Update [2005-7-10 22:55:14 by susanhu]: The NYT just posted this story: “A Drug Scourge [Meth] Creates Its Own Form of Orphan.”
I just read “Methamphetamine: The real drug war,” by the Seattle P.I. editorial board. It reminded me of my friend’s neighbor who until last month gardened frantically all night, her too-bright yard lights glaring into neighbors’ bedroom windows. After putting in a shift at Safeway, she’d rush about her yard, tending hundreds of flowers crowded in beds and pots. One day, she and her son (and drug partner) were carted off to jail, charged with selling and using meth. Luckily, our kindly county prosecutor took in her orphaned dog and cat.
Given that law enforcement officials nationwide name meth as their #1 problem — “No other drug was even close” — it’s astonishing that the Bush administration calls it a “problem but not an epidemic”:
Today’s WaPo notes that “the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy [recently] restated its stance that marijuana remains the nation’s most substantial drug problem.” WTF? More below:
“This thing is burning, and because it’s burning, we’re going to put it out,” he said. “But we can’t turn our back on other threats.”
Sheriff Jon R. Marvel of western Indiana’s Vigo County estimates that 80 percent of the inmates in his county’s jail in Terre Haute are held on meth-related charges.
He also points to an operating budget that has risen from $800,000 in 1999 to about $3.4 million last year to illustrate how policing meth has used county resources. (WaPo)
I’m staggered by the idiocy of the Bush administration. I expect their idiocy regularly in military, foreign policy and many domestic matters. But to downplay the meth epidemic in this country is shocking.
What can we do about this huge problem?
The crystal meth problem is a difficult nut to crack. Despite what government officials might tell you, drugs aren’t all the same. In particular, here are the major problems I see with crystal meth:
-)It is physically addictive (only about 5% of addicts kick the habit)
-)It does measurable, provable damage (it can do irreparable harm after only ONE use)
-)It is easy to make out of readily available substances (so we can’t just outlaw the things that you can use to make it)
I think the key to solving this drug issue is going to be prevention through education, because of the first 2 points especially. We need to educate kids about how dangerous this is. The threat of punishment is dependent on getting caught, while the threat of lifelong disability is not; so I think that is the angle that needs to be stressed (though obviously those who distribute it need to suffer repercussions as well).
Only 5%? Oh dear.
Kids get educated about meth in the schools here. But it’s a big industry in this rural region.
I frankly never saw the appeal in being so hyper and agitated. But that’s just me.
Should have included my source for that, as I’m not totally sure that is accurate:
That’s good that kids are getting educated there. It’s a good step. I think that the government needs to get a good PR firm and try to come up with another ‘this is your brain…on drugs’ kind of thing (that was pretty effective in my demographic), targeting crystal meth. It really is scary how dangerous it is.
Used to have signs/ads “SPEED KILLS” – and it had nothing to do with cars.
That may be the case, but I don’t believe anything any US government says about any drug. Neither will anybody else. The only people with credibility on the issue have no voice because they are not part of the drugwar hysteria. I don’t have any answers to meth, but a very useful first step would be a total shutdown of the drugwar. Short of that, just accept that a whole lot of kids are going to be sacrificed for political expediency.
I agree, the claim that one hit will hook you for life is total BS. I’ve heard that claim about every drug that’s come down the pike.
I don’t use but, I know some who do and many of them are just ‘chippers’ and some have quit on their own because using no longer fit their lifestyle.
The gov’t approach to the drug war has been as misguided and as big a failure as the war in Iraq.
About 20 years ago, I had a housemate with a big enough meth problem that he developed amphetamine psychosis (really interesting, as he was into the Kabbalah at the time, and thought he had rearranged his DNA and become someone else). It was horrible. I had to go to Kansas City to get my car back, after he gave it away to someone (for some reason, he didn’t give his own stuff away!).
The rest of us at that house wound up moving to the mountains and hoping he wouldn’t find us, he was that scary. Needless to say, meth has no appeal here!
because it is a very big problem here in rural Alabama. They seem to have launched their own war against it because it was taking out their kids and they seem to have a real history of its devastation down here. My daughter told me about her drug education about it at the Junior High this year and they have names, dates, photos, and accounts from the victims friends and families that live and died right here. I felt like that packed a huge credibility wallop and helped everybody accept how dangerous meth really is when I was listening to her describe it.
the redneck’s crack.
