Dying Before Our Eyes: Methamphetamine, the craze that won't go away

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer

(Editor's Note: Today, the North County Times begins a series of stories examining the deadly epidemic of methamphetamine abuse in our communities. It will spell out the costs to society and the successes and failures of attempts to curb the drug's use and to heal its victims. It will have all the statistics and numbers you can handle. Most importantly, the series will tell you about the addicts themselves ---- men and women who are dying before our eyes.) | Monday, August 6, 2007 2:10 PM PDT ∞

This 4-year-old girl was removed from her home in Vista in December after deputies arrested her parents, both meth users, for dealing drugs from the child’s bedroom window. The photo was provided with the face blacked out.
Photo Courtesy of the San Diego County Drug Endangered Children program

Nobody has to look far to find signs of a methamphetamine epidemic in San Diego County.

Retirees and young families see the evidence in their local city parks where addicts waste away. Paramedics and emergency-room doctors see the evidence in overdoses and meth-related accidents.


Special report


Employers see its effects in unreliable workers, foster-care homes see the drug's handiwork in displaced families and courts see its evidence in a backlog of criminal cases.

In the last 20 years, methamphetamine has gnawed indiscriminately at both the inner city and the heartland, infecting the affluent and devastating the impoverished. It has contributed significantly to crime rates, increased hospital costs, caused auto accidents and even exploded houses in its risky production, generally making cities more unsafe in many ways.

What it is

Methamphetamine ---- also called "speed," "crank" and "ice," among other names ---- is a central nervous system stimulant that is swallowed, smoked or injected. Users of the drug find it increases mental alertness, eliminates fatigue and reduces appetite.

The drug is derived from chemicals commonly found in decongestants such as Sudafed, Actifed and Benadryl Allergy and Cold Relief, and the ample supply of ingredients allows dealers to make it in a pure form. Studies have shown that purer drugs last longer and create greater cravings.

Making the craving even more pronounced is the depressive crash that follows the eight- to 24-hour high. To counter the crash, which is accompanied often by paranoia or fits of violence, users often turn to more meth. With a supply that is relatively cheap and plentiful, the cycle of highs and crashes often grows into addiction.

In the beginning

While methamphetamine seemed to have come from nowhere just two decades ago, the drug actually dates to the 1890s, when a Japanese chemist first synthesized it. German pilots were given meth in World War II to keep them alert, and even Adolf Hitler is said to have been given the drug to treat depression. In the 1950s, it was prescribed legally to treat conditions ranging from narcolepsy to obesity. Illicit production of the drug began in the 1960s.

Meth became a favorite of some California motorcycle gangs in the 1970s, and when one of the drug's main ingredients was controlled by the federal government, the bikers replaced it with ephedrine, which had been used as an asthma medication.

The new recipe made the drug twice as potent, and its exhilarating rush soon attracted new converts. The demand was met with a burst of amateur labs in Southern California, and in the 1980s San Diego County became known as the meth capital of North America.

"Between '83 and '87, there was so much meth in North County San Diego that you couldn't give it away," said Oceanside resident Robert Church, 39, who began using the drug as a teenager in Carlsbad. "I remember having ounces of it, and you couldn't even sell it because everybody had it."

A hollow promise

Church said the drug's stimulating effect hooked him immediately.

"I became instantly smart," he said about his first hit of meth. "I had the energy to do whatever. Things that were mundane and boring were all of a sudden exciting."

But the excitement exacted its toll. Church lost more than a decade of his life chasing the drug. Homeless for stretches and in and out of jail, he lost teeth as well as weight. He survived while people close to him, including his pregnant girlfriend, died from the drug.

While Church found treatment and pulled himself out of his addiction, more than 1 million people in the nation are believed to still use the drug.

Some can successfully hide their use ---- for a while, at least ---- but many are revealed by their own bodies.

Toxins in their blood blotch their skin with red sores, "meth mouth" leaves their teeth discolored or cracked and a nervous and paranoid restlessness leaves them jittery. Meth addicts are called tweakers because of the condition.

Meth is by no means the only local problem. Alcoholism, gambling addiction and even illegal street-racing all are responsible for their share of heartbreaking stories of ravished lives and ruined careers.

Methamphetamine, however, is in its own grim category.

Everybody pays

In the tight grip of a highly addictive drug, addicts often place their next hit of meth above their family, friends, jobs and own safety. Unable to work and unable to shake their dependency, the incessant demand for more meth sometimes is met through burglary, prostitution and robbery.

An extraordinarily high number of crimes, including an increasing number of murders, is related to meth use throughout the nation.

- Seventy-five percent of all identity thefts in San Diego and other counties throughout the state are related to meth abuse, San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has reported.

- Thirty-nine percent of all adults and 10 percent of juveniles arrested for any reason in San Diego county last year tested positive for meth.

