Overview: phetz

During World War II, soldiers used amphetamines to maintain alertness during combat. In the years following the war, many service personnel had trouble functioning without the drug. Japanese men who had been soldiers recalled how amphetamines had helped them face one battle after another when the war was in full swing. Demand for the drug increased, and amphetamines were released for sale in Japan without a prescription. This led to a decade of abuse throughout the nation. In the mid-1950s, the Japanese government restricted access to amphetamines and passed stricter laws against illegal amphetamine use.

Around the same time, Americans were becoming hooked on amphetamines, too. Users found they could lose weight quickly and effortlessly. Amphetamines quickly earned a reputation as a "wonder drug" that allowed users to work harder without feeling tired. "Pharmaceutical companies encouraged doctors to prescribe amphetamines to depressed housewives in the 1960s," wrote Andrew Weil and Winifred Rosen in From Chocolate to Morphine. Throughout the decade, public health authorities noted a new and disturbing trend in amphetamine use among drug users in San Francisco, California. Individuals, soon to be known as "speed freaks," were injecting liquefied amphetamines into their veins.

The massive increase in drug use in the 1960s prompted countries throughout the world to pass new anti-drug laws and regulations. In the United States, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which cut down considerably on the production, importation, and prescription of amphetamines. Many forms of amphetamine, particularly diet pills, were removed from the over-the-counter market. But this crackdown on amphetamines led to the development of illegal labs in many countries. By the 1990s, illicit amphetamine production had emerged worldwide, with large numbers of illegal labs being reported especially in the western United States, the United Kingdom, and eastern Europe.

Phetz` was soon created as a byproduct of this activity and was quickly injected into the gaming community to be known as the 'Dreamteam' of the 21st Century.