Crystal Meth Is Spreading

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-03/cheap-nasty-near-you-how-crystal-meth-is-spreading-quicktake

by pseudolus • 7 years ago

65 97 7 years ago

skilled5• 7 years ago

People say you should experience everything when you are young. I would argue that those same people need to keep their mouths shut. Drugs, especially anything related to meth is not what you want to have as an experience in life.

It's a bleak path to follow and unless a divine miracle happens to you, getting out is going to be very hard. In fact, many of my friends kept grinding it long after I had quit and changed up my life entirely.

For reference; I was addicted on a weekend-basis that sometimes turned into 3-4 day parties. This went on for 3 years at most maybe.

hguhghuff• 7 years ago

Do you feel meth was something that someone said you “should try”, or was it something you chose to do?

Do you think anything anyone had said to you might have prevented you trying it? I’d like to know the words that might stop kids even giving a try once.

skilled5• 7 years ago

It was social pressure, and I was pretty much the last person to do it in my immediate circle of friends at that time.

Down the line what helped me the most was advice from grown ups that I had a lot of respect for. It just felt different when someone was saying you have to stop and those people didn't necessarily have a way to know other than to look at you.

nicoburns• 7 years ago

I’d like to know the words that might stop kids even giving a try once.

Just be honest about the risks of different drugs, rather than making a big deal out of drugs like cannabis or mdma that are not particularly harmful (and that there's a good chance they will know are not particularly harmful because all their friends are taking them).

Kids will listen to you because they respect your opinion, not because you say particular words. So make sure that your opinion is worthy of respect, and matches up with their experiences.

empath752• 7 years ago

Here’s the thing about meth and most other recreational drugs. The fun part is immediate. The bad part is subtle and can take years to be a problem if it ever does.

If you lie to kids about what drugs are like, they’ll never believe anything you say about them.

The reality is that drugs a lot of fun and can improve your life in the short term. People wouldn’t use them if they didn’t. It’s not like you use meth and start looking for black helicopters out your window and you’re horribly dependent. You’re likely to have a great weekend listening to music with cool people and staying up all night talking and then you feel fine in the morning.

Drug dealers are not dangerous criminals and people that use drugs can be really fun to hang out with.

The thing is that gradually it gets less and less fun and most people just quit on their own. It’s only a small percentage that get hooked on any of these drugs (other than opiates) and most of them have extensive psychological and personal problems. Most people with happy childhoods and stable relationships don’t become junkies. Almost everybody I knew in the rave scene who became out of control addicts had histories of abuse and neglect from alcoholic or addict parents.

What it comes down to is this: don’t be an addict, model good behavior, love your kids, be honest with them, pay attention to them, don’t traumatize them with abuse, and it’s very unlikely they’re going to become addicts, even if they fall in with ‘the wrong crowd’.

tuesdayrain• 7 years ago

I never used meth, but I did a lot of weed and adderall at one point which decreased my quality of life by a significant extent. I think my initial outlook on drugs was shaped by everyone telling me how terrible they are, with almost no explanation why (just drugs are bad mmkay). Eventually I tried weed and found that it made me feel amazing, relaxed, and deeply inspired. At that point it felt like I was lied to and that all drugs are perfectly fine as long as you do them responsibly. What I didn't realize is that doing them responsibly is unbelievably hard and it's really just borrowing happiness from the future. I think I might have avoided them altogether if someone had told me "never do drugs because you'll love them so much that nothing else will be nearly as good in comparison. The things you previously enjoyed will become utterly boring unless you're high". I think it was mostly the adderall that caused that. I'm a month into quitting it all cold turkey and I still feel bored with everything. I'm hoping I just need to wait longer to restore my neurotransmitters because otherwise I completely ruined my life.

lstodd• 7 years ago

read up then try.

and by reading up I mean get a basic understanding of neurochemistry, history of psychoactives and etheogens, how they devovled into vile substances like crack and meth and synth cannabinoids, bow thrice to Shulgin.

and then try.

at this point there would not be any unexpected detrimental effects.