6 months ago my next door neighbor was broken into also and the strangest things were stolen. Guns and expensive jewelry were completely ignored and video and computer equipment was taken. She also had an enormous T.V. that was sitting in her driveway when she got home and all the cords were meticulously wrapped……I don’t know that much about successful burglary but seemed so strange to me. The T.V. was really a dinosaur for televisions and couldn’t be worth much (I have one too). It isn’t a flat screen or plasma or anything like that…….what a thing to try to steal when so many other things in her house were worth so much more. Turned out that they were high school drop outs just trying to get together enough money for their next couple of days supply of meth. I was pulling out of my driveway when they were trying to pack the dinosaur off and I scared them and they ran away. My son requests constant attention though and I was talking to him and I didn’t see them at all.
I think we have to alert the people within the Beltway to the full extent of this problem. Meth seems so – how to say this – low class? I think a lot of the power brokers in DC have a personal history with marijuana. Not so likely with Meth. As one person I know put it so non-politically correctly: “It’s a poor white trash problem – why don’t they just use oxycontin?” Why, I asked? “So we could just send them off to Betty Ford.”
Indeed.
There is a great deal of investment in “interdictive” approaches to the drug problem. Lots of funding for federal and domestic law enforcement has been based on the “traditional” drugs. There is also a lack of understanding as to how Meth is more family-based, rather than a problem of individuals becoming hooked. Marijuana is seen as the drug of entrance into more serious drugs – whether or not that is accurate, that is often what is focused on in our lame and largely ineffective drug prevention programs.
It is a lot more controversial to deal with the fact that mom and dad may be cooking up the stuff on their kitchen stove – not exactly something you want the local cops to be emphasizing in their DARE sessions at the high school.
We have to bring this to the attention of our Senators and Congressional Reps, and not just the Democrats.
The Seattle news just showed Rep. Dave Reichert and Sen. Maria Cantwell meeting with area sheriffs about the problem they’re having. They’ve promised to do all they can.
And our entire WA delegation has been pretty good on this. WA state, at one time, had the highest # of labs in the country. I’m not sure, but I think the Midwest states have that honor now.
I don’t believe California has ever been displaced as the worst site for methamphetamine labs, at least in the United States.
A problem seems to be cooking south of the border, however.
From Senator Feinstein’s website:
I am NOT saying that Meth users are low-class. It is sarcasm. I’m saying that some people in power disregard meth as a problem because they don’t want to deal with what they perceive as a problem of people who are “not like them”. I was making a caustic remark about such condescending attitudes.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing about prevention programs aimed at affluent kids, while poor children, whether rural or inner city (the two places where most poverty is found), are left out. The reality is that the ingredients for Meth can be purchased legally, which makes meth much more attractive to people who are afraid of being caught or of being caught up in drug-related violence at the point of sale. Meth is a do-it-yourself drug. And what’s worse, it is a do-it-together-in-your-family drug.
as usual, the WH has their priorities misplaced. I find that whatever and whereever they are and their substance on statements is always substandard.
but LEGALIZE IT. All of them. Prohibition doesn’t work, and causes concomitant social and legal problems.
The need to “self-medicate” for pain (physical or psychological), or obtain altered states of conciousness for worship or recreation, has always been part of the human experience. It is best treated as a health problem, not a legal one.
So rational. Thank you.
I don’t know, for example, what harm my friend’s neighbor did to anyone — aside from gardening all night — and joining her son in his addiction.
Now, she’s out of a job, can probably never be rehired by Safeway, is in jail, and she and her son have lost their home, and their pets are in foster care.
What does that solve?
Are there safer variants of the drug that don’t cause such serious physical problems, including brain and nervous system damage?
Well, the example here would be Ritalin (methylphenidate), which is prescribed to children for attention deficit disorder (itself a controversial subject). But clearly, those kids aren’t ending up like speed freaks.
Ritalin has structural similarities to meth. So does Ecstasy. None of these are 100% safe, but Ritalin is certainly safer than meth, if taken orally.
I typed too much to beat you to it!
If we were on meth, we both would still be working on our 50,000-word nonsensical posts…
I lived in a house once w/ my girlfriend, two other couples and another guy (it was crowded, but we were all broke). One of the couples and the single guy used meth. We didn’t mind so much when he was speeding, since we’d wake up to a sparkling clean house, including grout scrubbed out with a toothbrush. I’m talking a 12 hour cleaning blitz. The chrome on the faucets SHONE.
