Making it from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine is possible. The only difference between methamphetamine and (pseudo)ephedrine is that damn alpha-hydroxy group. Reacting your ephedrine with thionyl chloride replaces the OH with Cl to produce N-methyl-alpha-chloroamphetamine as an intermediate. Hydrogenating this product is easy: use lithium aluminum hydride, sodium borohydride, or even hydrogen gas with nickel or platinum metal as a catalyst. The product of this step is N-methylamphetamine and HCl. Evaporate off the water and you have methamphetamine hydrochloride.

From: yshan@bcarh697.bnr.ca (Yogi Shan)

Hydrogenation starting with (-) ephedrine, whether direct or via the halide, will give d-meth. If you start with dl-ephedrine, you get dl-meth.