- In all, 7,370 people in the county were arrested for possessing or selling meth in 2006, more than enough to fill all the beds at San Diego Central Jail and all other county detention facilities combined.

In addition to their predilection to crime, meth abusers have flooded treatment centers and emergency rooms.

- Meth was linked to 175 deaths in San Diego County last year and to 1,000 deaths in all since 2002.

- Meth has been linked to 134 deaths in Riverside County since June of 2005.

- Almost half of all admissions to treatment centers in San Diego County were for meth in the past two years. Last year, 5,600 admissions were for meth treatment, 300 less than the number of admissions for heroin, cocaine, marijuana and alcohol treatment combined. In 2005, about 5,200 admissions were for meth treatment and 5,800 admissions were for all other substances.

- Nationwide, 56 percent of hospitals reported cost increases because of meth-related patient care.

- Meth abusers are more likely to attempt suicide, be shot, stabbed, injured in a fight with law enforcement and be involved in domestic violence, a three-year study at a county trauma center has found.

In short, if there were no meth, our cities would be safer. You would be less likely to be burglarized or to lose your identity or car to a thief. There probably would be fewer people in prison, a shorter wait in emergency rooms and fewer children in foster care.

Signs of hope

Meth addiction is not a death sentence. Private and publicly funded treatment centers have responded to the epidemic, and many former users have beaten the drug and regained their health, their weight, their families and their lives.

The number of meth-related deaths in the county decreased from 245 in 2005 to 174 in 2006. Since the 1996 formation of the county Meth Strike Force ---- a collaboration of more than 70 local, state and federal agencies ---- San Diego County is no longer is the meth capital of the country.

In the wake of recent international cooperation and new restrictions on precursors, the purity of meth and the availablity of the drug is down, according to law enforcement officials.

In another encouraging trend, the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed a decrease in meth use between 2002 and 2005, the most recent data available from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Stats and the story

The survey showed the number of people who used meth at least once in their lifetime decreasing from 12 million in 2002 to 10 million in 2005. The number of people who said they had used it in the past year decreased from 1.5 million to about 1.3 million in the survey.

The same survey also showed that meth is far from the most-used illicit drug in the nation. While 10 million Americans reported using meth at least once in their life, the survey reported that 97.5 million had tried marijuana, 48.7 million had abused prescription drugs, 33.7 million had tried hallucinogens, 33.7 million had snorted cocaine, 22.7 million had used inhalants and 11.5 million had tried ecstasy. (The survey also found that 7.9 million had tried crack cocaine and 3.5 million had tried heroin.)

Rick Rawson, associate director of UCLA's integrated substance abuse programs, said he believes the White House figures for meth use may be low.

"The national household survey is notoriously inaccurate for hard drugs," Rawson said.

The survey is conducted by questioning households about drug use, and people are not always forthcoming when answering such queries, Rawson said.

"In meth, there's a particular problem, because the drug makes you paranoid," Rawson said about another reason why people may not answer truthfully about their drug use.

Rawson said the survey's figures on meth use could be off by a factor of four. If that were true, then 40 million Americans would have tried meth at least once, placing it just below prescription-drug abuse.

A new study also suggests meth use in young adults is higher than previously reported.

A survey published in the July issue of the journal Addiction and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, reported that 2.8 percent of adults ages 18 to 26 had used meth in the previous year. The survey was conducted in 2001 and 2002.

An earlier Monitoring the Future Survey conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported only 1.4 percent of young adults had used in the past year.

The low national figures for meth use also are not proportional to the number of people seeking treatment for it in California.

One explanation for the discrepancy is simply that more people use meth in California than in most other states, Rawson said.

Demand for treatment

According to 2004 figures from the California Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, the number of people seeking treatment for meth abuse in publicly funded centers is even greater than those seeking treatment for alcoholism.

Meth already was a problem in 1995 for California's southwest, where it accounted for about 25 percent of treatment admissions in San Diego County and 28 percent of treatment admissions in Riverside County. But heroin was a greater problem that year for those two counties, where about 38 percent of all treatment admissions were for the drug.

One year later, meth had become the drug of choice in Riverside County, where 33 percent of admissions were for the drug and 25 percent of admissions were for heroin. The meth problem continued to grow in Riverside County until it accounted for 56 percent of all treatment admissions in 2005.

Hostile takeover

Meth overtook heroin as the illegal drug of choice in San Diego County in 2001, when 33 percent of admissions were for its treatment, compared to 22 percent for heroin and 19 for alcohol. By 2005, meth accounted for 38 percent of admissions to treatment centers, compared to 20 percent for heroin and 20 percent for alcohol.

