Do I capitalize the name of an illegal drug in MLA?

Published July 7, 2013

Question by Bob Builder: Do I capitalize the name of an illegal drug in MLA?
I’m writing a paper and I don’t know whether or not to capitalize “crystalline methamphetamine” in:

“… the production of crystalline methamphetamine.”
Thanks joseph!

Best answer:

Answer by joseph
According to MLA rules, whenever you are unsure if a word should be capped, look in a standard dictionary for the part of speech and capitalizing style. Obviously brand names for meth are capitalized, such as Desoxyn or Methadrine, but other than that my guesss is that crystal methamphetamine should not be capitalized. (It’s not capitalized in Britannica.)

Methamphetamine. .Not Even Once / BBC World News America – Meth for short. It has been most popular in small town America because it was a cheap high, but the toll it takes on lives is mostly irreversible because in …