficking 4 Michoacan: The Perfect Cartel Clusterfuck 5 The Netherlands as a Functional Narco-State 6 Sinaloa: Welcome to Narco Central 7 Users: Trends and Patterns in Consumption 8 Chemsex in Amsterdam: Lust Unlimited 9 The Pharmacological Dimension of Crystal Meth 10 Prague: Meth as Rebellion 11 Chemistry 101: Making Meth and How Many Roads Lead to Rome 12 Afghanistan: Opium and Organic Meth 13 Demonizing Crystal Meth: Breaking Bad, Faces of Meth, and Social Constructs 14 Skid Row, Downtown Los Angeles: From Winos to Crackheads to Tweakers 15 The Golden Triangle: Crystal Meth Free Trade Zone 16 Shaking and Baking in Cadillac and the Strange Case of Uncle Fester 17 Brabant: From Smuggling Butter to Brewing Moonshine, from Weed and XTC to Meth 18 Is Fentanyl the New Crystal Meth? The Tentative Low of the Opioid Crisis 19 Are the Mexican Cartels Coming to the Netherlands? 20 Conclusions and Future Expectations Bibliography Index About the Author
I've worked with Voeten most of my life and his book on crystal meth is superb, a culmination of skills honed during many years in war zones and unstable countries. -- Sebastian Junger, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Perfect Storm; award-winning journalist The Devil's Drug is a scholarly, illuminating, lucid account of the world of Crystal Meth. This book is of urgent importance and should be immediately read. Voeten offers a brilliant, dynamic contribution that examines the mythology and the startling reality of Methamphetamine use and misuse. -- Terry Williams, The New School for Social Research
