Let's talk about Meth.

[gregintenn]

http://www.maconcountychronicle.com/component/content/article/39-frontpage-news/3107-meth-epidemic-plagues-city-of-lafayette

I have a couple of questions, or observations about this product. I expect some of you might be able to shed some light on these issues.

First, I was reading the article above, and I do believe I own everything shown in the accompanying picture. You probably do as well. Let's say the local Sherrif gets mad at you for one reason or another. What's to keep him from finding this "paraphanalia" in your home, or in your bag leaving Wal Mart, and arresting you on drug charges? I know that sounds like a tin foil hat proposition, but why couldn't it happen?

Second, I keep reading all these stories about the growing meth problem in our area. I thought having us sign for sinus medicine was supposed to end the problem. What happened with that?

Third, what is a good long term solution for this problem?

I'd appreciate your opinions on this issue.

[Guest Sooner]

In my opinion, one would have to have most or all if the ingredients and equipment necessary for the production of methamphetamine before an arrest could be made. That's not to say that you wouldn't be watched. As for solutions to this terrible problem, I have no idea. It would appear to be rather intractable.

[NRA]

http://www.tngunowne.../page__hl__meth

man are you about to open up a can of worms.

nevermind I see you were already involved with that thread.

Edited June 27, 2012 by NRA

[Guest Lester Weevils]

The cure is worse than the disease.

[DaveTN]

I'd appreciate your opinions on this issue.

Looking at it as a former cop, my feeling is that Meth is a huge problem. It is so rampant that if a cop wants to bust drug makers and dealers he won’t have to worry about busting people with the contents to make it; identify them for a later bust.

At 3am walking around behind a church meeting up with someone else, carrying the supplies for meth, you either have a cooker or someone selling the ingredients. It might be a case you could win in court; but not the kind of case I would want. I would tell him I’ve identified him as being involved in drugs and that I’m going to eventually bust him; then I would let him go. He has had his warning. Later when he’s set-up for a buy/sale from a UC; he busted.

Long term solution? Jobs. Our economy is collapsing and this problem is only going to get worse. We are going to need more cops, but eventually there won’t be money to pay them.

Family values & morals. Too many parents don’t know what their kids are doing, don’t care, or don’t handle it properly when they are made aware. It’s tough to help those kids.

Short term? Build more prisons and keep them in prison longer. But again, it will become hard to find money for that.

[gregintenn]

Looking at it as a former cop, my feeling is that Meth is a huge problem. It is so rampant that if a cop wants to bust drug makers and dealers he won’t have to worry about busting people with the contents to make it; identify them for a later bust.

At 3am walking around behind a church meeting up with someone else, carrying the supplies for meth, you either have a cooker or someone selling the ingredients. It might be a case you could win in court; but not the kind of case I would want. I would tell him I’ve identified him as being involved in drugs and that I’m going to eventually bust him; then I would let him go. He has had his warning. Later when he’s set-up for a buy/sale from a UC; he busted.

Long term solution? Jobs. Our economy is collapsing and this problem is only going to get worse. We are going to need more cops, but eventually there won’t be money to pay them.

Family values & morals. Too many parents don’t know what their kids are doing, don’t care, or don’t handle it properly when they are made aware. It’s tough to help those kids.

Short term? Build more prisons and keep them in prison longer. But again, it will become hard to find money for that.

Very interesting. Thanks. I never looked at it from an LEO's point of view.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I will edit and post a personal experience in dealing with a relative that is a meth.

Dolomite

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Dunno what kind of "trend" over the last decade. Epidemiologically in the past it would wax and wane in popularity almost looking like a cycle but sometimes trends can give appearance of a cycle over a short term when it isn't really. For some decades it looked like every few years a new generation of drug users would arise that did not "remember" how bad the stuff was from last time, and meth would get popular again for a year or two, then people would re-learn again how much it sucks, and meth would get abandoned again for a few years.

In addition to Rx amphetamines, there was a lot of crystal meth in the late 1960's. Then it regained popularity in the late 1970's and died out again. When powder cocaine kept getting bigger into the early 1980's, and then they started freebasing the cocaine into crack and it looked like crack might destroy entire cities. I read some news articles sometime in the 1980's that meth had got a toehold some places of the USA as "even better than crack" but I think it died down yet again (as did the popularity of crack). Seems for about a decade now the meth has been "holding steady or rising" which is why I wonder if it really is a cycle. Meth ought to have died down again by now if it is a cycle. I don't recall reading much about meth in the 1990's but perhaps there was a bump in usage in the 1990's as well and I didn't notice it in the news. Or perhaps the MMDA craze in the 1990's "substituted" for the meth, because MMDA (ecstasy) is also an amphetamine-like drug?