I'm not sure even how this advice differs from a plain 'teach your kids to think' /

dangban• 7 years ago

Free feel to answer any of these:

- what helped you break the addiction (but your friends didn't have)?

- demographics? (age when started, location, socio-economic class, race, etc.?)

- what % of US school-kids do you think will try Meth?

skilled5• 7 years ago

I said divine miracle in my initial reply for a reason. I experienced what is known as OBE or Out of Body Experience while laying down on the floor, high off of my senses. I never did any drugs after this apart from a smoking habit I had to break. So, to summarise, that was 3 years worth of addiction resolved in one evening. Over the years I have understood the experience more, but not something I want to share at this time as I would like to include that in my book.

mrslave• 7 years ago

I really respect your honesty. Many of us are not brave enough to share these kinds of serious life mistakes.

Additionally, this is especially important when people formerly advocated something they later realize is wrong. In these cases I believe they have an obligation to correct the record.

xkcd-sucks• 7 years ago

Eh, it's a case by case basis. I'm currently prescribed d-amp, I've put a whole bunch of scary opioids through my body for fun, and have used pretty much everything else under the sun more than a few times. I'm also pretty cognizant of "addiction logic" -- Especially when I'm doing something bad, rationalizing it, feeling worthless, and recognizing my own bullshit all simultaneously. In terms of "addictions" aka "inappropriately falling in love", this a log scale ranking of how much unhappiness they've caused from high to low:

- Internet news / information, including this website has a worse effect on my life than anything else. I can't get anything done right now, but if I were on dope I would still be doing something productive simultaneously. My internet usage can get to the point of refreshing the same 10 webpages for an hour, etc. No acutely deadly potential, but it happens literally all day.

- Video games. More so when I was younger. You can imagine.

- "Working" -- Has led to loss of friends, relationships, health, personal growth and making money!! Just like sex, this is not about all work but about inappropriate patterns of work.

- Certain types of sex and romance, e.g. the type where one doesn't want to see the person again or ever be seen with them in public. Mostly just lost sleep and self-worth, but very often.

- Stimulants -- Sleeping, relaxing, and zoning out are really nice, much nicer than being on speed all the time. But they enable the "working addiction" to a much unhealthier degree than it could get by itself. My "I must bang out a project over consecutive 100-hour days until it's complete to my standards" is the equivalent of your "parties that turned into a week", kind of. Less bad than low quality sex because it's less frequent. Changes in my work habits could make it worse, though.

- Heroin et al -- Pooping, eating, sleeping, having sex are really nice. Being on dope all the time, or even a lot of the time, isn't nearly as nice. On the other hand it has been very attractive to me in times of romantic upheaval due to the no sex drive thing, but it's more "luxuriating in depression" and sex eventually regains its old place in the desire hierarchy.

- Other drugs -- Not really on the list. Sometimes I will use them but it is always kind of a chore.

Having some experience with "addiction to hard drugs" is nice because it provides a model system for the less clear-cut types of addiction. However, there seems to be an inflection point at which the pros of a balanced life no longer outweigh the cons of an addicted life and it can be tricky to learn how to navigate around that point. Most people I know who love drugs in moderation have always been doing pretty well for themselves in a material sense, anyway.

Finally, to fill out the list, here are a few other addictions that have totally wrecked the lives of people I know, but which pose no danger to "normal people".

- Gambling

- Exercising

- "Controlling" one's own diet and physical appearence

- Feeling anger

- Going fast in cars and motorcycles

rjbwork• 7 years ago

I took amphetamines for a decade. Adderall. Just legalize, give people a clean and pure supply. Then the only side effects are due to the drug not all the issues around it like the low quality chemical ridden bullshit street quality bathtub stuff.

Mirioron2• 7 years ago

People with ADHD are expected to take those drugs for life. If that's doable then I really don't understand why it's criminalized so heavily.

rayiner• 7 years ago

Um, that extra methyl group makes a huge difference in Adderall versus meth.