The entire state saw a swift and dramatic shift in its drug of choice after 2001, the last year centers treated more people for alcoholism than any other substance. In 2001, meth was the drug of choice in only the Central Valley and the southwest counties of San Diego, Riverside, San Bernadino and Kern. Four years later, it was the biggest problem in treatment centers in almost every county in the state.

In all, 60,000 people sought treatment for meth abuse in California in 2004, the latest figures available, compared to 145,000 nationally. Second to California was Washington state, where 9,300 people sought treatment for meth.

The law

Lawmakers also have fought the drug, with limited success, through legislation aimed at keeping chemicals used to make meth away from dealers.

In the latest effort, authorities are tracking consumers' purchases of medicines containing pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine, all used to make meth.

Under the 2006 Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act authored by U.S. Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., products containing those chemicals have been relocated behind the counter at pharmacies, and consumers are required to show identification and sign a logbook. The act was seen as a way to allow consumers to buy the medicine they need while stopping illicit labs from buying the products in bulk and using them to make meth.

Incentives

The law allows consumers to buy 9 grams a month and 3.6 grams in a single day. The bill was modeled after a similar law in Oklahoma, where meth-lab busts reportedly decreased by 80 percent after its passage.

Another bill proposed by Feinstein would grant $80 million to local law enforcement specifically for meth and $20 million to the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to reimburse local law enforcement for the removal and disposal of hazardous waste created by meth labs.

In another approach to fighting the problem, California voters in 2000 passed Proposition 36, which required treatment rather than jail time for nonviolent drug offenders. The California Society of Addiction Medicine last year recommended increasing funding for the initiative.

State Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, D-Glendale, has proposed a bill, AB 1461, that would create a pilot project for confidential screening for meth and other drugs in emergency rooms.

The producers

The bill also would change a part of the state's insurance provision that allows insurers to deny payment for treating someone under the influence of a narcotic. Because of the clause, emergency-room physicians often are reluctant to order toxicology screening, according to Krekorian's office.

Legislators also are getting tougher on meth producers.

Feinstein has proposed a bill that would increase the penalty for selling candy-flavored meth. Dealers caught with such meth would automatically face the same penalty as those caught specifically selling to anyone younger than 21, explained Feinstein's press secretary Scott Gerber.

Existing law doubles ---- and triples for repeat-offenders ---- the penalty for selling the drug to anyone younger than 21.

Minimum time

In another step, the state Assembly in May passed AB 411, proposed by Assemblymember Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, to establish a minimum 120-day jail term for anyone convicted of the sale of methamphetamine and sentenced to probation.

Jail terms sometimes do more than just keep streets safe. Some addicts say their time locked up was a wake-up call to get them off drugs. Others take the first step because of an intervention from family or friends.

Then there are those like Church, who said he quit not because of jail, intervention or the shock of losing friends, but because the drug no longer worked for him, and he one day realized he hated the people in his life.

Now clean, Church is a recovery specialist with San Diego Juvenile Drug Court and lives his life as an example that the drug with a high potential for fatality can be beaten.

"I actually got clean relatively young," Church said. "Most of my friends I grew up with are in prison or dead."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

Have a story to tell?

If methamphetamine has touched your life, the North County Times wants to hear your story. Please e-mail or call with thoughts, stories and anything you think we should know about how this drug has affected your life ---- and our community. E-mails should be sent to methstories@nctimes.com. Calls should go to reporter Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410.

Next

More Stories

Tags:

Bookmark and Share

Ads by Yahoo!

Advertisement

Pre-Registration Comments[-]Go to Top

Meth Curse Is Not An Accident wrote on Aug 5, 2007 12:13 AM:Only one member of a Mexican drug gang can devastate an entire community!!! Read about it in this article: www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/01/news/nation/13_06_494_30_07.txt

exvteacher wrote on Aug 5, 2007 2:16 AM:health classes in HS need to address this issue heavily because TONS of teens are trying meth and immediately becoming addicted. heroine addiction must also be part of a highschoolers health education. community programs within schools that bring in meth and heroine survivors to tell their stories are probably the most effective means. today's teens need to be explicitly taught not to share needles due to frequent HEP C and HIV transmission! please parents, get your schools to make the change for our kids!

Patrick wrote on Aug 5, 2007 7:18 AM:Did you know that the government pours more money and incarcerates more "marijuana users" than meth users?? Where are our county supervisors on this one?? Oh yeah, they are trying to stop the sick and elderly from smoking a joint!

Randy wrote on Aug 5, 2007 7:52 AM:Throw all the ice users, dealers and manufacturers in jail. Oh yeah, our prisons are already overcrowded! Ship them to empty prison cells in the Midwest. Oops, the California Courts already nixed that idea. How about one-way plane tickets to Venezuela?