I don’t know where he ended up, but we worried about him. I can’t help but think that the marginalization of drug use by prohibition drives people further and further away from help. Even if you do clean up your life, our vindictive puritan culture makes it nearly impossible to restart your life.
That’s a very perceptive comment about rehab and stigma. This is getting to be even more of a stimatizing culture, all the way around.
But apropos the recollection of the housecleaning speed freaks, I believe this is one of the reasons this problem—rampant and dangerous hereabouts—is downgraded by the likes of the Bushco: until their habit gets out of control or they develop serious side-effects, people on speed can work, and sometimes work a lot. That’s all this corporate culture wants from the masses.
Grass on the other hand slows people down, makes them contemplative and sensory, so they see through the bullshit they’re supposed to believe in order to be worked to death.
As for class, look at the history of cocaine and it’s clear that class and race are factors in how this society deals with drugs.
Grass on the other hand slows people down, makes them contemplative and sensory, so they see through the bullshit they’re supposed to believe in order to be worked to death.
That’s really it, when it gets down to it. The same is true of the hallucinogens like LSD, which is the only drug ever to actually be effectively wiped out by the DEA. (Yes, I know there are still minor sources, but 95% of the domestic supply was shut down during the Apperson and Pickard bust.)
The drugs that are most fervently hunted by the government are the ones that either make you question what you’re being told or that are popular with minorities. Methamphetamine does not fall into either class. It just destroys poor people. Why would the GOP care about that? Their entire way of life is based on destroying poor people.
Ritalin and other stimulants. Here’s a site I found of links about various stimulants.
One article from that source:
Legal Methamphetamine:
How accurate all of it is, I can’t vouch for, but it gibes with much of what I’ve read. (Not much personal experience, I’m more of a drinker myself).
Anyway, it’s hard to find information that isn’t either from a drug culture site, or an addiction recovery or law enforcement site. ALL seem to have contradictory info. Plainly, prohibition has made it hard to find impartial information.
First of all, ritalin is methylphenidate, similar to but different enough from Meth to behave differently in the body. For one thing, it washes out of the body very quickly, unlike “regular” street or home-made methamphetamine. Meth effects last for several hours. Let me state this again, very plainly, as rumors and false information abound about treatment of ADHD: Ritalin is not the same as Meth! Neither does it produce the highs that Meth produces, nor does it create drug addiction.
Adderall is a newer medication for ADHD, consisting of a combination of various dexadrine and amphetamine salts, designed to be la little onger lasting that ritalin. It does not last as long as Meth, however.
I don’t take the person you quote as much of an example of someone with ADHD. He sounds first of all as a manipulative person using the medical system to get drugs legally that are similar to what he is in trouble for using illegally. I’m not surprised that he would find Adderall less effective with time – for one thing, he cannot use more and more of it, as chronic drug addiction often requires in order to continue to feel the same effects.
thanks …
One of the problems w/ treatment as it’s currently structured is that it’s based on so much misinformation. People like this can play on it.
I’m no medical expert, but I’m deeply suspicious of how medicine and drugs have been commercialized and politicized in this culture. It’s frustrating how hard it is to find good sources of information as someone not intimately involved in the field.
You are right. As a psychologist, I’m clearly not in the “loves pills” group, (with rare exceptions, psychologists by law do not prescribe medication) but neither do I reject them outright. It is hard to find good advice, and harder to find good practioners. And treatment is unbelievably difficult to find, unless you are wealthy.
We do have a very big mental health treatment system. It’s called prison.
For this info. I’m sure at some point I will hear the perscription meth argument from someone and now I will know what the reality is and I’ll be able to give more accurate info back!
I’ll definitely agree that some drugs need to be legalized, but not because prohibition “doesn’t” work. Of course prohibition works–every society has always prohibited all kinds of behaviors; it just has its limits. We don’t even legalize all guns, and gun ownership is protected by the Constitution.
We have to look at the harm potential, because when peoples’ neurological and emotional systems are damaged, they become threats or burdens to society.
There’s no doubt that marijuana should be legalized–but remain prohibited for kids. I’ve seen evidence that genuinely clean heroin is fairly harmless.