In previous decades, popularity of downers, narcotics, sedatives, sleeping pills, seemed to also follow cycles, with a phase lag against the uppers. For awhile it looked as though popularity of downers would begin to rise simultaneous with popularity of uppers descending, and vice versa. When I worked in substance abuse counseling in the early 1970's the history of some clients we were seeing, seemed to agree with a cyclical interpretation but maybe it was coincidence. We were seeing a lot of folk who had got real involved with uppers and psychedelics for a year or three and finally they had got so fried they couldn't stand uppers any more, so they quit taking uppers and became alcoholics or narcotics/sedatives addicts because they had got so fried on the uppers they were taking the downers as a "psychological refuge".

I don't recall stories about pitiful fried vagrants cooking poison drugs out of hardware store chemicals except the last 10 years or so, but maybe wasn't paying attention and it was happening earlier. I was under the impression that in earlier times the meth primarily came from underground labs making big batches of relatively pure product. Have read recent news stories saying that more and more pure meth comes from mehico labs nowadays, dunno. Just sayin, among po rural folks that have been taking meth for awhile, from previous cycles I'd have expected to see them quit the meth and become ordinary burned-out alcoholics.

[Sam1]

I think we should have enforcement about like Germany. You can do that kind of junk if you want and kill yourself off, but if you bother anyone else in the process or do something stupid the cops will beat you into the pavement until you can't move, then they'll call some buddies over to beat you some more, then they'll plop you in jail for however long they feel like it.

Society tries to resolve multiple issues with children by placing them on legalized amphetamines, (because pharmaceutical grade drugs are much better for them I guess) but we use the children as an excuse to restrict our freedom when it comes to someone making similar garbage because it doesn't have an fda stamp on the baggie.

Don't take that the wrong way like I think we should just have no law addressing the matter because it is quite the opposite. As long as those crackheads weren't bothering anyone else cooking up that demon sperm in the night around no one else I have no problem with it. Now the second they bother someone's property, or bother someone else, or put someone else at risk then I think that is when they should be hammered to a wall, spayed and neutered, then forced to stand in some awkward yoga pose while being injected with whatever they use for lethal injections

[Oh Shoot]

Take it from a feller who used to have a Physicians Desk Reference as standard issue back in the day, today's bathtub meth is a far cry from pharmaceutical forms of methamphetamine, like Desoxyn and others I can't remember.

Also, just like some concoctions of dextroamphetimine, biphetamine, benzodrine, etc, it was put out combined with an ameliorating trank to "take the edge off" to some extent, and generally prevent all out psychosis (at least if not used more than 48 hours straight!) Anyway, like bathtub gin, this made-in-the-backseat meth is truly rough stuff, and half the damage it causes is in all the ungodly byproducts left in the stuff.

Thing is, the cheap meth is so popular precisely because it is so cheap, and can be made by about any idiot who doesn't blow himself up in the process. The other amphetamines can't be made with same crude level of tech. Matter of fact, can't think of any other major recreational drug class that can be even crudely approximated on such a cheap down and dirty level, not cannabis, opiates, other types of "speed", etc. Can freebase/make crack from cocaine fairly easily of course, but base product remains pricey.

- OS

Edited June 28, 2012 by OhShoot

[NRA]

The average meth patient's hospital stay costs $130,000 They fill up 1 of every 4 beds in the burn unit. You all know who pays the bill because these fools have no insurance.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-01-23/meth-burns-hospital/52759026/1

[UncleJak]

The first guy I went after (I used to be a bounty hunter) was all tweaked out on meth. It makes people act so odd. A quiet, shy guy turns into superman. I cannot stand "tweakers" and I wish I knew a solution, but it is such a big problem I wouldn't know where to begin. I think a lot of it needs to be citizens taking back their neighborhoods. I remember as a kid, we had neighborhoods where everyone knew each other and watched out for each other. By allowing people to live any lifestyle they choose, it puts our families at risk. I appreciate police efforts, but they are not enough. Everyone needs to get involved in this! Neighborhood watch programs do work!

