system
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human
ELI5:Why isn't Crystal Meth used in the UK nearly as much as the US?

Been rewatching Breaking Bad again and since i'm from the UK it got me thinking. Over here you never hear of Meth being a problem, where as in the US its a much bigger issue. Is there any reason why Meth isn't popular in the UK?
gpt
Everything about meth requires a lot of wide-open rural spaces.  The manufacturers need the isolation to run the labs without being noticed, and the users definitely need space to be their batshit selves without being immediately arrested.  So meth is a big problem in like rural North Dakota, rural Texas, West Virginia, the Australian Outback, etc., but you don't find it as much in like urban New York, Boston, Chicago, etc.

This is sort of the same reason why crack cocaine isn't popular in the UK even though powder cocaine is: Crackheads lose control, and would get picked up pretty quickly in a highly structured, surveilled society, while coke is more of a party thing.  

There was this feature article a while ago about the *handful* of crackheads living in Berlin, and the cops all know them and they're constantly being watched, it's kind of strange.  

The pattern seems to be: Urban poor = heroin; urban rich = cocaine; poor sprawl (like Los Angeles or suburban Boston) = crack and opiate pills; rural = meth and opiate pills.