DanBC• 7 years ago

I'm strongly in favour of legalising all drugs.

It's sub-optimal to compare an adderal prescription to street meth -- they're taken for entirely different reasons and they have entirely different effects.

noidea_• 7 years ago

People say you should experience everything when you are young

Literally no one says this

rnd02• 7 years ago

My experience was different, and I disagree with the statement that trying things is always bad.

I tried coke, heroin and meth once each. Coke was a huge let down, and I've had no interest in trying that again. Meth, on the other hand -was eye-opening. I knew from my experience that if I did it again, I would end up overdosing on it very quickly -so I never did.

I'm far from a health nut or religious freak. I drank like a fish for decades, did pot, did LSD. Booze was hard enough (pot and LSD both reached a point where they were no longer fun, so I no longer did them) to quit, I'm glad that was the only thing that stuck.

So yeah ...I'm glad -and lucky, that I had the experiences with the hard stuff that I had. When meth got common it held zero temptation for me, ditto for coke and heroin.

It helps that I have always been poor as dirt and knew that I wouldn't be able to have regular access to any of that, either.

hello_tyler• 7 years ago

You're also smart and disciplined, key ingredients that most drug addicts are missing. Meth is absolutely terrible, no arguments there, but what ever happened to personal liberty ? I don't need the government telling me what to do...

(that made it sound like I use meth, I do not.)

caprese• 7 years ago

People that are addicted to things replace one addiction with another. These replacements don't have to be drugs.

You don't have that attribute, from what you described, and that's all there is to it.

01100011• 7 years ago

The problem is that you don't know if you're going to find the thing you want to die with until you try it, and then it's too late. Some people really should never try street drugs. Unfortunately there's not a good way to know besides trying them.

mercer• 7 years ago

I do agree that 'experiencing everything' is bad advice.

That said, I think arguing abstinence with something as vague and broad as 'drugs' can and often does backfire in the same way it does with something as vague and broad as 'sex'.

I've known more than a few people who, having been taught to abstain from both (the former in general, the latter until marriage), ended up engaging with both in an extremely irresponsible way and with unpleasant consequences.

Learning how to responsibly engage in different kinds of 'sexual activity' makes it easier, not harder, to prevent something like unwanted pregnancy. I'd say it's the same with drugs.

That said, I can understand where you're coming from and it's also good for people to hear stern warnings at times. Even in my surroundings, where 'drugs' are pretty normalized, their status is still enough in the area of prohibition that erring on the side of not partaking might be the better approach.

tluyben22• 7 years ago

My parents told me to try what I wanted but to do it in a controlled environment and after reading or talking about it with people who already did it. That made me try things some things (mostly once because I did not like it), but never heroine or meth for instance because I read up on it and talked with addicts (who at that time lived on the streets but since have disappeared?) and they told me that it is like 1000 orgasms but after that like living hell. The latter scared me enough to never try. This is over 25 years ago and the only thing I would do again are shrooms (which are legal here).

beagle3• 7 years ago

Where is “here”?

TausAmmer• 7 years ago

I do want to try a lot of drugs, but legal system does not allow me to do it easily :/

Your addictive broken personality is harming people who just like try thing.

bsder• 7 years ago

People say you should experience everything when you are young. I would argue that those same people need to keep their mouths shut.

The biggest problem I have with those promulgating experiences with these kinds of "high"/"low" drugs is that nobody can answer: "If it is every bit as awesome as you say it is, how does that improve my life?"

I know more than few people who say: "Yeah, cocaine really is that awesome. I can't even hope to stop myself, so I simply cannot be around it."

For those with a reason (like extreme physical pain), sure. But, to my mind, for normal people, there seems to be no upside to even trying a drug with that mechanism.

Nursie• 7 years ago

Common sense needs to be applied, you need to know what you're taking, what its safety and addiction profiles are, etc etc.

I had some amazing times with MDMA, with LSD, with mushrooms, amphetamine, 2-C drugs, tryptamines and all sorts of other interesting things, wonderful experiences that created and deepened personal bonds, euphoric states I'd never have known otherwise. Yes there were one or two bad times, it's not 100% rosy.

