ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Natasha lives in a small two-room apartment on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Coats and slippers clutter the cramped entryway. From the kitchen waft smells of boiling potatoes and freshly cut vegetables. Natasha is the main reason I try visit St. Petersburg regularly. She was my mother’s best friend at university, the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, where they studied languages like English and German in hope of becoming translators, or writers.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — Methamphetamine use is relatively low in Europe, but the Czech Republic far surpasses its neighbors for the number of clandestine meth labs within its borders. Last year, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) joined Europol to study methamphetamines in Europe. The data is provisional, and not every country provided data. But the results so far are unambiguous. Of the 483 meth labs discovered on the continent in 2008, all but 26 of them were in this small country of 10.3 million people.