[TripleDigitRide]

They haven't been able to slow the abuse of pot, crack, cocaine, or much of anything else. They won't be any more successful where meth is concerned. Even if they could, there are countless "chemists" in the process of creating the next killer high.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch using Tapatalk 2

Edited June 28, 2012 by TripleDigitRide

[Guest Grout]

humans have been trying to reach an altered state of conscience since the beginning,it won't stop until we vacate this planet.

[Links2k]

humans have been trying to reach an altered state of conscience since the beginning,it won't stop until we vacate this planet.

Good observation. Nothing new under the sun.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

humans have been trying to reach an altered state of conscience since the beginning,it won't stop until we vacate this planet.

Truth. Folks don't like the truth. Some truths are are not easy to accept, such as-- "Humans have been killing each other since the beginning." Or "Humans have been exploiting each other since the beginning". Sometimes the explanation "its always been thataway and ain't likely to change" doesn't seem such a great excuse to leave things well enough alone.

[TMF]

The average meth patient's hospital stay costs $130,000 They fill up 1 of every 4 beds in the burn unit. You all know who pays the bill because these fools have no insurance.

http://www.usatoday....ital/52759026/1

This is the problem. I would suppose that the average meth-head would not be a productive member of society if there wasn't meth in the first place. During prohibition addicts managed to find something to ruin their brains on. Hell, look at the real low lives that can't even afford meth... .they're huffing paint in the Walmart parking lot!

What I'm saying is I don't think meth is a problem for those who do meth. They'd be wastes of oxygen either way. The problem is that our society (government) has to foot the bill for these losers. There is no good way to offload these people; not in today's victim society where we have to feel bad for all the self-destructive animals to the point we feel we have to support them.

[leroy]

I live pretty close to what are the two to three largest meth producing counties in tennessee. They are Northern Anderson, Scott, and Claiborne counties. These areas are rugged, rural, and have a pretty high unemployment figure. Local law enforcement will readily admit that they simply cant control this problem; its simply too big. It apprears (...to me, at least...) that meth (...and "weed"...) have taken the pace of legal cash crops in some places; and have replaced moonshine whiskey in others. I suspect that some fracton of these "makers" would get a real job if they could find one; but they simply cant. Havin said that, there are always some idiot types who make meth to both take themselves and sell. The great thing about that is that it tends to be "self limiting". If ya dont kill yourself makin the meth; you will kill yourself takin it. I see that as a good thing, as long as the "maker and taker" aint you or your family member. I grew up in a family that wuz full of alcoholics. They were alcoholics simply because they made that choice. You simply cannot mandate that people have good sense.

The biggest fallout and problem that we see in my area is the increase in theft, robbery, and home invasion from addicts lookin for the dollars to buy meth. That is being pretty well handled by homeowners shooting the perpetrators. The meth problem is just another reason you need to be armed; and armed all the time. I have sympathy for the families and children of these meth heads and cookers who are causin this trouble. I have nothin but contempt for those doin the deed. Let them either blow themselves up or take enough of this poison to finish themselves off. Both armed citizens and LEO have adopted a "shoot when provoked" policy in my neck of the woods; and for good reason. Some of these idiots are dangerous people.

leroy

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

Living around a person who is on Crack or Meth and whatelse not.. I can tell you its scary as heck.. when you have the swat team in front of your house hiding because he is on a rampage threatening to kill you..

Its not pretty..

[Jonnin]

You have the ability to make small amounts of a number of drugs both legal and illegal in any home, period.

One ingredient for meth, IIRC, is just strike anywhere matches.

Will you get arrested for buying a bulk pack of these? No.

WIll you get arrested for buying a pallet of them? Maybe.

Same for the other stuff in there, whatever all it is .... drain cleaner, allergy meds, whatever else. If you buy a carfull of the stuff every other week, you will get busted for it. If you buy a little of it, I doubt charges would stick.

Another thing about these drugs: most of them are MESSY. A meth lab has so much residue that it takes professionals to clean one up to the point that it is safe for a normal human to even be in the area that was used without becoming explosed to the drug. THe labs are a mismatched set of crap slapped together in some room somewhere and leaks and evaporation and dust etc happen. If all the places you frequent are clean, but you have a bajillion matches and allergy pills, you are still reasonalby safe. If you have meth residue in your home, not so safe.