I never got addicted, and getting 'out' was trivial, and I don't believe my experience is unique or even that unusual.

Meth, I never tried because I knew the risks. I really don't find talking about 'drugs' all that useful

dondawest8• 7 years ago

What’s weird about this article is that it fails to mention one of the primary USA cultural reasons — perhaps the primary reason — for the increased cultural popularity of this drug: the increased popularity of chemsex.

I was a pretty low-functioning meth addict for years, both overseas and in America. Disgusting cuts on my hands and feet that would never heal, lost a tooth, the whole nine yards.

What fascinated me about doing meth in the Bay Area was the police force’s reluctance to harass, question, or even stop me when I was clearly a fucking tweaked-out tweaker. Eventually I realized that I was protected by the phenomenon of chemsex: cops didn’t stop me because they thought I was gay and thus were scared I would call them out for homophobia. (And they were right, lol)

Doing meth in the Bay is so much easier than other places it’s kinda disgusting TBH. there’s a line between tolerating a drug and enabling drug use and the SFPD definitely crosses over that line into the enabling department.

tomcam• 7 years ago

Wow, I’d love to chat with you. Amazing story. Could you check my profile and reach out?

dondawest8• 7 years ago

Just did !

Johnny555• 7 years ago

I don't understand how the prevalence of "chemsex" (I'd never heard of it before and had to look it up) gives you any protection from the police.

I'd assume that the reason they didn't stop you was because you weren't the first drugged out person they'd seen today and they don't have time to stop them all (and in the Bay Area, they'd likely be back on the street in a day). Unless you were harassing or assaulting other people or committing some other illegal act, I'd be surprised if the police bothered to stop every suspected drug user.

It seems surprising that the police would be afraid to stop a gay man just because they think he's gay.

dondawest8• 7 years ago

When you’re on meth you can read minds so I’m positive I’m right in my mind reading! Lol.

In all seriousness though, I’m quite sure my appearance as a homosexual protected me from police harassment. I think to them, stopping and harassing me would have felt like “picking on the gay kid” so they just didn’t do it. (This was NOT the case in other countries and cities that are less sensitive to lgbt rights than the bay).

Also a highly relevant factor in my not getting harassed by Bay Area cops: i’m white.

It seems surprising that the police would be afraid to stop a gay man just because they think he's gay.

It’s not solely because they correctly judged me to be gay, it’s because of a confluence of cultural factors. When you see a non-homeless gay tweaker in the Bay Area, you can be almost assured that his addiction has to do with chemsex, and thus stopping him would just be an uncomfortable conversation for the police because they’re in constant hetero-bravado mode and they realllllly don’t want to stop and ask a gay dude about meth because that conversation will instantly turn to chemsex which is a conversation they REALLY REALLY REALLY DON’T WANNA HAVE, lmao

manigandham3• 7 years ago

Cops are not afraid of gay people, that's a ridiculous notion. They don't stop every drug user on the streets because they have better things to do unless you're about to hurt someone.

The time and effort spent booking and releasing isn't worth it, especially with a "tweaked-out tweaker" with "disgusting cuts on your hands and feet".

If you're free and clear now then maybe you should go for a ride-along so you can see exactly what they encounter daily and how they do their job.

dondawest8• 7 years ago

I’ve been on ride-alongs. I also didn’t say cops were afraid of gay people. I said Bay Area cops are afraid of appearing homophobic.

caymanjim4• 7 years ago

I don't buy that this is the primary reason. While there's a connection between meth and sex, I think you're extrapolating from a very specific San Francisco experience. Most people doing meth are not gay, do not live in cities, and aren't even having much sex.

dondawest8• 7 years ago

I would agree but I’ve read so many articles on the “phenemomenon of chemsex gripping the gay community nationwide” that I believe the trend goes beyond mere extrapolation from my Bay Area experience.

lanrh18364• 7 years ago

My rule is to not take anything that is addictive. Stick with lsd, ketamine, shrooms, and occasionally mdma...