Gee an I thought is was the Mexicans who........... wrote on Aug 5, 2007 8:03 AM:"Seventy-five percent of all identity thefts in San Diego and other counties throughout the state are related to meth abuse, San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has reported." and who...... "In addition to their predilection to crime, meth abusers have flooded treatment centers and emergency rooms. I thought it was check points that were going to make a cities safer...."In short, if there were no meth, our cities would be safer. You would be less likely to be burglarized or to lose your identity or car to a thief. There probably would be fewer people in prison, a shorter wait in emergency rooms and fewer children in foster care." Yes I knew it all the time....the hardworking illegal immigrants are the scapegoat!!!! "The survey is conducted by questioning households about drug use, and people are not always forthcoming when answering such queries, Rawson said. Fancy that!! This article is tragic but worse yet the first comment posted here was one blaming this on the Mexicans, geez people can't we as a society accept responsiblity for the damage WE have done. We need to admit our failures now that would be more helpful then blame shifting this to the Mexicans. Can we just for once leave them out of this? Oh I guess not!!

slappy wrote on Aug 5, 2007 8:51 AM:Legalize it. Bring the users out of the shadows and take the underworld out of action. In a few years all the hard core users will have had their fill and stop using or die, it would be no different than alcohol. Any body got a better Idea? We have tried the other way for decades and it just keeps getting worse.

Big Richard wrote on Aug 5, 2007 9:07 AM:Ok first off the results of these surveys are just nonsense. I am not defending the use of these drugs and I feel sorry for anyone who complicates thier lives with this stuff but... For me the government loses total credibity when they put out numbers indicated in the survey referenced in this story. Please explain this to me if you can. (The survey showed the number of people who used meth at least once in their lifetime decreasing from 12 million in 2002 to 10 million in 2005.) please tell me where did two million people go in just 3 years time? Surely they didnt all die off. How is it that the number of people using cocaine and hallucinogens are the same. This is completely inane. I wonder just how much money was spent conducting these usless inacurate polls.

Don't Turn Your Back wrote on Aug 5, 2007 9:10 AM:It seems that everyone knows someone adopting overseas these days. This epidemic has created an army of small victims right here in San Diego that need you. Don't think you can't handle it; Don't think someone else will. It doesn't take a "super parent," just an ordinary person who thinks these kids deserve a chance. You don't have to commit up front; you can start by attending free PRIDE classes offered by the county. Learn about the kids, their needs, and what it takes to give a kid a chance. My family did (twice), and it has been great. While the kids sometimes have special needs, so to do many "normal" kids. It's just about love, attention, time, and helping kids grow up to be the best they can be--just like any family.

Take Responsibility wrote on Aug 5, 2007 9:54 AM:The penalty for those that smuggle, sell or distribute, must be to keep these scum in prison for the rest of their lives. Currenting placing them in prison a few years and out is not working. For those that use, each community, parent, brother, sister, husband, wife need to be given direction and have a support system, and then be expected to intervine to force results. Drug education should start in the first grade and and all of society, needs to understand that they, individually are responsible for ending this rot on our society. Our society still plays loose with drugs in movies, jokes at the office and excepts casual use as not a big deal. It is time for each individual to take responsiblity and do what they can.

Harry wrote on Aug 5, 2007 9:56 AM:Longer jail sentences, especially for dealers is a good start. 120-days for the first time may be ok but the sentence for the second conviction should be whatever it takes to keep the person actually in jail for at least 5-years. The third would be life under the three strikes law.

Matthew wrote on Aug 5, 2007 10:15 AM:Slappy's dead on.

SmithJones wrote on Aug 5, 2007 10:57 AM:I feels sorry for the children of these parents. The little four year old girl sitting on the couch with her face properly erased is a case in point. Think of the terror, loss of parenting, loss of perhaps a toy doll because the money went to drugs. Not to mention her exposure to an alternative lifestyle. It is a sad situation.

I saw the dealing... wrote on Aug 5, 2007 11:15 AM:When I lived in Escondido there were deals being made in broad daylight, several times a day in the neighborhood I lived in. So, I moved to get away from it to an area with large country estates and affluent neighborhoods. Now I've lived in the "country" for about 6 months now, and the little Hondas with tinted windows and jacked up exhaust systems have begun slinking into this quiet, out of the way place, parking for about ten minutes, doing their deals, and speeding off. No one can get away from it; it's everywhere, and it's permeating every faction of our society. What I want to know is, who is responsible for the dealing? Where is the majority of this stuff coming from? Find the source, then you can work on eliminating it.

Concerned wrote on Aug 5, 2007 11:25 AM:A lot of the meth is now produced in Mexico and shipped north. Treatment programs, long jail sentences for dealers/smugglers and securing the border would make meth much less attractive.

