The award-winning television show Breaking Bad has been blamed for a rise in crystal meth use across the UK and Europe.
Professor Ellis Cashmore, an author on celebrity and media culture from Staffordshire University, believes the US drama has promoted interest in the drug.
In the UK, Home Office figures show that at least 17,000 people are believed to have used crystal meth in 2013, while border patrols in the UK have seen a 400 per cent rise in attempts to smuggle methamphetamine into the country.
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Germany has seen the highest surge in Europe, with a 51 per cent rise in use.
Cashmore says that having a popular TV show with the drug at the centre of its storyline would instantly boost its appeal, reports the Daily Telegraph.
"Although the show does not go out to glamorise the drug, its very inclusion promotes interest in that substance," he says. "The fact it is a central premise to almost the entire series would serve to boost this interest for people who perhaps had not encountered it before."
The show, which has won 16 Emmys and two Golden Globes, stars Bryan Cranston as Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who turns to drug dealing to secure his family’s finances before he dies of lung cancer.
"Even if a TV show, like Breaking Bad, portrays drugs in a negative aspect and shows its most destructive side, it will still appeal to somebody," says Cashmore. "Showing the horrendous impact of crystal meth can have a boomerang effect and cause curiosity among some viewers who might think ‘that must be good’."
Colonel Jackub Frydrych from the Czech Republic Police heads a team trying to disrupt the crystal meth trade in Prague, said to be the source of 95 per cent of all batches consumed in Europe. He says there are "booming markets" run by Vietnamese gangs based in the Czech Republic.
Police in the UK have discovered a number of meth labs, but the majority of the country’s supply is thought to have been smuggled in.