Indianmale2• 7 years ago

Why stick with anything at all?

lanrh18364• 7 years ago

I dabble in small doses for the therapeutic benefits. I don’t think of them as party drugs at all. They help me think through hard problems in life.

rnd02• 7 years ago

If you're gonna take anything, that's a good rule to follow. Don't get a taste for shit you won't be able to afford down the road -I agree.

darpa_escapee2• 7 years ago

I know someone who is incontinent because of ketamine, and yet still chooses to do it. Not exactly the least addictive drug out there.

lanrh18364• 7 years ago

Maybe if you take 1g regularly but if you’re doing it a few times a month in small doses that is highly unlikely

brodo• 7 years ago

I think that’s a very good rule. All these drugs are tools for self exploration and spirituality. MDMA is great for deepening the connection with your partner. (The others are too, to a lesser extend.) I would also add DMT and 2CB to that list.

Indianmale2• 7 years ago

Can someone please suggest a movie or a documentary which talks about the dangers smd facts of drugs like these so that I can watch with my family and make them aware?

Please don't suggest "Breaking Bad" as it is a series. I am looking for something 3 hours or less.

Language might be English or Hindi or south Indian languages.

My family members do know that some powerful addictive drugs exist out there. But I am very certain that they have no idea how much powerful and how much addictive. I don't come across discussions or news articles (talk about the filter bubble) in the kind of social media friends circle and communities that my acquaintances frequently visit. (This is one of the very few cases where I am thankful that filter bubbles exist)

I am aware only because of hacker news and reddit (which others around me don't use)

I am aware that just because I don't hear about it, will not mean that things like these doesn't exist around me. It does exist and any of us can get influenced anytime.

With that context, I would like my friends and family atleast aware once of the intensity of the global risk snd problem, and it will be best to do in the form of video, movie, documentary.

So can someone suggest me please?

runn1ng• 7 years ago

Breaking Bad is not even all that accurate.

It's a fun series, but mostly just entertainment

mtreis86• 7 years ago

Have you seen Requiem For A Dream?

eartheaterrr• 7 years ago

Requiem for a Dream. Since I saw it as a teen ~15 years ago, it hasn't slipped my mind.

It's has an effective anti-drug message, probably more than any other movie or documentary I've seen. And it does this without being an "anti-drug" movie, belaboring you with facts and stats.

It's a heart breaking drama, because it goes beyond drugs. Because what the characters are really seeking isn't a quick fix, but an ability to connect with others.

heavenlyblue• 7 years ago

What you're trying to say is that you completely misunderstood the message of that movie being primarily about loneliness, rather than drugs in it's purity?

caymanjim4• 7 years ago

Any attempt to scare kids away from drugs is going to have the opposite effect. The more negative hype you feed them, the less they're going to believe it, because they're going to meet many, many functional non-addicted drug users in their lives. When they get to college and see people casually doing some drugs at the occasional party, while remaining perfectly functional at school and work, they're going to completely dismiss all the fear-mongering hype you've fed them.

Drugs can be very bad for many people, but they are not universally bad for everyone. Be honest with kids about the dangers of addiction, the poor decisions that can result when inhibitions are lowered, the health problems, and most of all, how being high is an escape mechanism and a boredom solution, when a better idea might be the find a healthy hobby. There are plenty of negative things about drugs that can be discussed without resorting to the kind of extreme fear-mongering that is certain to backfire.

And if you drink in front of your kids, have a good long think about the hypocrisy before you preach. Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the world, yet it's legal almost everywhere. Kids are not stupid. They'll see their pothead friends acting a lot better than their drunk parents, and they'll reject everything they've been told.

pdelgallego• 7 years ago

I like better those that have interviews with addcitcs/ex addicts, but YMMV.