The fact is that a libertarian approach to almost every problem is now colliding with the increasingly full planet, the march of technology bringing greater powers with longer reach to the actions of individuals, and a greater ability to measure the injuries caused by exercises of freedom.
Drugs seem like a classic case for a diversity of approaches. Legalization and regulation for enough substances to satisfy the general appetite for exercise of freedom, and various levels of prohibition where threats and where the ability overpower reasonable prudent behavior are maximum.
Well said. Maybe some of our world users could give this Californian a different perspective on their country’s approaches.
legalizing it doesn’t preclude controlling it (see alcohol & tobacco). Prohibition is the problem. Having rational policies isn’t the same thing as unfettered libertarianism.
The current hysteria over meth is no different than other drug hysterias. Speed has been around for a long time. I remember all of the stories about the danger of “Ice” back in the late ’80s and ’90s … the last time meth was public enemy number one. When I was a kid, there were stories like about how Heroin made everyone addicted the first time they tried it. We’ve all seen “Reefer Madness” I’m sure. The “drug war” precludes doing hard science on the actual effects of street drugs, as well as good science on addiction. It’s driven by hysteria and by the greed of the treatment complex.
I take EVERYTHING politicians and law enforcement say about the danger-du-jour with a big grain of salt.
“Education” is such a liberal copout. Most people know that meth does bad things, but it’s what they can get, and present relief trumps future pain. If all drugs were legalized there would be no reason for substantial meth use or production. There would be better, safer stuff available.
The only thing about drugs that’s remotely government’s business is when it’s being pushed at kids. But guess what– if we dumped the drugwar bullshit, maybe the “authorities” could regain at least a tiny smidgeon of credibility when they try to warn kids about the bad stuff. Plus, the resources being wasted now would become available to really nail the ones who target kids.
With drugs readily available to adults, there would be little incentive to go after kid customers. The dealers are not looking for lunch money, they’re looking for long-term buyers. Once that is short-circuited, selling to kids becomes a minor nuisance and enforcement resources are freed up to allow a focused attack.
Like most good things, the rational approach is so fucking obvious, but will never even be discussed in the US because the pols and “opinion leaders” of all political stripes find drug hysteria so damn politically easy and profitable. One thing the right and left pols and soccer moms and dads agree on is their god-given duty and right to improve the personal habits of the less enlightened. Their symbiosis with the dealers is nearly unbreakable as long as they can count on the gaga American public to stampede every time they yell another stupid lie.
Well, I for one won’t slap you. The problem with the prohibition approach is that it makes whatever’s prohibited “forbidden fruit.” To the extent that folks feel like they are being manipulated by the authorities, they’ll react by rebelling. That’s just basic social psychology in action. The other thing that we have to keep in mind is that the human brain seems to be hardwired to be receptive to various drugs, as those drugs mimic neurotransmitters found naturally in the brain. To me, then, prohibition is not sustainable in the long-run. When there is clear reason to believe that a drug is harmful, I’d prefer a “tainted fruit” approach in which the harmful consequences are spelled out in a rational, matter-of-fact manner.
I’d just as soon legalize the substances, and 1) regulate them and 2) provide matter-of-fact info regarding the consequences (both beneficial and detrimental) for taking the substances in question.
There’s no profit, as far as I know, for Big Pharma from marijuana. Is there profit to be made from meth? Perhaps that explains the difference in political emphasis.
Cynical? Moi?
that are marketed, and it’s hard to write a law w/o sweeping up analogues in the legislation.
by just the simple act of getting stores to keep pseudoephedrine behind the counter.
From Senator Feinstein’s website:
I have bad allergies, but I don’t mind asking for my 12-hour decongestants from behind the counter. It is easy to see that the retailers have a profit motive keeping shoplifters away from the cold pills aisle.
Will limiting pseudoephedrine solve or eliminate the problem? No way — but I think it’s a (previously) easy-to-obtain and important ingredient, from what I’ve read.
more laws are the solution though. Education and treatment are the way to go.
that drug treatment and education are the way to go, dollars to donuts, vs. jailing drug offenders and the costs directly and indirectly.
I carve out one exception — methamphetamine — that I think requires a unique approach that combines everything we have in our arsenal. Now, treatment and education are definitely part of long-term success, but I don’t think cold pills behind the counter is obtrusive.
