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Main Features Chasing the high | Chasing the high |
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| Written by Dan Dyer | |
| Wednesday, 29 April 2009 | |
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Methamphetamine can be snorted, smoked, injected or “parachuted”—a slang term for wrapping the drug in a slip of paper to protect the throat lining before ingesting. The effects come on quickly, go straight to the head and make the user feel a sense of endless motivation and frenetic euphoria. Meth constricts blood vessels which can cause a tingling sensation commonly associated with bugs crawling across the skin. Users will scratch themselves obsessively and in extreme cases, cause serious harm. “I would see bits of sand on my arms and have to start scratching and itching them,” John said. “This one guy I was doing meth with had open sores all over his cheeks, and when he was really high he thought there were ingrown hairs on his face. He would use a knife to try and cut them off and opened wounds on his face, and he didn’t even care.” John was a teenager when a friend initially offered him meth—an offer he refused. “After I turned him down he was afraid and paranoid of me, and I was his best friend,” John said. “I watched him get taken control of by the drug and pretty soon, he wasn’t my friend any longer. It is that quick how it can spiral out of control.” Although John refused meth initially, he routinely used marijuana and harder drugs. At a party in 2007, he decided to buy what he thought was cocaine. An attractive girl offered to buy him the drug. When she returned with a few other users, she handed him meth. “They rolled me up a huge hit and told me to take it really slow,” John said as his eyes mashed shut and his body began to shutter. “I didn’t feel the smoke – like when you smoke a cigarette how you feel the smoke – but I saw smoke billowing in the pipe and then poof, it was like somebody just lifted me up. All of my senses were heightened and I felt like I was going in fast motion. My heart’s just pounding even talking about it.” After his first experiment, John quickly became a semi-regular user, smoking meth approximately six times a month. It wasn’t long before the negative effects of the drug became apparent. “I saw what it was doing to my body,” John said. “The skin was peeling off my tongue from smoking it so much. I started really looking at long-term users and saw the missing teeth and hair and their slim bodies.” John said the enjoyment he originally received from meth was quickly replaced by the desire to stay high and replenish his supplies of the drug. He said most users seek their next fix while they are already high. “The level of breakdown in society is just unbelievable,” John said. “The heavy users will lose everything and still want to do it. They hit rock bottom and then find another bottom and then another bottom and even then, many refuse to give it up.” After three to four months, John started to slow his meth use. One year ago, he quit altogether after moving and cutting ties with his old circle of friends. “There is a kinship with meth,” John said. “Like any drug you have your users, your dealers, your cooks and the in-between people. If you’re cooking, manufacturing and distributing you can build your own community and people will hover around you. The meth just sells itself.” Addiction to meth is driven by real, physiologic changes, said Timothy McHugh, a Meridian, Idaho family physician. “A person using meth for the first time will experience some permanent changes in brain chemistry,” McHugh said. “Eventually, the user will need to take the drug just to feel normal.” According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, meth is highly addictive because it releases large amounts of dopamine in the brain that generate intense feelings of wellbeing. Once the dopamine wears off, anxiety and depression set in. The body can’t self-correct because up to half of its dopamine-producing cells are burnt out after extended use. Meth is related to the more common drugs Ritalin and Adderall, which are used in the treatment of attention deficit disorders, but there are differences between them. “Methamphetamine is more potent and more highly addictive and can be manufactured relatively inexpensively in kitchen labs with commonly found products like bleach, iodine and cold medicines containing certain decongestants,” McHugh said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 12 million Americans have tried meth and approximately 600,000 are current users. Despite troubling statistics statewide, Mary Baker, a registered medical assistant at the University of Idaho’s Student Health Clinic, said meth is a problem that hasn’t quite reached Moscow – at least not in the medical community. Baker said meth is more common south of Moscow in Lewiston, Orofino and Kamiah. “I’m not saying it’s not out there,” she said. “We're just not seeing it as we only see students. Someone who is a heavy meth user probably couldn't be a student because to stay in school, you have to have your wits somewhat about you.” According to a 2007 Department of Health and Human Services report, illicit drug use is lower among college students (19.8 percent) than persons of the same age who are not in school (22.8 percent). Baker said she is glad that she does not encounter the problem and she doesn’t understand why people would submit themselves to the drug. “You would have to be very desperate to settle for that type of high,” she said. “It’s basically concocting poisons.” The desperation meth addicts develop is one of the reasons Rob Oates, Libertarian Party chairman and Caldwell City Council member, said meth should be legalized. “If we didn't have the criminal penalties for meth or other drugs, people who abuse meth right now might find happiness in drugs that are less devastating,” Oates said. “I believe in my heart that if you really want to do meth, it should be your right.” Oates said it is not the government’s place to wage a war on drugs. “The War on Drugs at a national and state level has been a complete and utter failure,” Oates said. “It has consumed countless tens of millions of dollars and cost untold lives and what do we have to show for it? We have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, a gigantic number of which are involved in it because of nonviolent, drug-related offenses.” Although quick to dismiss drug laws in general, Oates did take pause when considering meth. “Meth is tough for me because pretty much everybody agrees that it is a bad thing,” Oates said. “Maybe the pushers and the hardcore users are the only ones in favor of it. The libertarian’s view however is if people are misusing drugs and want to fix that issue, they should be at a treatment program – hopefully a private one – and not in jail.” Charles E. Kovis, a longtime Moscow lawyer, has had many cases involving meth. He said most people who are caught with meth are initially brought in for crimes like burglary or forgery. Kovis said meth use is currently declining as drugs like heroin and pain pills gain popularity. He also said he supports recovery programs over jail, but meth should absolutely not be legalized. “The bottom line is that if you can keep people in their communities and treat them, they will go to school and work,” Kovis said. “Isn’t that better than putting them in prison, which costs millions?” Special drug courts operate in Idaho and around the nation, prescribing treatment and supervision as an alternative to jail time. Currently, Weeks and Vietri Counseling is the only establishment that treats meth addiction in Moscow. The biggest hurdle to recovery for meth addicts is the extended period—up to six months—during which former users are separated from the drug and have difficulty feeling even the vaguest form of pleasure. To overcome this obstacle, those in recovery are encouraged to eat well, exercise and join support groups. Side effects of quitting meth include memory loss, inability to concentrate and disturbed sleep patterns. According to a guide on meth for practitioners, continual reinforcement from counselors is vital to the recovery process. “Treatment is useful,” Ronk said. “There is life after meth, but recovery is so difficult. People in the treatment process have to learn to rework their brain almost like people learn to walk again after a spinal cord accident.” |
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