The War On Intelligent Drug Policy
The crackdown on sales of cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine has given rise to the "shake and bake" method of meth-making that does away with the meth lab, and uses fewer pills. Now anyone can make their own -- right in the back seat of their car. Jacob Sullum blogs at reason:

The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required....

...The downside:

"If there is any oxygen at all in the bottle, it has a propensity to make a giant fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control. "You're not dealing with rocket scientists here anyway. If they get unlucky at all, it can have a very devastating reaction."

One little mistake, such as unscrewing the bottle cap too fast, can result in a huge blast, and police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states have linked dozens of flash fires this year--some of them fatal--to meth manufacturing.

"Every meth recipe is dangerous, but in this one, if you don't shake it just right, you can build up too much pressure, and the container can pop," Woodward said.

When fire broke out in older labs, "it was usually on a stove in a back room or garage and people would just run, but when these things pop, you see more extreme burns because they are holding it. There are more fires and more burns because of the close proximity, whether it's on a couch or driving down the road."

After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that users smoke, snort or inject. They often discard the bottle, which now contains a poisonous brown and white sludge. Dozens of reports describe toxic bottles strewn along highways and rural roads in states with the worst meth problems.

From the comments at reason, Abdul writes:

I met a DEA agent who called the pseudoephedrine crackdown the "Mexican Drug Lab Full Employment Act.