To concerned wrote on Aug 5, 2007 11:54 AM:I am concerned about you. Just were do you get your information. I must have missed it but I re-read the article just where does is say "a lot of the meth is now produced in Mexico and shipped North?

What? wrote on Aug 5, 2007 12:39 PM:Jail doesn't work. Whats the threat of jail time to someone who is willing to sacrifice everything to a substance that is wrecking their life? How many of you abstain from drugs because it is illegal? Not many I would guess. How many of you would try it if it was legal? Again not many. How many drinkers quit drinking during prohibition? Same answer. How effevtive is the war on drugs? Not very. You can get drugs in every town in the country. They can't even keep it out of the prison system. I read the other NCT article "A numb plateau where there once was a high" and Terri Hagmann said "she could have used meth in prison, but turned it down" If they can't keep it out of a totally controled enviroment like a prison how are they going to keep it off the streets? Shoot there are drugs in countries where possesion is a capital crime! Drugs lead to other crime. Fine, arrest the people who do those crimes. In my experience drug users don't turn to crime until they are near rock bottom. Not all of them, some would be theives even if they didn't do drugs. If there is a dirrect corelation between drugs and crime wouldn't you get the same result if you jailed all the theives? After 40 years of the war on drugs I think it may be time for a tactical retreat. Time to try something else.

John wrote on Aug 5, 2007 1:03 PM:As a certified AOD counselor that runs a "drug diversion" group (aka PC 1000-what Al Gore's son got!), I can attest, that the most POWERFUL PERSON that determines whether an addiction continues (regardless of the drug!), is THE ADDICT THEMSELF! Social policy to "treat" drug abuse has become worse then a joke, and the addicts know it! I see a group of addicts weekly, whose only desire is to get through the 15 weeks of PC 1000, and then avoid all future contacts with law enforcement, so they can CONTINUE TO USE! An addictive substance cannot be ranked in terms of whether "one is worse, or more addictive then another". Meth is just as bad as heroin, which is just as bad as alcohol, etc. The sooner society wakes up, and tells addicts that there pathetic, self-absorbed, hedonistic existence is no longer tolerable, the sooner the "epidemics" are going to stop! ADDICTION IS A CHOICE!

Concerned wrote on Aug 5, 2007 1:11 PM:It was not in the article. Professional knowledge. Hopefully the articles by the NCT over the next few days will touch on this.

Cop wrote on Aug 5, 2007 1:44 PM:I am actively involved in law enforcement, especially drug enforcement. I have made hundreds of arrests for meth and seen more devestation than I ever care to remember when I am old and gray. The meth is being produced in Mexico because they do not have the restrictions on chemicals like we have in the U.S. You can legalize it, but that doesn't change how it affects people and they are still going to perpetrate the same crimes to support their "legal" habit. Anyone who has real first-hand experience with meth users and dealers knows that it is an extremely violent and horrible world. There is no room for worries about children, families, and innocent victims. Those things don't even begin to enter the mind of meth users and dealers. I think some people can be saved and I have seen some. I look at them like people who have survived a war and gotten home in one piece, or maybe a few. I always hold out hope that people can be saved, but the reality is, the drug is just too strong to save most people and it devastates and destroys. These are things I know from first-hand knowledge, I did not read it in a book or a newspaper. If you disagree, you need to go on a ride-along in the county and see the effects for yourself.

Jeff wrote on Aug 5, 2007 2:03 PM:From a Frontline done on meth: "According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 65 percent of all meth consumed in the United States now comes from Mexican drug cartels: 53 percent from superlabs in Mexico itself, and 12 percent from Mexican-run superlabs within the U.S. The cartels who so efficiently established super labs in the West Coast in the mid-90s are now moving operations to Mexico, where restrictions on the precursor chemical, pseudoephedrine, have, until very recently, been nonexistent. In 2004, Mexico imported 224 tons of psuedoephedrine, a figure estimated to be double the national demand for cold medicine, and quadruple the 66 tons imported in 2000. To supply their super labs, the cartels are obtaining the chemical in mass quantities, either in bulk directly from overseas suppliers, or from local pharmaceutical companies making legitimate cold pills, or via bogus pharmacy fronts." This program ran a while ago but it indicate the level of contribution from Mexican drug organizations.

Yes, legalize wrote on Aug 5, 2007 2:04 PM:Pretty simple: Legalization of controlled substances would make them more readily available (and even taxable), thus reducing the cost, and consequently taking the incentive away from the people who currently deal illegally. It seems pretty slam dunk to me. But, if our head-in-the-sand, "say no to drugs" mentality continues to prevail, at least target the dealers, not the users. Unless of course there's so much money in it for those who might do the targeting that they're not willing to do so. Hmmm...do you see a pattern here? What a joke.

