Well, the chemistry being shown is not innocuous and can lead to real deaths. He also points out that murders are routinely shown on television and wonders why anyone would object to a little chemistry being shown. When asked why “America’s favourite clandestine chemist” is not afraid the video will trigger his arrest, Preisler claims that he has deliberately left out the last step in the synthesis, ensuring that nobody will be able to make meth based on what they have seen. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Preisler called his work “good clean chemist fun,” but authorities labeled him as “the most dangerous man in America.” The book, speckled with whimsical anecdotes, gave specific instructions easily followed by anyone with a basic background in organic chemistry. An idea was born! He would get back at the authorities, who in his mind had imposed an unfair sentence for making just a few grams of “meth.” He would train an army of chefs in the art of cooking crank! Preisler borrowed a typewriter and under the pseudonym “Uncle Fester” cranked out his cult classic, Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture, in which he detailed methods of synthesizing “meth” and its required precursors from simple, mostly readily available chemicals. In jail he happened to watch a television exposé of “terrorist publishers” who released books with instructions for making explosives. Activate your Online Access Now Article content If you are a Home delivery print subscriber, unlimited online access is included in your subscription. For this he got nabbed and sentenced in 1984 to five years in prison. After graduating, he put his chemical knowledge to use by converting ephedrine, at the time readily available in various cold remedies, to methamphetamine, “speed” or “crank” in street language. This Uncle Fester is a clandestine chemist, real name Steve Preisler, who acquired the nickname during his undergraduate days as a chemistry major because of his penchant for doing crazy things in the lab. This is not the Uncle Fester you may remember from the 1960s Addams family sitcom, the one who sleeps on a bed of nails, feeds his plants blood and makes a light bulb glow by putting it in his mouth. Uncle Fester is in a red devil costume replete with horns and a tail. Photo by Chiaki Tsukumo / The Associated Press Article content Join the conversation In Silent Death, 'Uncle Fester' describes the synthesis of the nerve gas sarin, and that book was found in the belongings of the terrorist gang that unleashed an attack with this gas in the Tokyo subway system in 1995 killing 14 people, Joe Schwarcz says.

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Cookbook uncle fester