Markets for meth.

• Author: Suderman, Peter
• Position: Briefly Noted - Breaking Bad - Brief article

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AMC's much-lauded series Breaking Bad, which concluded in September, chronicled the rise and fall of a high school chemistry teacher who becomes a meth kingpin after he is diagnosed with cancer. In addition to the personal story of a family man succumbing to his dark side through hubris, it painted a striking picture of big-time meth production on America's southern border.

Breaking Bad never shied away from the violence of large-scale drug operations, but it also worked from the assumption that those operations were essentially businesslike: There are startups, mergers, and small...