But, as I posted elsewhere, there may be a huge problem with Mexican product coming into the U.S., which is going to make cold pills behind the counter very little of the solution. I suppose cynically I could point out the toxic and dangerous chemicals being located outside the U.S., but I wouldn’t wish that stuff on my neighbors to the south, either. I just don’t want it around, period.
I think profit is certainly part of the equation, but in a slightly different way. It’s true that big pharma has been successful in blocking natural substances of all manner to protect their profit margin, with the help of the FDA. I don’t think the question should be “is there profit to be made from meth”, it should be who stands to profit from meth?
Since anybody can make meth, there’s no controlling the chain of distribution, unlike cocaine or heroin. Without a chain of distribution, the profit is local. Local profit, local problem.
Crack is another oddity in the widely recognized devastation, the disparity in policing and sentencing. To me, crack, meth and aids share the same problem, the perception of who is doing the suffering. That who makes all the difference in the world.
To claim that marijuana is “the nation’s most substantial drug problem” might be true according to some lawyer’s definition of “most substantial,” but the fact is that meth abuse is a one-way trip to mental illness, bad teeth, and (sometimes) death. Potheads, by comparison, are a very minor problem (if any problem at all).
There’s an old phrase, coined during a meth epidemic in the late 1960s: There are no old speed freaks.
Tweakers inevitably burn out, and yes–the neuroscience absolutely supports the claim that meth/speed/ice changes brain chemistry for the worse, and that the change can be long-lasting: months to years.
Speed epidemics tend to die out, since users burn out or die and the drug eventually loses its street cred. But the damage to our society is huge, and in this round the speed seems to be more abundant than in previous speed epidemics (which have been located mainly on the west coast and concentrated in certain populations, such as the Hell’s Angels in the late 1960s).
Perspective: crack abuse causes less permanent brain damage than meth. Plus, it costs much less than coke and lasts longer.
Once again, the administration’s position is not reality-based
Yes. If you go to the National Institute for Drug Abuse, you will find information that was put out in 1998, and barely updated in 2002. Nothing really new.
There are significant health effects of Meth – most recently documented are severe dental problems. But it is very difficult to get people to believe whatever is said about the longer term effects of drugs, given that much was said overstating the dangers of drugs in order to “frighten off” young persons.
Those “scare them off” strategies were about as effective as Nancy Reagan’s “just say no”, which is to say, they did not work. And so we are left with people not believing good research on drug effects either.
As a scientist, and a clinical psychologist, meth is not a drug I would favor legalizing. But then, I wouldn’t put people in jail for drug addiction, either. I’m a lot more worried about the conditions that bring people to use meth in the first place.
This issue is especially ironic since the typical misinformed drug policies have to do with a naive inability to distinguish among the effects of various drugs.
Yet we know that our president, at various points in his life, has tried many of them (stimulants and marijuana at the very least).
With his “hands on” experience with these issues, he could be leading the way towards a sensible drug policy.
But that wouldn’t fit to his constituency any more than a pro-life position.
a lot of people who throw off an addiction blame the drug, and not their own choices, or they blame their weakness and replace it with some other addiction (religion, whatever) and will often become very vocal in their condemnation of their former best friend.
Like ex-smokers.
…make that pro-choice
definition of “drug.”
Lethal dose of marijuana needed to kill half the population that takes it: 5 pounds was reported in Scientific American in the late 60’s.
But that was for killing cats. Presumably it would take a bigger dose to kill humans.
Jeebus, 5 pounds of water can kill a human.
It’s that medical marijuana. Yessiree, your granny will tell you its for the pain and the nausea, but who’s foolin’ who here? She’s gettin’ her freak on…
And it leads to harder stuff too. One day she’s staving off the effects of chemo and the next she’s covered in gang tats and bustin’ caps.
Anybody else think its a tad bit suspicious that the current WoD is focusing on pot, the Supremes decide that free locally grown and consumed pot falls under both “commerce” and “interstate” while the poppy crops in Afghanistan flourish and the road to 9/11 is littered with drug deals and money laundering?
at least here in Arkansas. Mom and Dad both cook meth, get sent away, come back, and the kids are tossed all around. I know of one 15-year-old who goes to high school, works at McDonald’s, and goes to school on her own.
Sometimes there are many when meth parents have been married before. One such family on my Mom’s street had 8 children, and my Mom, in her late 70s, ended up babysitting them all sometimes! (She loves kids. I’ve got to hand it to her.)
