WHAT MAKES METH SO BAD

Pioneer Press ^ | February 22, 2004 | Amy Becker

[realpatriot71]

I thought it was the late 1960's that speed was made illegal after too many housewives got addicted to diet pills.

That was dextroamphetamine, not methamphetamine

[Kenny Bunk]

There is another class of meth user: that is the person given methamphetamines by prescription. There are unfortunately many 40-and-50-something women (although not exclusively) on a regimen of anti-depressants + methamphetamines as prescribed by a psychiatrist.

This is absolute madness to begin with. And many of the shrinks don't even have the cojones to tell these people to avoid alcohol completely. Personal interaction with a person on the anti-depressant+methamphetamine+Chardonnay program, and there are a lot of them, is a lot like handling old dynamite!

[Mamzelle]

curious--why does it rot the teeth, and how does it do it so quickly?

ER personnel know these burns as a sudden epidemic of faulty car batteries that explode when the drivers try to jump the battery---all a lie, of course.

[BobS]

Teddy Kennedy should go to the next State of the Union on meth, instead of alcohol.

[BobS]

Do you remember "black beauties"? I do!

[realpatriot71]

Do you remember "black beauties"? I do!

That was before my time I think :-)

[MizRiz9]

What a powerful statement you made and you only used two words and two numerals -- November 1979 - January 1989.

Like Nita I was fascinated by it and will visit the drugfreeaz site next.

Coloradan hit it right on the head -- just use those pictures instead of throwing away tax $$$ -- definitely a pretty powerful preventive measure.

I just don't know what can be done with those poor lost souls who are already addicted to it. It is heartbreaking to see how someone could go from looking relatively healthy to that corpse-like addict.

[realpatriot71]

Coloradan hit it right on the head -- just use those pictures instead of throwing away tax $$$ -- definitely a pretty powerful preventive measure.

It's interesting when talking to kids about this that they are more apt to listen when the examples given show destrcution on the outside - physical beauty turned to crap - than emphasizing damage to brain, lungs, and other tissues.

[Gritty]

This is ugly stuff.

The War On Drugs isn't the failure. These people are, and so are the rest of us if we let it go on unchecked.

But what do we do about them, and the havoc they raise not only to themselves but to others and society?

I think the answer is simple, and dennisw has hit on some of it. First, catch and execute the dealers and pushers. They are already too far gone to save. "Hang" them, as "hang" publicly in the town square with everybody watching, so the word gets out that this is serious.

Second - for the "users only" - they get a chance for rehab, even doing it on the public dime if they can't pay for it themselves. If they are successful and are not rearrested and convicted again within five years, fine. If not, hang them right along with dealers and pushers. They'll never recover and they are a toxic hazard to the rest of us.

It's harsh, but so is making everybody else live with the consequences of these intractable addictions. If education can't do the job, maybe fear can. If that doesn't do it, there remains only the "permanent" solution.

[clamper1797]

Does this "hang" em stuff include pot smokers ?

[fourdeuce82d]

Meth was smuggled from Taiwan and South Korea into Hawaii in the 1980s. By 1990, its presence had grown in the U.S. mainland

meth has been around and popular in various "waves" since the 60s.

[fourdeuce82d]

Meth was given to truckdrivers, fighter pilots(still is), and I had a WW2 vet tell me they were given doses of meth before being dropped out of planes onto the French countryside

Not IIRC- that was either benzedrine, dexedreine, or methedrine- they're all amphetamines, but they're not methamphetamine.

[TheRightGuy]

curious--why does it rot the teeth, and how does it do it so quickly?

Many users who don't want to smoke or shoot meth ( sure ticket to quick death) will take to eating it rather than snorting it once their nostrils are flamed out. You gotta realize that trying to store crytal meth by wrapping in tinfoil doesn't work because foil is dissolved by it. It gets to the teeth at and below the gum line, kind of like stripping off a layer of bark from around the base of a tree trunk -- sooner or later tree dies and falls, teeth break off at root. Ain't pretty.

[Hacksaw]

"These people are completely dangerous. They're different from any other person I've bought drugs from. Their aggression is above and beyond any other drug. There are more guns, more explosives, more booby traps in meth labs than in crack houses," the Martin County investigator said.

I thought that multiply banned MrLeRoy stated that alcohol is the only drug that causes agression. Looks like he was wrong again.

[Gritty]

Does this "hang" em stuff include pot smokers ?

No.

Pot smokers are managing nicely enough to hang themselves. Users aren't deadly dangers to everybody else - although sometimes the growers and pushers are.

Meth only, at this point. Everybody involved is a hazard.

[tacticalogic]

Can you imagine what the backlash is going to be like over the public hanging of teenage girls?

[MizRiz9]

That IS interesting realpatriot71.

Perhaps lungs, tissues and other "innards" are too abstract. Because they usually can't be seen kids can't identify with them. But when physical beauty, something they can see, turns to intense crap it gets their attention.

[Myrddin]

I was in a local computer surplus store when a couple female meth heads came in to rip off the place. They didn't park their vehicle directly in front of the store. It was 10 parking places away...out of view. One engaged the single clerk in a detailed conversation to get an internal modem for her laptop. While the clerk was occupied, the other woman grabbed a $600 deskside PC off the floor, slipped out the door and placed in her car. The one playing the "modem game" then left. Moments later, the clerk noticed the missing PC. I called it in to my wife at the local PD dispatch office with a description of the women. Two days later, they tried shoplifting at the local Dillard's department store. Security caught them. Their car was impounded. Inside was the PC and other stolen merchandise worth thousands of dollars. That solved a large number of local theft cases in one pass. Both are in prison again. The car was sold at auction.

The local PD officers take out a meth lab about every other week. Labs in houses will make the premises into a hazmat cleanup site. Often, they are burned as a fire department practice exercise and the land cleaned off. The perpertrator are not usually the property owners. A burn and scrape recovers some of their equity. They can always rebuild. The mobile homes are usually a total loss.

[realpatriot71]

Perhaps lungs, tissues and other "innards" are too abstract. Because they usually can't be seen kids can't identify with them. But when physical beauty, something they can see, turns to intense crap it gets their attention.

I think it works better for two reasons (1) kids are more or less self-centered, as compared with adults, and any assualt on their "beauty" is just too much to bear - who's going to like them if they are ugly (2) kids think they are invincible

[Kozak]

Meth was smuggled from Taiwan and South Korea into Hawaii in the 1980s

Guess they never heard of the Hells Angels. Speed has been manufactured in California since the 60's.

By rhe way speed is legal and can be found in most middle and high schools. It's called Adderal ( amphetamine and dextroamphetamine ) and it's widely used along with Ritalin (methylphenidate ) for treatment of ADHD.