We were discussing the crystal meth problem today at work

[inanna]

My boss included.

Here in my Canadian hometown (population roughly 80,000), meth has become a huge problem over the past decade or so. I lived away from this town for twelve years. I came back to a radically different place.

Two weeks ago, a young kid was murdered a few blocks away from where I live. A meth deal gone bad.

Several meth houses have been raided by local police.

I have a relative who was seriously involved with this substance for a long time. It's destroyed her life.

On Sunday, a young woman (aged nineteen) died of an overdose, again, just a few blocks away.

Nearly every day now, one can read the local newspaper and see the effects of this scourge spreading: the arrests for meth and meth-related crimes.

We already have two methadone clinics here. Community health says we're going to need another one.

This stuff it seems gets into a community - and despite all efforts it never goes away.

So I'm saddened by this. I'm no saint: I've messed around with weed and a few other things. I'v drank myself sober on more than one occasion. But this crystal meth, it's a completely different animal...and I've seen all it's ugliness - up close and personal.

[closeupready]

1. Never understood the appeal. I suppose there are those

out there who hate their lives, and drugs seem to give them a bit of happiness for a time...?

[inanna]

3. You could not PAY me to try it.

[stevenleser]

6. Well, you COULD pay me to try it. But it would have to be high six figures at least.

Baby needs a new pair of shoes and all.

[Aerows]

22. Me either

and that also goes for cocaine. I never tried it, and never will.

[inanna]

24. Same here.

Unfortunately (for me), back in the day LSD was a "thing".

Never did anything harder than that, though.

And I know LSD is pretty hard.

[HFRN]

5. i think it appeals to blue collar laborers, who are dreading their next shift

and it promises to 'pick them up and get them through it', making it not only bearable but even fun.....at a horrible and cruel price

i do have great sympathy for those who have fallen into this trap

i think it is (partially) a side effect of lowering of labor standards - and no coincidence that it runs rampant in meat packing plants

(and no, i never have tried it)

[inanna]

8. I also have empathy....

because as I mentioned in the OP, a relative of mine got mixed up on meth (at quite a young age) and she has never been the same.

She's used the methadone in the past with some success. But recently....well.

[HFRN]

2. 'But this crystal meth, it's a completely different animal'

i wish i could get that message across to every young person

i sadly saw people.e who were in stagnation from the softer stuff, go straight to ruin with meth - it just doesn't seem to come with second chances - very cruel

[inanna]

9. Well said....

>> it just doesn't seem to come with second chances <<

I've been doing a lot of research in to crystal meth recently, now that it seems like it is all around me.

I'm a bit frightened, actually.

I remember (very early 90's) watching a 20/20 report on meth. But I never could have imagined it would affect my community to this extent.

[Warpy]

4. What people need to know is that the stuff will cause them to age at lightspeed

I tried it in the 60s, found it much too jangling a drug. Speed freaks (tweakers in those days) served as an advertisement for what a bad drug it is.

It's also a bathtub drug, created because pharmaceutical grade "uppers" were taken off the market. Cooking it turns a place into a hazmat site, even if cookers don't blow themselves up.

Like all bathtub drugs, it's worse than the drugs it replaced by a factor of about 100.

Meth is an illustration of why the war against drugs is wrong headed, wasteful of lives and resources, and doomed to failure. We're programmed to want to send our brains on vacation from time to time. If we can't get the drugs that are gentle to body systems, we'll get the bad ones, but we will get them.

[inanna]

7. I have seen those before and after photos of meth users.

They are....quite distressing.

Made sure my daughter saw them as well.

[Go Vols]

11. They are still available today

They just don't hand them out like candy anymore like they did in the '60s and '70s and early '80s..

[Warpy]

12. Yes, in very small doses, for ADHD/ADD

and they are very tightly controlled, unlike the bad old days when they were popular diet drugs that actually worked, even if they made dieters go bonkers after too many months on them.

[Go Vols]

14. I have a friend that was extremely obese

Dr. gave him 6 months on it last year.Fighter pilots and narcoleptics get them too.

[Brother Buzz]

21. The military was once heavely invested in amphetamine (dextroamphetamine or "Go Pills")...

not it's nasty, evil cousin, methamphetamine.

[JTFrog]

10. Neuroscientist Carl Hart: People will always use drugs, we must learn to live with this fact.

Here is an excellent TED talk on the subject of drug addiction.

- [Referencing a study] "When $20 was the alternative, the methamphetamine users almost never took the drug."

[snooper2]

13. I follow some Canadian YouTubers and from comments on one channel went to this one

The Treedicks channel...

They have been filming the exploits of Christa (Christa Meth) for a bit now...sad shit- Meth will fuck lives up

[Cleita]

15. I always had a theory that people who use drugs or alcohol do so because either they are

hurting to death or bored to death.

Some kids in small towns and rural places are victims of both. How to solve it?

I don't know how to help with the hurting. But on the boredom, I think society can work on making activities and social events more available and more affordable so that even kids from poor families can attend. I find the South Americans are better at this than North Americans.