The results of meth are heartbreaking and ugly … licking skin to get the last residue, teeth falling out, skin and bones people totally out of control. It is an epidemic in the Ozarks.
Now compare that to marijuana. What are smokers going to do, nod off? Gee, that’s a real problem.
</rant>
with Senator Diane Feinstein, but she has been quite out in front of the battle against methamphetamine, which is a large problem in California and California’s Central Valley.
From her website
And I don’t think she’d mind if I went past the copyright limits (it is a press release):
Senator Feinstein provides some background:
In the year 2000, the Sacramento Bee published an extensive, in-depth examination of the methamphetamine problem in the Central Valley of California, entitled A Madness Called Meth
These figures are dated, and I will limit myself to four paragraphs — but highly encourage anyone interested in this topic to follow the link and read.
Methamphetamine is scary, nasty stuff, destroying the users and those around it. If there is one drug I can point to that I would never be in favor of legalizing, methamphetamine is it. There is no redeeming quality that I am aware of, and the damage to generations of youth and the environment will not be known for decades. Any politician/regulator that thinks marijuana is a bigger problem than methamphetamine, and trots out usage statistics to back up that argument, obviously hasn’t spent an hour with DEA or local law enforcement agents on a meth raid. Large marijuana raids look good on TV, pander to the right for a “War on Drugs” (gee, those Republicans like that ‘War On …’ terminology), and are safer. When dealing with a meth lab there are dangerous and explosive chemicals, and paranoid people who aren’t afraid to kill to protect their cooking. Not to say marijuana fields are not booby trapped and also protected, but from what I’ve read there is no comparison on the level of danger between stopping the methamphetamine EPIDEMIC and raiding marijuana growing operations, in particular the medical marijuana clubs that are now under seige.
<rant>
What can we do about this? How about make sure that people can find a job so they don’t start producing meth in the first place? How about making sure that people aren’t so alienated that they turn to drug use? How about making sure that people have access to mental health care so they don’t self-medicate?
I think our bogus little “drug war” has show that the only thing stepped-up law enforcement accomplishes is to put a lot of people in jail. Arresting people doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t stop the next person from producing and selling drugs. It doesn’t stop addicts from finding a new source. It just forces the State to suppor someone at the taxpayer’s expense. I’d rather that person have a job and pay taxes.
Here’s a little story for you. One of my brother’s friends from high school was just arrested for making meth in a bucolic little town in the midwest. The guy barely graduated from high school in the 1970s and was always on the verge of being pushed out of the working class. Well, now that the econonmy sucks, jobs are moving overseas, and he doesn’t have even enough education to start community college (and there aren’t any jobs where he lives even if he went to school), what else is he supposed to do to feed his family?
I’m not excusing what he did. I’m just perplexed that people seem to wake up one day and go, “oh, look a problem. what should we do now?” rather than think about the long-term consequences of economic changes and government policy. Maybe if we’d all pull our collective head out of our ass, we could actually do something about the problems that lead to addiction and drug production/selling.
</rant>
wasted on ridiculous military campaigns and stupidly expensive and useless military projects would be far better being spent on addressing some of the social problems that give rise to chronic drug abuse.
All the laws and stigmatization in the world will not solve drug problems.
Oh and finally, the government should stop the intelligence services and military from smuggling drugs into the US (or anywhere else for that matter). How many “US advisers” to Colombia have been caught transporting drugs this year?
from Deputy Drug Czar, after visit to Portland?
From the Portland Oregonian:
<snark>Watch for Mr. Burns to be joining Richard Clarke, Retired General Shalikashvili and Larry Diamond on the lecture circuit any time now — his crime? Giving this administration a dose of reality, in conflict with the answers they want to hear.</snark>
Oklahoma passed a law (last year?) putting OTC drugs such as Sudafed etc. behind the counter and limiting the amount that can be purchased. You also have to show ID and sign.
While I’m not normally a “more laws will help” person, it has had a significant impact on the number of meth labs in our state. We had a HUGE problem here, especially in rural areas.
I think Feinstein’s ideas are great, and have heard that Oklahoma laws are the model for many other states.
Maybe something good can come out of Oklahoma.
But, it sure is a pain the arse when you have a sinus headache!
