PBS Special Tonight (Tues) on Meth Epidemic

[JPZenger]

Tonight, PBS Frontline will have a special report on the meth epidemic that is sweeping many parts of the country. In parts of Iowa, half of all the children who are removed from their families because of neglect resulted from a parent's addiction to meth.

The special will show before and after photos of people using meth. Here's another set. Click on each photo to see the "after" results.

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/index.html#

Many local governments and agencies are being overwhelmed by the problem, while the Feds are doing little to help. The Feds are too busy trying to stop marijuana use, which causes only a fraction of the harm as meth.

The problem is particularly serious in many rural areas in the midwest and south-central states.

[warrens]

1. You may be interested in this story, about Nick Esasky

Former major leaguer, whose daughter became addicted. He had to take custody of her child and get her arrested to get her into rehab. This is a kid who grew up with a millionaire father, intact family, etc.

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/02/13/story7.html

[LostinVA]

2. Yup... having to sign for Sudafed is really helping

But hey, gotta stop those evil pot smokers! You never know when one might go crazy and shoplift some Twinkies!

[DemNoir]

3. The lack of Govt action is a scandal

Since they could crush Meth production virtually overnight by banning production of Ephedrine. There are other drugs that do the same thing but Ephedrine is very profitable. Can't anger the drug companies...

[MadHound]

4. Frankly I think that they should legalize meth

People are going to use it whether it is illegal or not. But keeping it illegal means that there is a huge secondary crime wave associated with it, toxic waste sites from backwoods and homegrown meth cookers, people dying or seriously injuring themselves due to a bad batch, and this allow the few to continue to get rich off of this trade.

Rather, let us legalize and control it, much like we do with alcohol. There would be no secondary crime wave, no toxic waste sites, and no people dying due to bad batches. And I would be willing to bet you lots of money that after the initial "euphoria period" dies out, there would be fewer meth users. And gee, we could tax it for another revenue stream, and divert that money towards treatment centers and education programs. Oh and us non-users would get back a good chunk of our civil rights that this War on Drugs has taken away.

But sad to say, I doubt that this will ever happen. Too many people in a select group are making too much money by keeping meth illegal. People in government, the police, and lawyers. Goes to prove true the old saying by Malcolm X that the police, politicans and criminals all walk hand in hand in hand.

[JPZenger]

5. Absurd to Even Think of Legalizing Meth

This is not a drug that people grow out of, or that allows people to get stoned on a Saturday night and live a normal life the rest of the week.

From what I have read, meth is one of the hardest drug addictions to kick.

There have been recent news reports that the crackdown on raw materials in parts of the US to make meth has simply moved more production to Mexico. That means that pros are making it, which results in stronger and more addictive batches.

[MadHound]

8. Well keeping it illegal sure as shit isn't doing any good!

All it is doing is forcing the garage chemists to make more and more weird toxic shit. Meth is the ultimate in chimera drugs, it can be made out of almost anything. I guarantee you that right now, some garage biochemist is figuring out how to extract ephedrine out of plants from the Ephedra genus, and pretty soon will be growing the plants and doing the extraction, another very toxic process.

And quite frankly, alcohol isn't a drug that a great many people never grow out of. And it's effects are just as bad as those of meth's except for one key difference, you don't have the secondary crime wave that accompanies alcohol like it does meth, for alcohol is legal now. During prohibition though, what did you see around the illegal alcohol trade? Yeah, much of what you see now around the illegal drug trade, including meth.

I live in the heart of meth country friend, and I'm tired of having stuff ripped off by tweakers. I'm tired of not being able to go where I want in some of our state and national forests because meth heads have turned large areas into toxic waste sites. I'm tired of a bunch of meth heads getting freaked out at each other, ending in a running gun battle down my street, where the tweakers don't die, but the innocent bystanders do. I'm tired of having to deal with whigged out tweakers wandering my property, threatening and inflicting violence on me and mine because they think I'm on their land. Keeping meth illegal is not going to allieviate these problems one bit, instead it will only increase them, both in frequency and magnitude.

And it isn't those in power who will suffer these consequences, oh no. In fact it is those in power who actually reap the rewards of the War on Drugs. Money gained from asset seizure, money gained from kickbacks, money gained from either defending meth heads, or money gained from prosecuting them. Money, money money, all flowing around in this small but quite profitable circle of people who benefit from the War on Drugs. Our tax moneys flow to these people, and our jobs too. For one of the main beneficiaries of this War on Drugs is the prison industrial process. New bodies to perform jobs at slave wages, jobs that would otherwise go to those unemployed souls out here are instead being given to inmates working for pennies.

I'm sorry friend, but the War on Drugs has got to go. It has been proven time and again that it isn't effective, it is just transfering our wealth into the hands of a few. Meanwhile more people get hooked and go on crime sprees. It is time to stop this madness now. It has been shown that after an initial euphoric spike in usage, once a drug is legalized, the usage rate will go down. Therefore let us save ourselves all a lot of problems and legalize it all, meth, dope, crack, heroin, whatever. For it seems that mankind has always had an inate need to mess with his state of conciousness. Let's let him do so, in a safe and secure manner, so he does the least amount of harm to himself and the rest of us. Anything else is just sheer insanity.

[Swamp Rat]

6. Yat another horror of the Bushler Era

[LanternWaste]

7. Is the current crop of meth simply that much more potent?

Having used it for about 9 months in the early-mid eighties, I'm wondering if there's a difference in the potency/strength/toxicity in the newer stuff.

We were eight guys (and a few females) who'd each do about a quarter gram on Fri night (into Saturday morning), coupled with pot and beer, and have The Crash hit us on Sat. night. We did this for almost a year and none of us really had a problem when we each (for our own individual reasons) decided to stop.

None of us were (as could be defined) "strong-willed" on one extreme, or had "addictive personalities" (on the other extreme), yet it simply wasn't a big deal to walk away from it when the time came.

Is the current crop of meth simply that much more potent? Or was the meth-addiction problem as prevalent in the eighties as it is now but got less air time on the evening news?

[JPZenger]

9. Medical Effects of Meth

Medical Aspects of Methamphetamine Abuse
by Dr. Kathryn Wells

"Methamphetamine has many names on the street such as "speed", "ice", "meth", "crystal" and "crank". Much of the explosive rise in the use of this drug is due to the simplicity of its synthesis in clandestine labs using inexpensive readily available ingredients...The drug may be snorted, smoked, orally ingested, or injected. The user will repeatedly use the drug (binge) until they ultimately "crash". Tolerance to the pleasurable effects of the drug occurs within minutes but before the blood concentrations fall. Therefore the user will continue to use ("tweaking") in order to try to recreate the pleasure high as a part of the binge cycle. This is the part of the cycle that is the most physiologically dangerous to the user as well as creates the greatest potential for violence.

Methamphetamine is a very addictive drug and leads to a chronic, relapsing disease. Addiction is characterized by compulsive, drug-seeking behavior and drug use. There is also a stronger potential for addiction when the more rapid-acting routes of administration are used...Methamphetamine users often display multiple behavior changes. These individuals are frequently violent, bizarre acting, excessively anxious, confused and unable to sleep. Psychotic features are very common as an effect of this drug as well. These individuals can show paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, mood disturbances, delusions, homicidal thoughts, suicidal thoughts, and out of control rages. These behavioral changes can persist for years after drug use is discontinued. An acute methamphetamine psychosis has been described in the medical literature. This is characterized by extreme paranoia, well-formed delusions, hypersensitivity to environmental stimuli, stereotyped "tweaking" behavior, panic, extreme fearfulness, and a high potential for violence."