When I lived in South America, even though I was in a mining camp in the middle of the Atacama desert of Chile cut off from anywhere else in the world except by telegraph, yet there was a lot of social activity. Foremost there was the ritual of tea every afternoon that came from English immigrants. Tea was a big social event in the day. You went to someone's house or they came to your house, or you could go to a tea house and meet friends there. You always met someone even if you were alone, much like a Parisian cafe.

Then there was the paseo on Sunday. After church on Sunday most of the population would show up in their Sunday best at the main plaza. There usually was some kind of band playing music there and people walked around talking to friends and making new friends. Children played and lovers courted. There were fiestas. Everyone was included and you could dance in the streets if you wanted. There were sports, like bowling leagues, soccer etc.. I was never into sports so I only went as a spectator. But there were also the dances. Again everyone was included. Of course there were many private parties in homes and those were a little more exclusive, by invitation, but if you didn't get invited to some, you did get invited to enough.

In other words, South Americans have figured out how not to be lonely. So even though there was drinking going on and today probably some weed and other recreational drugs involved, people knew when to stop so you didn't get all the crazy that you get from excessive drinking and drug use. There were a few but it was so rare that it really stood out.

[ghostsinthemachine]

16. Methadone has no connection to Meth....

Methadone treatments are for heroin users. There is no treatment for meth users. NONE, ZIP, NADA other than incarceration. or NA, which is complete bullshit. (they offer no alternatives other than to stop doing meth).

One thing is economics. You can go into business with twenty bucks or even a front, cut it up and sell it. And get hooked on it. Drugs are the only business out there that is this way. Every other one is regulated and costs $$$ to start. And once that is the way you make money, it is impossible to do anything else but be involved in drugs.

For the poorly educated, the fact that there are only SHITTY jobs out there too figures into this. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop" so the saying goes. Why take a shitty job when you can sit in a park and sell meth and make more money and get high all the time? And without union protections steady employment is not possible, when the grindstone is taken away they turn to meth to make money or to soothe themselves.

Now we are seeing the Ritalin (and other ADHD etc meds) generation coming up and once they lose their healthcare at 18, they are already hooked on some type of speed and the only alternative is meth. Meth they can buy on the street with five bucks. And don't need a doctors script for it.

The fact that until fairly recently you could claim a drug addiction and get a lifetime of SSI benefits also figures into usage (as does heroin use).......(I know so many people who are on SSI, and have been for a lifetime, with drug and alcohol addiction it is sickening)

Speed freaks have been around for ever and ever. Bob Dylan, Robert Hunter, Kerouac, and many other famous and successful people in the arts all had (have) speed habits. So. like everything else there are also good things that come from it's use. Not that I am promoting it, but you do have to look at it from both sides.

I've been around it, have kids that are into it and it is a terrible thing. No doubt about it, but they cannot lose the thing. But, they don't rob people, they are good people basically as are the MILLIONS on MILLIONS of people that do it, that are not ever reported on or are the Meth is bad cause Celebre' that you see or are talked about.

When I stopped doing it, I had to walk away from everyone I knew. My wife, my friends that were doing it, my family, everyone. Goodbye, see ya later. For me it was a weekend thing and a work thing where my bosses would give us meth (Bennies, Pink Hearts, Black Beauties etc) to work harder and longer and faster.

I had to quit a job in November, leaving me homeless and penniless because the person I was caring for and his girlfriend and all their friends were using again. I could not stand to be around them.

[panader0]

19. Agree with much of what you said

but "bennies" are Benzedrine, Black Beauties are amphetamine. Then there were "white crosses" which were Dexedrine.
All were speed but they were pharmaceutical and not near as bad as meth, bathtub stuff made by bikers or Mexican drug cartels.
Smoking it was the application of choice for most after their noses got sore or they didn't want to inject it.

[inanna]

23. Well....around here anyway...

a lot of the people trying to quit any highly addictive substance start using the methadone. Then they more or less become addicted to that. It's also sold on the street I believe?

A lot of people (like my relative) were addicted to several substances (not just meth) which is how I think the methadone comes into play.

ETA: I really appreciate your input in this thread.

[panader0]

17. Methadone is a synthetic opioid and used for heroin addiction.

Meth, crystal, crank, glass or whatever they call it, is the worst drug of all. There are many in the construction trade
that use it, but no one can use it for too long. You'll lose your job, your family, your teeth and often your freedom or your
life. I have seen it happen. Very ugly.

[ileus]

18. I've never been rich enough to afford drugs...

I've never figured out where folks get all this extra money to begin with.

[NutmegYankee]

20. It's also the only drug that can be eliminated if we want to do it.

The precursor chemicals ephedrine and pseudoephedrine require industrial factories, of which there are about 6 in operation. Shut down the factories, and meth goes the way of the dodo bird. There is a plant form, but the extraction is very tedious and low yielding.

All the other main drugs out there are easily made from plants, and impossible to stop.