And, as a psychologist, I agree that current treatment methods usually suck. If you’re lucky, you get stuck in a 30 day inpatient unit where you attend mandatory AA/NA many times a day/week, group, individual, etc., get yelled at a lot by the “recovering” staff and booted out the door with little to no aftercare at the “end” of treatment. Money, insurance, medicaid–it all drives the so-called care.
You hit it squarely on the head grzly, there needs to be long term, 180 days or longer treatment programs for meth heads and other addicts, 30 day wonder treatments can and do help some, 5 to 10% of those who complete a program with no after care and consistent NA/AA attendance.
I went through a long term, 270 days of treatment for heroin addiction and there were many meth addicts in the group me. I would say with almost 18 years of recovery that I personally know that more than 30% or roughly 60 people of the 200 or so who were in the program have maintained long term recovery. Also noted that another 25% or approximately 35 more of those who relapsed have found their way back to recovery.
I spent 10 years as a drug and alcohol peer counselor and found that meth addicts are the most difficult to deal with by far. They are in a constant love/hate relationship with their drug and use other drugs to find and achieve some form of stasis or balance when using. They also gravitate toward violence as a means of problem solving, as their inhibition centers are completely annihilated by the drug.
That this administration and congress does not see the magnitude of this epidemic of meth use and its consequences to our society is reprehensible at the least and criminal at its core. I can only hope that continued letters to our rep’s might in some way influence them to increase funding for treatment and hopefully mitigate some of the more detrimental effects to those family members of the addict.
When the crack epidemic of the ’90s reached a comparable point, legislatures across the country to pass special legislation that – de facto – targeted primarily one specific community. To name just a couple of effects:
Now, the meth epidemic is primarily an affliction of whites (and some hispanics), and somehow the rush to draconian legislation is not happening yet. Hmmm.
Now, I am not an advocate of draconian drug enforcement. I just think it is worth noting that neglect is the most compassionate response that these people can muster.
And I think that cocaine presents an opportunity for apples-to-apples comparison.
Let’s put debate about drug laws / legalization aside for a second. If society (who right now is controlled by corporations i.e. BigPharma and Republicans) passes laws to control drug use, there is absolutely no excuse for their to be a difference between cocaine powder use (typically white users) and cocaine crystal use (typically African-American users).
I separate the use of cocaine from the use of methamphetamine because of the toxic chemicals and damage to the health of users and innocents around those chemicals — but I did want to concur with you the inexcusable distinction in drug laws between powder and crystal forms of cocaine. And, what truly angers me is the incredible use of the CIA to flood Los Angeles gangs, if not starting than certainly exploding the crack cocaine use in the African American community, as discussed in an excellent diary by Izzy.
From the Narco News website:
Sorry to go off topic here, but the history of cocaine and law enforcement of the last 30 years is disgusting.
many of you have brought significant points that I address in my diary
The War on Drugs in America
with many links to some really valuable information about treatment and prevention and its value in defeating drug use and abuse.
I understand that meth is far from a “new” problem, but I feel it has become much more widespread lately.
I had never seen or heard of a meth user growing up on Long Island (not sheltered – there was crack and coke and E and hallucinogens and plently of pot). Now, I go home for Christmas and my friend tells me, “Oh, I want to try meth.” She has a FIVE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER for goodness sake. I told her, “You’d fucking better not.” I’ve seen way too much fucked up meth shit lately and that’s from people who DON’T have kids’ lives to ruin along with their own.
I just got out of a relationship with a user. I knew that she used in the past, but by the time we started dating she was a year and a half clean. I didn’t realize at the time the relapse rate was so high.
Then she had an old friend rent a room from her and he was still using and it was all over. I didn’t realize what she was doing at first, but her behavior got more and more irrational and frightening until she had to admit it.
I don’t even want to get into what I went through living with her. Luckily, I had some financial help and moved out, but I worry about what must be happening to her but I’m afraid to even call and find out lest I get sucked back into that world. She doesn’t care about anything and everything is always dirty and I know the health risks and I constanly worry I’m going to get a call and find out she ODd or killed herself.
I’m sorry for the stream-of-consciousness comment, but meth is so so so horrible and it ruins people and makes them crazy and violent and our dumbfuck president wants to call marijuana a problem.
My ex isn’t the only user I know, just the worst case, and as far as I can tell you need to be in severe pain or boredom to pick THAT drug up, and maybe we should all ask ourselves why so many Americans are hurting that much.