Jack wrote on Aug 5, 2007 2:12 PM:To Gee: I didn't see any inference that Meth use is a "Mexican" thing. Quite clearly it is a drug of choice of young whites from teenegers to 30's (If they live that long).To the 11:45 commentor: Yes much of the Meth production is coming from Mexico because of the crackdown here. Its a business trend not a rascist social comment. Another one commented that too much money is spent on marijuana enforcment. I agree. There has never been any correlation between marijauna use and crime other than that carried on between dealers themselves. Like alcohol prohibition, gangsterism in this business would drop off dramatically if legalized. Someone is bound to make the old dead and incorrect statement that pot is a "gateway" drug that leads to more drugs. In reality the first drugs a youth tries is tobacco, wine and beer all very legal.

Legalize?? wrote on Aug 5, 2007 2:38 PM:If you think legalizing hard drugs will make things safer you are sadly mistaken. Making meth legal won't change how it affects people and won't undo the damage it does to the brain and body. So we can legalize it, and just end up with even more people ravaged and destroyed by it.

What? wrote on Aug 5, 2007 3:38 PM:I also have first hand knowledge of the damage done by meth. I am not saying it's a good thing. What I am saying is the war on drugs isn't working. Despite four decades of trying, drugs are easily availible in every city in America. I also don't buy that legalizing it will create more users. If it was legal would you try it? Personally the best reason to legalize it is to cut off the primary source of funding to the gangs. Drugs lead to other crimes? Fine arrest them for those crimes! Keeping drugs illegal won't change how it affects people and won't undo the damage it does to the brain and body.

What? wrote on Aug 5, 2007 3:56 PM:By the way I am not one of those people who think the money should be shifted from law enforcement to treatment. I think the law enforcement resources focused on drugs should be shifted to solving burglaries, car theft, identity theft, rape, child abuse/neglect/molestion and murder. When my house was burglarized the sherrif didn't even bother to come to my house. All the extra jail space might mean that people convicted for these crimes might actually serve their full sentence. Like I said befor, if there is such a dirrect corelation between drugs and other crimes the net result would be the same. While most criminals may use drugs I don't think all drug users are criminals. If you exclude drug laws that is. Finally, if something isn't working it might be a good idea to try something else.

SUZAN wrote on Aug 5, 2007 4:20 PM:I FULFILLED MY DREAM OF MOVING TO CALIFORNIA FROM THE EAST COAST. I LIVED IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY FOR 5 YEARS BEFORE I TRIED METH FOR THE FIRST TIME. I SPENT THE LAST 3 YEARS STRUGGLING W/ THE ADDICTION. THE ONLY WAY I GOT OUT WAS TO MOVE 3000 MILES BACK TO VIRGINIA. METH IS A PROBLEM HERE, BUT I DONT KNOWN ANYONE WHO USES. I LOVED CALIFORNIA W/ ALL MY HEART, BUT I LOVE ME MORE.

Powerful Pictures wrote on Aug 5, 2007 4:30 PM:I saw the "Before & After" pictures in the paper version of NCT. It showed the physical effects of meth after a few months of use. WOW! Those pictures should be shown to every high school student in America! I think meth's effect of making a person ugly would be a bigger deterent than learning stats on crime & health. Kids don't appreciate those things yet.

The Hell with legalizing it wrote on Aug 5, 2007 5:14 PM:Do not be fooled into thinking that legalizing any of these drugs will make the problems go away. Alcohol is legal, is a drug, and the problems that are attributable to it are almost insurmountable. As a person who grew up in a household of meth abusing parents, I can attest to the incredible damage that this drug brings to the family, the community, and society in general. Thank goodness we don't have people like "Slappy" setting drug policy in this country. And by the way, the County Supervisors are doing the right thing by going after these so-called "medical marijuana" clinics. They cater to young men who take advantage of an otherwise well-meaning law to score pot. The overwhelming majority of those who are scoring "medical marijuana" are not sick or dying.

JS wrote on Aug 5, 2007 5:28 PM:Why are so many people trying to find a way to get an energy lift? Whether it is caffeine or meth we are obsessed with accomplishing more and more in a single day. It's no wonder so many young people try it, the stresses of school are far stronger than when I was young. Adults? I managed a restaurant once where many of the waitpeople were young mothers with multiple low-paying jobs. I wanted to fire some but the owner, fully knowing they were addicted, none the less was happy with their "energy" level. We need to slow down and smell the roses but society wont let us.They want our money for outrageous rents, mortgages, food, fuel, education.....and they don't care how we get it.

John wrote on Aug 5, 2007 6:01 PM:Thanks for running this story. Education and peer pressure are the most effective ways to combat this problem - which is an outgrowth of a culture with a need for speed. As the hippies used to say, "Speed Kills."

