Methamphetamine, otherwise known as "meth" or "crystal meth", is a powerful stimulant of the amphetamine class of drugs. Its most common effects include increasing alertness, concentration, energy, inducing euphoria, enhancing self-esteem, and increasing libido. Methamphetamine carries a high addictive liability.  It works by activating the reward system in the brain (the mesolimbic dopamine system), triggering the release of dopamine and norepinephrine. In pharmaceutical form, methamphetamine is FDA approved for the treatment of ADHD and obesity, sold in the United States under the brand name Desoxyn™. Meth is a synthetically produced drug that has become an epidemic in American society, destroyng lives and tearing families apart.

Meth goes by many names including speed, crank, chalk, go-fast, and zip. The purer crystal metamphetamine is sometimes called shards, ice, crystal, glass, christy or quartz. Meth is a stimulant that affects the central nervous system and works on the brain and spinal cord by interfering with the normal neurotransmission process. Meth is illegally produced and then sold in capsules, pills, powder and chunks. Methamphetamine was originally developed as a derivative of the parent drug amphetamine. In an eariler time it was frequently found in nasal decongestants, bronchial inhalers and used in the treatment of narcolepsy and obesity.

Methamphetamine is a psycho-stimulant of the amphetamine class of drugs. The effects of the drug, which include increased concentration, energy, and alertness, often lead to users requiring ever increasing doses to achieve the desired effect (tolerance). In larger amounts, the drug can produce feelings of increased self-esteem, euphoria, as well as increased libido. Methamphetamine in pharmaceutical form is a drug that is approved by the FDA for treating some forms of obesity and ADHD under the name of Desoxyn®. Taken as prescribed it can help these conditions, although it's addictive liability significant, as are street forms of the drug (crank, crystal meth, ice).

As one of the most highly addictive drugs on the black market, crystal meth production and use devastates lives around the globe. Over the past 15 years, the United States has seen a significant increase in methamphetamine production, sales, and use, especially in rural areas throughout the mid-western states and California.

Meth is among the most dangerous of all illicit drugs due to the intense and long lasting high it produces, and the unmanageability it produces in users' lives. Crystal meth users will frequently stay awake for days at a time, be overly alert, and display bizarre behaviors and mood swings. While the enactment of state and federal laws restricting and monitoring ephedrine and pseudoephedrine retail sales has helped reduce the availability of meth, traffickers have found ingenious ways around the law and have ramped up efforts to smuggle meth into the US.