Breaking Bad's Scientific Consultant On Making Meth and More

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Science sat down with Breaking Bad science consultant Donna Nelson, an organic chemist at the University of Oklahoma. Nelson was one of several expert advisers for the show who began consulting several episodes in on multiple topics, including how to make Walt a realistic chemist. She discusses the accuracy of the show, whether making meth is as straightforward as it seems on the series, and her favorite scene."

Comments

Brings back memories

[jtownatpunk.net]

Years and years ago, I worked for an environmental lab and some local law enforcement agency (Sheriff's department, I think) asked us to help determine whether they'd found the dump from a meth lab. Step one was to figure out how meth is made. So I found every recipe I could (using Steve's computer, of course) and ran them by the chemists. "Poison, poison, poison, death, that could work, poison, poison, that could work." Then they took the potentially valid recipes and worked out what the byproducts would be created at each phase and gave the cops a list of chemicals to test for.

Oh, and there are a lot of hoops to jump through to [legally] obtain a meth standard. Had to put in a lock box and access protocol to store an amount that was too small to give a rat a buzz.

Re:Brings back memories

[VortexCortex]

My regards to Steve. How is gitmo treating him these days?

Re:Brings back memories

[chihowa]

Oh, and there are a lot of hoops to jump through to [legally] obtain a meth standard.

Actually, it's a piece of cake. Here's one that you don't even need a DEA license to receive. You can get standards for analysis for most any drug easily. Of course, you're only getting g to mg, so there's no real avenue for abuse.

My baby blue

[Spy Handler]

One time I was out on a set visit and Vince said, "What do you think about making the meth blue?" I advised him not to do it. He said, "Is there not some way it could be blue?" And I said again, "No, don't do it."

So apparently, there is no actual chemistry basis for making Walt's meth blue... even the P2P/methylamine process does not yield a blue color. Vince Gilligan just really wanted the meth blue so he can use these cool 60's songs:

Crystal Blue Persuasion - from Gliding Over All, music playing over montage showing Walt's new meth operation with Todd and Lydia and DeClan. Parodied by the Simpsons.

My Baby Blue - from the last episode, final scene, when Walt gets what he deserved. The special love I had for you.

Re:My baby blue

[Electricity Likes Me]

I always assumed its possible it could be nanoparticulate aluminium contamination. Metals are a pretty good way to give things odd colors.

Re:My baby blue

[abhi_beckert]

Pure meth is white/clear. But you could explain the blue color as the result of some additive they put into it, as a "trademark" of sorts.

Yes but a key part of the show was nobody else could cook blue meth. Walt had power over the drug dealers because he could give them something unique.

If all it took was an additive, the story would not have worked.

Re:My baby blue

[Hortense Yaya]

The real cooks are trying to make it blue now and making their customers sick http://www.washingtontimes.com...

Re:My baby blue

[camperdave]

It's a testament to the writing of Vince - he totally made it believable that the meth COULD have came out blue.

I read somewhere that meth labs are actually adding blue food coloring to their product to match the show. Now THAT'S a testament to the believability.

Re:My baby blue

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Yes but a key part of the show was nobody else could cook blue meth. Walt had power over the drug dealers because he could give them something unique.

If all it took was an additive, the story would not have worked.

The hook wasn't the color; it was the purity. Walt and Jessie already had a hit product before they started using methylamine and turned it blue.

Re:Making meth is even easier

[Travis Mansbridge]

Joffrey is poisoned.

Hide the Knowledge

[Macrat]

They helped so that we wouldn’t be presenting a cookbook on how to make meth and told him what steps to leave out so that anyone mimicking the procedures would fail.

Yup. A TV show giving inaccurate information is going to prevent people from making meth.

Re:Hide the Knowledge

[Shados]

No, but a TV show giving accurate information certainly encourages people to try that would not normally. That happens all the time, with everything you see on TV.

Re:Hide the Knowledge

[mark_reh]

So-called "reality TV" is just entertainment. It's all BS. There's no moonshine, no "revenooers", and nothing illegal being done. Anything that looks that way is staged.

Like the Talking Heads sang back in the 80s:
"I don't know what you expect, staring into the TV set..."

Re:Hide the Knowledge

[sumdumass]

It seems to me that if those moonshiners were really making illegal moonshine and outrunning the law, the film crew would be considered conspirators and subject to criminal charges as well. People have been sent to prison for longer terms in conspiring to commit a felony than the actual offense tendered. People have also been sent to prison for conspiring to commit a felony without the felony actually taking place. and failing to report a felony is misprison of a felony which itself is a felony under US code.

So I think you are probably correct. It's all fake.

Stereospecificity

[jeffb (2.718)]

“Now is catalytic hydrogenation, I forget, is that protic or aprotic?"

Man, if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me that...

Re:Making meth is even easier

[wonkey_monkey]

Keyser Soze killed Dumbledore.

Blue color was a plot device....

[Ellis D. Tripp]

It was necessary to have Walt's product be immediately distinguishable from everything else on the street. Otherwise, the DEA would need to run samples of every batch seized through the lab to check purity etc. to determine if a given product was cooked by "Heisenberg". While this might have been interesting to the science geeks here on /., it would have been boring to the average viewer.

I have a feeling that pinning the blue color on the P2P cook process was done by the writers before they had a scientific adviser onboard. By then, it was too late, and they were stuck with it.