Some Meth documentaries [1] and Fentanyl documentaries [2]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/search?q=meth&restric...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/search?q=Fentanyl&res...

least_action• 7 years ago

How about Udta punjab? I'm not sure it is exactly what you want though.

caymanjim4• 7 years ago

This article triggers a few of my pet peeves about drugs. Crystal meth is not "the purest, most addictive form" of methamphetamine. It's methamphetamine hydrochloride, which is basically the only form that you'll ever encounter. It's exactly the same as prescription pharmaceutical pills, although without the inert fillers used to make tablets. Street meth is not likely to be very pure, either. The article implies that "crystal meth" is some supermeth and is different from some nebulous non-crystal meth. It's just meth. There's no need to call it "crystal meth".

They also can't stop themselves from mentioning MDMA. The "MA" does indeed stand for "methamphetamine", but the effects are entirely different, and the safety profile is massively different. It's confusing and disingenuous to even mention MDMA in an article about methamphetamine.

trevyn2• 7 years ago

It's exactly the same as prescription pharmaceutical pills

Note that methamphetamine is rarely if ever prescribed — the (non-meth)amphetamines commonly prescribed for ADHD have different safety profiles as well. (And, of course, you’re supposed to take them orally, which makes them less recreational due to slower absorption.)

def8cefe• 7 years ago

They prescribe methamphetamine in the US as Desoxyn for ADD (albeit rarely).

black-tea• 7 years ago

I see this all the time in popular media writings on drugs. Similarly if there is some scientific result about cannabis, most of what you'll read just can't resist using words like "pot" to describe it.

One of the first things my PhD supervisor told me is that whenever he reads a news article about something he really knows about, it's almost always wrong, and not just a bit wrong, fundamentally wrong. This has been my experience too.

kalleboo• 7 years ago

This has been my experience too

This is so common that there is the related "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" about how you still accept articles on topics you don't know anything about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

RikNieu• 7 years ago

And this is why people trust the media(and unfortunately scientists) less.

Pharmakon• 7 years ago

Generally speaking in the context of meth as a street drug “crystal” meth is the purer form of meth, compared to other illicit preparations. It is called “crystal” because of the formation of large Meth HCl crystals, which only form when the concentration of meth in the solution being precipitated is high. Otherwise you get a powder of the same substance, generally at a lower purity. Crystal is still likely to be a racemic mixture of L/D-meth with various impurities, but fewer impurities than other forms made in the wild. By contrast Desoxyn (the pill you mention) is pure D-meth, which is far more potent than L-meth or a racemic mixture. You will almost never find enantiomerically pure meth outside of the context of Desoxyn, so in fact crystal meth is not, “the same as prescription pharmaceutical pills” because the legal, Rx form is markedly stronger.

In short, you’ve ignored both the issues of impurities and cutting agents in illegal meth, and the important stereochemistry.

The issue of mentioning MDMA, while it may offend your sensibilities, does make sense in terms of being in the same family as methamphetamine and amphetamine. They do have different effects, but they share a similar chemistry.

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/eu-drug-markets/201...

In addition both substituted amphetamines seem to be neurotoxic in similar ways. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3231568/

The difference in outcomes between meth and MDMA abuse may well have more to do with typical patterns of use and abuse rather than a fundamental difference in pharmacokinetics. If you’re going to feel as you put it, “triggered” by an article at least be so as a result of valid concerns based on the science.

caymanjim4• 7 years ago

You make good points. I'll back off a bit on my claim that "crystal meth" is just meth, especially because you've pointed out how in crystal form, it's more likely to be purer. And you're absolutely correct that Desoxyn is pure D-meth rather than the racemic mixture.

I think, however, that when mainstream news is discussing meth, they're generally referring to the more generic problem of meth abuse, in any form. I may have jumped the gun on dismissing crystal as "just meth", vs messier street variants, but I don't think that, as a street drug, the problem is particularly with variants (purer crystal vs perhaps less-pure powder forms). I admit I probably overstated that "meth is just meth".

Everything you say is accurate and clarifying, so thank you for that. And I regret my use of the word "trigger", considering the weight that word unfortunately carries now.

Crystal Meth Is Spreading

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