What? wrote on Aug 5, 2007 8:09 PM:The funny thing about the more energy equals more productivity theory is that it is false. Anyone who has been around a tweaker or tweaked themselves knows that they never finnish anything. Lots of projects started and none finished. That's why lots of cars taken apart in the yard is a pretty good sign that tweakers live there. They start all these hotrods that will be so cool and never finish any of them.

What? wrote on Aug 5, 2007 8:23 PM:To The Hell with legalizing it. Yes alcohol is legal and is a drug and causes plenty of problems. My question is do you really think making it ilegal would in any way reduce the problems. It didn't last time they tried it. In fact I would argue it made it worse. It created all kinds of gang issues by making it very profitable and money is reason enough to kill for some. It also made drinking itself dangerous because the people making it didn't always know what they were doing and sometimes made a product that was lethal.

Prohibition makes things worse wrote on Aug 5, 2007 8:57 PM:Did no-one notice that banning ephedrine led to the increase in potency that led to the increase in addiction? Waging war "on drugs" is actually waging war on people who USE drugs. Meth is a toxic chemical, pure and simple. It is NOT however "the drug of choice" in San Diego. That honor belongs to Marijuana, and our hypocrite politicians, the majority of whom have smoked, need to get over it, and legalize it.

Slappy wrote on Aug 6, 2007 7:12 AM:By legalizing you would help stop the ravages of this drug by the following 1. the drug could be manufactered in safe and clean labs, Eliminating the use of clandestine labs,and dangerous witches brew of chemicals. A user would know what they are getting. 2. Users would not be at the mercy of dealers who hold power over peeople who need the drugs, Housewifes would not have to have sex to get it, even when they have the money to pay for it, A dealer can have anything stolen or someone hurt or killed, just by dangeling the drugs over someones head, this would end. 3. you would not have to be a criminal or get paranoid thinking the cops are watching. 4 you could take a percent of the sales and use it to educate and treat users, like Tobacco companies do, No doubt Meth is BAD NEWS but some of the negative effects are related directly to it being illeagel.

L in C wrote on Aug 7, 2007 12:34 AM:Make available the new drug for meth addiction withrawls that eliminate 90% of the withdrawl feelings and many many people would quit. But its only available to the rich. The poor and homeless have to go it the hard way. Which is why they don't quit. No one wants to live that feeling for three weeks.

YOU GO SLAPPY ! wrote on Aug 7, 2007 10:16 AM:The Drug War is a farce, and waste of tax dollars. Supply and demand, baby! As long as their is a demand for any product, somebody will find a way to supply it. Prohibition, being a fine example. The drug and it's use should not be illegal, but the outcome of it's use [i.e. drinking alcohol is legal, DUI is not]. Many illegal drugs have beneficial uses. Who benefits when they are illegal?

Scott wrote on Aug 7, 2007 10:49 AM:Personal responsibility. Doesn't seem to get talked about or taught by parents much these days.

Raj... wrote on Aug 7, 2007 5:41 PM:For Big Richard: Problem with the stats is that they are collected via different methods. Yes, it makes sense that the number of meth users (self-reported) declined by two million over a three-year period. Let's say that in SD county, there are a hundred "meth-related" deaths every year. This number is the tip of the iceberg; most bodies aren't tested for drugs like meth. A car crash victim, for example, might never be tested. The testing is only done on people who die under suspicious circumstances. We really have no idea how many meth users die each year in this county; the numbers we DO have represent results of testing only a tiny fraction of local deaths each year--the meth users we can confirm. That number - 100 - isn't extrapolated out to an estimate of the overall percentage of deaths...there's no way to do that accurately. 100 is 100. Meanwhile, the surveys about overall meth use are based on people who honestly answer questions about their history of drug use. Let's say I used meth years ago, and mention it, so I show up on that survey as someone who's tried meth. And they don't survey everyone...so one person (me) ends up representing several hundred people. That's where the "millions" of estimated meth users comes from. Then I die, under conditions that are not suspicious. No autopsy, no drug test, and even if there was, my use was so long ago that I wouldn't test positive. I'm not even counted as a "meth-related death," those numbers remain far lower than the reality. I can't bump the "meth deaths" number up at all. But I'm not around for the next annual survey on meth use, so the projected number of self-reported meth users falls. Meth is a powerful drug, and it works. However, as it gets more press, fewer young people are inclined to try it. So the meth users who are dying off (most of whom are NOT even counted as meth-related) are not being replaced by new users. Two million fewer users in three years is not hard to believe. It just means that two million fewer kids tried meth...a trend that IS reflected through different surveys. Hope this helps.

Raj again.. wrote on Aug 7, 2007 5:46 PM:Patrick wrote on Aug 5, 2007 7:18 AM: "the government pours more money and incarcerates more "marijuana users" than meth users??" Patrick, you're very confused. There is not one single person in state or federal prison for "marijuana use." Every single marijuana-related offender is there for selling, or possessing sale weight. No one...not one single person..goes to prison for merely smoking marijuana. You don't know the name of one single person to whom that's happened. You need to do better research...even the pothead websites don't make the kind of claims you're making.

