Phosphorus is a common element with many industrial uses. Unfortunately, it is a key ingredient in making the street drug methamphetamine. Following an epidemic of countless makeshift laboratories that were making meth in the early 2000's the DEA cracked down and enacted strict regulations in the sale and transport of red phosphorus. This has left small-time drug dealers buying cases upon cases of matchbooks that they then laboriously scrape off the phosphorus-bearing brown strips on the sides to get to their phosphorus.

Phosphorus comes in a couple more forms, or allotropes, besides the red powder. White phosphorus is infamous for its toxicity and flammability and has been literally used as a weapon in many wars. It too, unsurprisingly, is strictly regulated. That leaves violet and black. Black phosphorus, of no commercial interest, is created in small amounts in carefully controlled laboratory settings. It is the most exotic and costly; far more expensive on a gram per gram basis than gold or platinum.

That leaves violet which on the affordability scale sits between white/red and black. Many chemists debate whether it's a true allotrope or simply an intermediary between the red and black forms. On the other hand, while making it also calls for a demanding list of steps out of reach for most armchair scientists at least the yields are much more generous.

Useless for making meth, violet phosphorus is actually nearly black with only small hints of purple and red. Being amorphous it does not crystallize but does form crumbly clumps. It is less toxic than either white or red but it is still flammable and for this reason it normally ships in a bottle with water or within sealed glass ampules.