The big scientific screwup on the show is exactly how Walt was managing to get nearly 100% purity from a process that in real life would result in 50% purity at best. Unlike starting from pseudoephedrine, the P2P process results in a racemic mixture of 2 different stereoisomers of methamphetamine, only one of which has any recreational value.

This bit of chemical magic could have been passed off as Walt's "secret process", but on the show both Gale and Declan's crew were also shown creating meth at significantly better than 50% purity using the P2P route, without benefit of Walt's knowledge.

Re:Blue color was a plot device....

[TapeCutter]

You can turn anything you like blue by reversing the polarities and fine tuning the sub-space frequencies. I think it's fantastic that popular shows such as BB/Simpsons/Futurama/BBT are not only doing a good job of getting the science right but are also making it a feature of the show. Fiction writers have poetic license and have always researched their work to some degree, particularly the historical and geographic bits. What the author is trying to do in a drama is make the characters real and for that to happen his audience must be willing to suspend disbelief.

The ability/willingness of the audience to suspend disbelief depends on their own experience and worldview. For example the infinitely zoom-able pictures on a detectives computer, most people groan when they see it today but 20yrs ago it was an acceptable plot device because the punters simply did not know what a "pixel" was..

Re:Blue color was a plot device....

[tlhIngan]

The big scientific screwup on the show is exactly how Walt was managing to get nearly 100% purity from a process that in real life would result in 50% purity at best. Unlike starting from pseudoephedrine, the P2P process results in a racemic mixture of 2 different stereoisomers of methamphetamine, only one of which has any recreational value.

Off-topic, but hydrogenation of fats results in a similar thing (it's a process used to saturate fats with hydrogen).

Hydrogenation can create two forms - "cis" and "trans" - or chirals.

The "trans" form is what is really bad for your heart - hence the bans on trans-fats. But it isn't trans-fats that makes food "taste good" - since you can fry food in oils that are naturally low in trans-fat, and avoid using hydrogenated oils.

Re:Making meth is even easier

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Soylent Green is Hannibal's dinner!

How do you even get the ingredients anymore?

[ArchieBunker]

How do people even make meth in this country? Anything with Pseudoephedrine in it requires them to scan your drivers license.

Re:How do you even get the ingredients anymore?

[sudon't]

How do people even make meth in this country? Anything with Pseudoephedrine in it requires them to scan your drivers license.

Clearly you've never heard of "smurfing." The large-scale operations have mostly been taken over by Mexico, where this pesky law doesn't exist. As always, where there's a will, there's a way.

That was a key plot point of the 1st season...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Once Walt and Jesse moved beyond making a few ounces at a time, they couldn't get enough OTC pseudoephedrine pills through their small network of "smurfs".

They had already committed to providing 4 pounds of product to a rather psychotic distributor, so Walt decided to use a different synthetic route (P2P from phenylacetic acid via high temperature catalyst, then reductive amination with methylamine and aluminum amalgam), rather than the standard pseudoephedrine reduction using red phosphorus and iodine that they started out with.

Re:That was a key plot point of the 1st season...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Walt and Jesse moved beyond making a few ounces at a time, they couldn't get enough OTC pseudoephedrine pills through their small network of "smurfs".

Which is unfortunately historically accurate.

The War on Drugs fighting the smurfs means that the large-scale operations can bring it in by the 40-gallon barrel. Meth supply to the street is unaffected, and the only change in my quality of life is that I have to "voluntarily" enter myself into a DEA tracking database for pseudoephedrine if I get a cold and want a decongestant more than the (indistinguishable-from-fucking placebo) phenylephrine.

I hate meth cooks more than I hate meth heads, but neither of them has inconvenienced me in the way that the DEA does every fucking cold season. Legalize it and let the meth heads kill themselves off. Then the cooks will have no customers. At least I'll be able to limit the symptoms of my fucking cold without feeling like a criminal.

Re:That was a key plot point of the 1st season...

[sudon't]

I wish I had mod points now. The DEA should have no say whatsoever over a highly useful and perfectly legal over the counter medication. I have never cooked meth and have never been found guilty of cooking meth. Therefor, as I am innocent until proven guilty, the proper assumption is that I am not going to cook meth with a box of decongestant.

Law enforcement is supposed to cause less harm than criminals.

The DEA shouldn't exist, period. How adult people choose to spend their free time should be no concern of government. Prohibition always creates crime where none existed.

You have to remember a lot of criminals are dumb

[Sycraft-fu]

You see evidence all the time on the news and if you want to see a ton more, read police reports. Most criminals are morons.

So, if a TV show shows them how to make meth, you'll get some dummies that'll say "Hey let's do that!" Thus, best if it doesn't actually work.

Of course people can just go and look it up, if they are really interested, but this helps weed some people out.

Re:too bad all the other science was crap

[mark_reh]

Don't know about mercury fulminate, but they were supposed to be using hydrofluoric acid which will dissolve glass (which is why it came/comes in plastic jugs and why WW told Jesse to put the body in a plastic barrel) and porcelain and iron/steel. I don't know if it would dissolve a body very well.

I'm looking for a recipe...

[Nova Express]

...of how to cook hard-to-obtain Sudafed by starting with readily available methamphetamine...

Straight from J. Apocryphal Chem.....

[Ellis D. Tripp]

heterodoxy.cc/meowdocs/pseudo/pseudosynth.pdf

Re:too bad all the other science was crap

[mark_reh]

um... you're using an entertaining TV show to tell you whether the science portrayed on another entertaining TV show is real?

I think your reality meter is in need of recalibration.