KB, sorry to hear about the tragedy you had to go through. Why do you think she chose meth? Did she really not know what it would do to her? Was it the only thing she could afford? Do you think she was going for self-destruction?
I don’t mean to be opening wounds, but I’ve been assuming that meth is the sort of the last-resort high because it’s cheap and widely available. Do you think something different was going on? If it’s too painful to go into, feel free to ignore this. I’ve never understood why people would choose meth, and it sounds like you might have some first-hand insight.
Thanks Dave. People are so kind and considerate around here 🙂 It is a little painful, but only because I’m still worried about her, and of course some of the…indignities…I had to endure. I’ve mostly forgiven her, but some of the things I put up with before I could afford to leave are things I swore I’d never put up with.
Let’s see. Why meth? Well, this is someone who’s done almost every drug there is. Which is not too much unlike me, except most of them I tried once (NOT meth) and stopped, because I wasn’t trying to fill a black hole inside myself with drugs.
Not to go into her personal business to much, but it hasn’t been a happy life, and as well as I thought I knew her (we’d been friends for over a year before we started dating), I had no idea. When she first tried it, she was running with a crowd in college that was pretty much anything goes. That was how meth started, but I hear she was pretty wild in high school too. She got clean from meth before we started dating, and she didn’t know (or said she didn’t know) her friend was still using when he moved in.
And she had some stressful things going on and I guess that’s why she started using again.
And she was so intelligent and capable and beautiful and athletic and a leader in the campus gay community when we were in school. I’m not sure she even leaves her house anymore, and she sees and hears things that aren’t there. That’s the worst – hearing someone you love talk in great detail about things they are seeing and hearing that are scaring them and making them feel crazy, and to know that all of them are figments of a drug trip.
The whole thing makes me sick to tears.
enough on your specific questions.
Meth is cheap and powerful. Period. And I do believe it’s the powerful more than the cheap that is so attractive. It makes you forget EVERYTHING (or so I’ve observed).
And while most of us feel that our friends and families and jobs and children and pets are too important to forget about entirely, some people have none of those things or in are too much pain to care about remembering them.
My long comment above was supposed to be to the general diary, not specifically to you.
not a problem, you pointed out so much of what happens to those that love and care about those who use that insidious drug.
Who decided that this was such a huge problem?
Here we have an example of the usual problem with the Democratic party. On the one hand, “prohibition doesn’t work” and “medical grass should be legal,” and on the other hand “Feinstein on the forefront of the fight against this latest ‘worst possible drug'” and “horror story #517 about drug addict parents.”
But stories about addicted parents were exactly what led to the prohibition of alcohol one hundred years ago.
“Some described how parents who drink have a higher rate of defective children: “Defective Children Increased with Alcoholization of Fathers,” “Drinkers’ Children Developed More Slowly,” “Hand in Hand: Feeblemindedness and Alcoholism: More alcoholism found in parents of Feebleminded than those of Normal Children” and “Child Death Rate Higher in Drinkers’ Families.” Others depicted the psychological problems drinking caused children: “Drink the Largest Cause of Unhappy Homes in Chicago,” “Children in Misery, Parent’s Drink to Blame in at Least Three Cases Out of Every Four” and “Drink Burdens Childhood.”
http://dl.lib.brown.edu/temperance/rhetoric.html
So which one is it? Is the “war on drugs” the right thing after all?
As usual, the Democratic party comes down solidly on both sides of the discussion.
Treatment and prevention are the answers and as long as there is this ongoing War of prohibition, the criminalization of hundreds of thousands of souls, to be locked away, it will cost this nation so much more than the billions it will cost it to treat and prevent this horrid disease.
46 K+ dollars per inmate per year X 2.2 million incarcerated in Federal, state and local institutions
compared to this
approximately 12 K+ per person per year treatment x roughly 1.1 million arrested for drugs in the US
Treatment and prevention are the keys to success in this so called War on Drugs.
While there’s been less experience treating amphetamine addiction with Ibogaine than there has for opiate adduction, the animal studies show promise.
Ibogaine itself is a schedule 1 controlled substance, however ckinical trials were finally authorised in January, in Tommy thompson’s last act in office as Secretary of HHS. (I can’t definatively say this resulted from my prodding Thompson about its potential going back to 1993, but i did introduce him to the literature.)
see http://ibogaine.org