Health
Related: About this forumMeth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It's Everywhere.
Source: New York Times
By FRANCES ROBLES FEB. 13, 2018
PORTLAND, Ore. They huddled against the biting wind, pacing from one corner to another hoping to score heroin or pills. But a different drug was far more likely to be on offer outside the train station downtown, where homeless drug users live in tents pitched on the sidewalk.
Everybody has meth around here everybody, said Sean, a 27-year-old heroin user who hangs out downtown and gave only his first name. Its the easiest to find.
Beside him stood Eric, a former competitive dancer whose face was marked by dark red sores suggestive of heavy drug use. He said he, too, preferred heroin, but would probably settle for what is commonly called ice. It was cheap. And, better yet, it was on hand.
The scourge of crystal meth, with its exploding labs and ruinous effect on teeth and skin, has been all but forgotten amid national concern over the opioid crisis. But 12 years after Congress took aggressive action to curtail it, meth has returned with a vengeance. Here in Oregon, meth-related deaths vastly outnumber those from heroin. At the United States border, agents are seizing 10 to 20 times the amounts they did a decade ago. Methamphetamine, experts say, has never been purer, cheaper or more lethal.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/us/meth-crystal-drug.html
GWC58
(2,678 posts)when in my late teen and is a substance I have no need, or desire, to ever try again. I feel for those that are hopelessly hooked on what, essentially, is poison.🤢🤮
askyagerz
(776 posts)Just like the article says. It's what we could get in southern Illinois. Late 90s it was sulphur based and came from out west. Usually brought by truckers or bike gangs. Then we learned to cook it ourselves with anhydrous and things got really bad. You used to be able to walk out in a field and get all the anhydrous you wanted. Not to mention farmers were even cooking to make extra money. It was so bad at one point you could drive around my town and see lights on at 20 houses at 3 in the morning in a town of 1600 people. I watched as friends and family went to prison and died but the problem just kept getting worse and worse.
They finally got a handle on things by making it harder to get ingredients and things got better for awhile. I moved away but now when I go back everyone is whacked out on bath salts and now having Chinese meth sent straight to them. As long as people are miserable, hopeless and bored they will find drugs. The secret is to change their environments for the better. If you can make people feel like that their lives are actually worth something then the drug problem would solve itself
pandr32
(11,447 posts)...often the only light at the end of the increasingly narrow tunnel. Living wage jobs aren't coming back.
Socioeconomic oppression is a real thing. The Republican policies will throw more and more Middle-Class Americans into poverty and homelessness. They seem to want us desperate, poor and to be shamed any time we reach out for help for our families and ourselves. Perhaps this allows them to feel superior...like nobles, but in a country that was meant to be for "the people."
Of course, to hear Libertarians like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul define it, "the people" really was only meant to include rich, white landowners and that liberty meant that they should have no restraint. Never mind the actual history that Jefferson tried to address the issue of slavery in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, or that our Founders clearly feared that power and liberty were not compatible and sought to limit power in favor of liberty with the Bill of Rights.
The current landscape is bleak for most people. Gains and opportunities are going increasingly to a group of people who don't need or deserve it. Our public lands, our resources, federal dollars, and all programs and services meant for the people in this country are being looted.
No wonder Meth use is growing. It is the consequence of the lack of progress and opportunity. Along with increased drug and alcohol consumption comes domestic abuse and child neglect.
Bleak.
BlueTsunami2018
(3,461 posts)What a strange story. Junkies generally stick to opiates, doing meth isnt going to stop withdrawal from happening. Unless youre speedballing, youre still going to be dopesick with the added detriment of not being able to sleep some of it off. Everything in this story flies in the face of all of my drug culture experience. Meth that cheap could last you a month for $100. Its not like coke or crack that you need to keep doing, one line of old school biker meth keeps you up for three days or more. You dont really build a tolerance to it. Thats the reason it was always so expensive, to offset the fact that its not really a dependence drug. With it that cheap, its hard to make any money. And meth doesnt ruin your teeth or skin, its not eating or sleeping that wrecks your body. You dont take in any nutrients when youre speeding unless youre smart and take vitamins to offset the lack of food.
I dont doubt the author is sincere, it just sounds more like a heroin problem than a meth problem. I never really met any speed freaks who were untrustworthy slaves that would rob you blimd the second your back was turned or kill your mother for a nickel. Heroin does that shit to people.
I dont know, Ive been out of that world for a long time.
inanna
(3,547 posts)Think this is important.