The TV series Breaking Bad was about a high school chemist teacher who turned to manufacturing methamphetamine. Although the show ended in 2013, a real life version of that story played out recently at an Arkansas college, except this chemistry teacher got caught in a spectacular fashion.
As more and more people set up chemistry labs in their kitchens to make meth, the government set up restriction on the purchase of the raw materials. Professor Bradley Allen Rowland of Henderson State University had the know-how to circumvent those restrictions by synthesizing his own raw materials. Maybe he shouldn't have used the school's chemistry lab to do it. Rowland was exposed after he spilled some benzyl chloride, which sent fumes through the entire chemistry building and it couldn't be used for three weeks afterward. This prompted an investigation which uncovered Rowland's nefarious project. Part of his sentence was a fine of $150,000 just to clean up the lab!
Read about Rowland's extracurricular activities, including an explanation of why a chemistry professor makes a good meth cook, at McGill. -via Real Clear Science
#methamphetamine #chemistry #chemistrylab #meth #BreakingBad