Raj again again.. wrote on Aug 7, 2007 5:51 PM:L in C.. I haven't heard of any new drug that takes away meth withdrawal symptoms. But it's not really about withdrawals. It's about just feeling okay. One reason meth users fall back into using the drug is that it takes a very long time to just feel normal again after addiction. I went to a conference and heard one of the world's top meth treatment experts say that it takes SIX YEARS for a meth addict to get over his/her general disphoria (feeling crappy). Quit alcohol or coke or many other drugs, and you might wake up feeling okay, one fine morning, a few months later. Quit using meth, and you're going to feel crappy every day, for YEARS. Meth truly isn't like other drugs.

What? wrote on Aug 8, 2007 8:15 AM:L in C, what drug? Do you have a name for this substance? I am more than a little skeptical. Raj, I am not sure about Patric's claim but I have a few arguments about yours. What about the smoker who gets caught growing his own? What about the smoker who buys in bulk to reduce the risk of weekly trips to the dealer? I don't believe any of the arguments for prohibition. I have covered some of them in other posts.

Jamie wrote on Aug 8, 2007 2:20 PM:We are on our way to making smoking illegal, and you want to make smoking pot legal? Never happen.

What? wrote on Aug 8, 2007 5:02 PM:Good point Jamie. The nanny state is here. No responsibility and no freedom. Don't worry uncle sam knows whats best for you.

No One wrote on Aug 21, 2007 3:13 PM:If the US was to wipe out all the meth dealers and cartels I belive that the structure of our economy would fail as well as collapse our agreements with all our over seas buddys. Face it, it's become a dirty business in every nook and cranny of the world.

Pittsburgh wrote on Aug 24, 2007 10:31 AM:Meth has as strong of a hold on the west coast as oxycontin/heroine and crack has on the east coast. As long as we have lenient laws and liberal lawyers scummy enough to defend slimy criminals this will always be a curse on society. The only cure is education and prevention and hoping it doesn't effect your family. By the way, our society is insane for trying to outlaw tobacco and considering marijuana an illegal drug. We can't even prevent dangerous mind altering drugs but we attack more harmless personal choices. I am a non-smoker but some of the nazi non-smokers make me want to light up and blow it in their face. Land of the FREE! That means I don't need some Big Brother liberal telling me what to do because they don't like the "smell" of something. It is as ridiculous as arresting people for farting.

Mike wrote on Aug 25, 2007 11:21 AM:I could buy some of the reasoning for legalization of "some" controlled substances. Not Meth. Not ever. It is by far the most powerfully addicting substance I have ever encountered. For the skeptics, I do have my stripes. Many arrests, up to and including felonious possession with the intent to distribute. Face it, the drug war is over and the drugs won. It took me wondering why I was committing suicide slowly, through my addiction, that I realized that this was not a life, it was merely an existence. And a poor one at that. I have been clean of Meth for over 10 years now. I had allowed my life to spiral out of control for 10 years to the point that I was pushing a shopping cart around Pacific Beach with a college degree in the ad holder in the front of the cart. There is a very concise method that one's thinking becomes flawed using: "I do more meth, so I can stay up longer, so I can make more money so I can buy more meth." Preventive education is our best weapon against meth. Those that already in the grips of addiction are only going to change if THEY desire to change.

ashley wrote on Jan 22, 2008 7:32 PM:I have seen alot by growing up and having my parents go through a devorice after 18 years it was the hardest thing for me knowing my dad was addicted to meth and he said he wanted help but it was not for him self... he continued to do it and he still is in it today as we speek and its hard because he forgets he dont make alot of contact with my sister and i this is what i have seen someone that i love alot and i was always there for him and now he is never around..

Sam wrote on May 12, 2008 11:41 PM:Excess of anything is bad for health. Same is the case with the use of drugs. Whether it is legal or illegal drugs, if we take overdose of drugs then it can cause lot of harm to our body as well as our mind. The drugs should be used only when prescribed by the doctor.

Sabrina wrote on May 15, 2008 6:27 AM:I like what a lot of people have been saying. Not only does the drug effect the drug user, it also effects a lot of people related to and around them that they used to be closed to. I lost someone that I loved dearly and was so closed to as not only a friend but a family member. Not in death but in friendship. It is so hard to think about it everyday and not being able to accept the fact that I know they do meth but cant find it in myself to tell them I know. Some days I know it will make things better because I think once they know that I know they may stop. And maybe we will be back into a happy family again.

Registered Comments[-]Go to Top

Advertisement

Videos