alt Hacker NewsI was thinking the same thing, though I couldn't remember the timeline. Makes me wonder if there was something already in the zeitgeist, or if it was fueled by the obsession with purity in the series. I could totally see Breaking Bad causing chemists to want to up their game, or causing chemists to get clowned for having low purity.
yes, while the show probably popularized the idea of purity for meth, in general strict prohibition leads to increase in purity and potency. We've recently seen that with heroin/fentanyl. There is probably still no "fentanyl of meth", and thus so far only purity increase. Once a more potent, fentanyl-like, meth appears, it will probably similarly get into and displace a lot of classic meth trade.