Breaking Bad hasn¡¯t only attracted award buzz for it¡¯s gritty, original story ¨C it¡¯s been blamed for a rise in crystal meth use in Britain and across Europe.

Statistics from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction shows that there has been a rise in usage and attempts to smuggle the illegal substance across the UK and Germany and Heisenberg and Jesse could be to blame.

Professor Ellis Cashmore, an author on celebrity and media culture from Staffordshire University, has argued that the popularity of the hit TV series which starred Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, while not on purpose has played its part in glamorizing the drug and in a side effect, these figures increasing.

Telling the Daily Telegraph, Professor Cashmore said ¡±Although the show does not go out to glamorize the drug, its very inclusion promotes interest in that substance [and]¡­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.

¡°We live in a hedonistic generation where people are seeking pleasure from various sources, and increasingly these are be found in the most illicit forms. Even if¡­ Breaking Bad¡­ portrays drugs in a negative aspect and shows its most destructive side, it will still appeal to somebody.

¡°I¡¯m not surprised following the success of Breaking Bad that we have news of a surge in the use of methamphetamine. The fact millions of people have watched the show and been entertained by it almost instantly glamorizes its subject matter, whether deliberate or not.¡±

The figures in the study show that around 17,000 people are believed to have used crystal meth in 2013 while border police (UK) intercepted the drug on 252 occasions last year, rising dramatically from those recorded in 2011/12.