meth, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

meth n.

[abbr.]

(drugs)

1. (also meths) the drug Methedrine, a methamphetamine; also attrib.; thus meth trip, the experience of the drug.

1963		J. Blake letter 5 May in Joint (1972) 208: He tried Meth on the street. He said it lit him up like a Roman candle and that he dominated six conversations at once at a cocktail party.
1967		Oz 2 13/4: Heroin (£1 to £3 per grain) coke, meths (5/- an ampoule).
1968		L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation 171: It was a super freak-out, like a meth trip.
1974		P. Gent North Dallas Forty 102: Heavier stuff — coke, liquid amphetamine, and meth crystals — had found its way inside.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 119: The careless laughing girl, happy stoned, flying on her meth and beer.
1985		J. Wambaugh Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 181: Sidney Blackpool had to resist a policeman’s urge to glance at the biker’s enormous forearms for meth tracks.
1997		E. Little Another Day in Paradise 17: I want the rush of meth, that hair-raising, overwhelming chemical voyage into hyperspace.
1999		T. Dorsey Florida Roadkill 158: Rubbing a fingertip of crystal meth around her gums.
2001		N. Griffiths Sheepshagger 55: Comes out of jail that very fuckin day an to celebrate OD’s on meth. Carked it.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] Snort a few lines of coke, drop a tab of acid and do a bit of crystal meth.
2007		J. Stahl ‘Pure’ in Love Without 165: Fucking guys on meth made the time pass faster.
2012		M. McBride Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] God he loved meth. [...] It took just one line to make every thought feel right inside his head.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] Bare feet in the dirt, coming off the meth, not caring about the flies.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 31: It’s a meth tic — the pain giggle.
2015		G. Disher Heat [ebook] Syed nodded with enthusiasm. Or that might have been the meth needing a top-up.
2016		Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 Residents are proud of the fact that three governors came from Winnfield. They are less proud that the last sheriff was locked up for dealing meth.
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles 117: He’s put out that Ryan doesn’t deal in meth.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] They’d be doing meth, white cider and setting fire to barns.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Broken’ in Broken 11: Enough meth to make a move into LA.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 293: [A] junkie; probably high on meth.

2. methadone; also attrib.

1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 42: Methadone is the most miraculous thing to hit New York since that one-legged Dutchman. Nothing can be compared to meth.
1980		T. Jones Adrift 184: We’re on methadone treatment at the meth center.
1987		in Delacoste & Alexander Sex Work (1988) 112: One counselor at the meth clinic whom I would call.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 167: I was on the meth program.

3. marijuana.

2000

Hip-Hop Connection Jan.–Feb. 55: Meth. Not a particularly well known slang term for marijuana until Method Man turned making the exact same record over 100 times into an absolute artform.

4. see meths n.¹

In compounds

meth fiend (n.)

a regular user of amphetamine.

1999		A.S. Bolen Let Go of My Ear! 11: He had just held a ten-minute discussion with a shifty meth fiend on the virtues of William S. Burroughs’ ‘cut-up’ method of writing.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 11: With a meth-fiend’s paranoia, I believed they [i.e. showroom dummies] were denouncing me.
2012		D. Hammarberg Alabama Story 208: ‘She’s the biggest meth fiend on this side of the equator’.

meth freak (n.) [-freak sfx] (US drugs)

a regular user of Methedrine or methamphetamine.

1968		L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation xli: The meth-freaks who took their trips on a needle.
1969		L. Yablonsky Hippie Trip 33: The main drugs they use are ‘speed’ (Methedrine) [...] Even some high priests and novices refer to the ‘new breed’ as ‘Meth’ or ‘speed freaks’.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 150: A meth freak must keep clean: he can’t help himself.
2013		J. Stahl Bad Sex on Speed 51: More fun than being alone with meth freak grownups who won’t let you out of their sight .

meth-head (n.) [-head sfx (4)] (drugs)

a regular user of Methedrine or methamphetamine; also attrib.

1966		Bob Dylan Tarantula 134: A meth-head but he’s all beautiful.
1968		L. Wolf Voices from the Love Generation 72: I know a couple of places ... that have had more and more meth heads going all the time, and girls are getting stoned on meth.
1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 146: Now he was a meth head, totally addicted to that drug.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 157: Meth-heads and dope-fiends, runaways and their pimps, street grifters, fences, and the like.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 93: ‘Some woman’s [...] acting crazy.’ [...] ‘Probably a meth-head.’.
2013		J. Stahl Happy Mutant Baby Pills 106: Like most meth-heads, she did not so much initiate conversation as aim whatever monologue was already spewing out of her mouth in our direction.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The San Diego Zoo’ in Broken 127: [T]hree different fathers, none of them conspicuously present, and a meth-head mother.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 173: These boys didn’t look like hopped-up meth heads.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 111: ‘Word spreads like a cancer [...] Meth heads come runnin’’.

meth lab (n.)

a laboratory used for the illicit production of methamphetamine.

2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 9: Usually when we get a Hip-Hop Redneck in a motel room this involved, it’s a meth lab.
2016		T. Linnemann Meth Wars 170: A news outlet warned, ‘Meth labs can turn up anywhere. Last year, one was found in a building of million-dollar-plus apartments on Manhattan's West Side’.

meth monster (n.) [-monster sfx] (US drugs)

1. a person who has a violent reaction to methamphetamine.

1967		Maurer & Vogel Narcotics and Narcotic Addiction (3rd edn).
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 15: Meth monster — One who has a violent reaction to methamphetamine.

2. a methamphetamine addict.

1968		‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 34: Meth monster, n. Someone who is addicted to methedrine.
2007		C. Goffard Snitch Jacket 8: The mysterious tactile jones every meth monster knows.

In phrases

methed up (adj.)

intoxicated with methamphetamine.

2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 312: In came the owner, coked up, or cracked up or methed up, manic and red-eyed. [Ibid.] 633: Domino, drunk, coked up and methed up.
2015		T.C. Junior About to Snap [ebook] She is so ‘methed’ up and [...] she’s grabbing sticky notes off my desk writing down odd ball shit.