Point is: a few people may be arrested by mistake for having too much of something, but if they are legit, I doubt the charges can stick. However, it is in your best interest to NOT buy the most common ingredients in bulk on a regular basis without a darn good reason (such as, you give away matches as an advertisement for your fireworks business).

[Guest Victor9er]

I read Dave Mustaine's (singer/guitarist/founder of Megadeth) book a while back. This is a guy who admittly has struggled with drug addiction almost his whole life. He's also a guy that has either swallowed, snorted, or shot up just about everything under the sun. If you name a drug, he's probably done it.

Now this is no clueless rock star, he's an intelligent dude. And in his book he said the one drug that he would never touch is meth. Now, coming from him... with his history... I think that says a lot about meth!

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Those are good ideas Leroy and TMF 18B

For one thing people who gravitate to that kind of drug MAY be "more violence prone" than the average citizen, though I've seen plenty of speed freaks who are not violence prone at all. Some people take it to self-medicate depression and it works good for that "on a very short term basis" and long ago was not-uncommonly prescribed for short-term "minor" depression, though I doubt if that was a wise thing to do and the practice didn't last long. When I was a student in atlanta, knew a nice bright gal who was a legal secretary, as nice a person you would ever want to meet, strung out bad on the amphetamines. She couldn't get up and go to work without popping a few Rx speed pills.

Another well known characteristic is that a single dose "out of the blue" on a normal person not habituated to the stuff. Just the right dose so the fella doesn't get agitated or intoxicated-- Just the right dose applied one time really does make a person temporarily smarter. He will make a better score on a test. He will solve a problem better. Rats on speed learn mazes quicker. That will also happen the second or third time a person takes the stuff, but eventually it doesn't work thataway any more. People who take too much or take it long-term, develop a "repetitive pattern" type of behavior. A rat on speed might start running around and around the cage for hours, taking exactly the same path and making the same gestures on each repetition. A fellow doing a repetitive work task will do the task a long time, over and over, and enjoy it. Back in the old days some speed freaks would take up "repetitive" hobbies like model building, assembling electronic kits, playing bridge or other card games 20 hours at a stretch, practicing the exact same guitar riff for hours at a time. That is how it hooks certain "smart" folks because the very first few times it really does make you smarter. But if you keep it up, it doesn't work any more. Since the 1960's some scientists keep looking for a drug that does the same thing but doesn't wear off and doesn't cause intoxication or heart attacks and such.

Back in the 1960's meth tended to be favored by bikers and "ass-kicking rednecks", which actually might be overlapping groups. Just take the fella out of his pickup truck, change his clothes and hairstyle, and put him on a bike. Crusty fellas who wouldn't consider ever smoking pot or taking acid, didn't mind at all washing down a handful of speed with a fifth of whiskey then go out looking for somebody to beat up. A fun time in the old town. I don't know any speed freaks nowadays and do not know if they happen to be the same kind of folks today as back then. Certain musicians liked it too, and for instance the "glory days" of Eric Clapton's band Cream, they were taking downers as well but people don't typically play half-hour jams at lightspeed fueled only by heroin.

In addition the drug mimics epinephrine, causes release of epinephrine, and piles up nor-epinephrine in the brain. Cranks up the body's natural "fight or flight" chemistry. Might not be a surprise that a fella ripped on meth might be more willing to fight. And as mentioned above, people who just naturally LIKE to fight, tend to like the feeling of the drug. So the personality and the drug can reinforce each other.

And another factor-- By and large crazy people are not unusually violence prone, they are just crazy and therefore might occasionally do something unfortunate, but not a strong probability of violence. But somebody to watch out for is a fella with acute paranoid psychosis. Those people think everybody else is plotting against them and it is natural if you think your life is in danger you would get violent to defend yourself.

Amphetamines can mimic paranoid psychosis so perfectly, you can't tell one from the other, except one of them stays crazy the rest of his life and the other one comes to his senses after a few days sleep. There are occasional paranoid breaks and extreme violence with speed freaks, and such a person is truly dangerous regardless whether it is natural or a short-term result of the speed.

The reason that doesn't "happen like clockwork all the time" is because of a speed freak's dosing style-- A speed freak will take a big dose to reach an intoxicated state and stay up a day or two, then sleep it off before doing it again. There were clinical studies in the early 1970's that would reliably put 100 percent of test subjects into paranoid psychosis with amphetamines. The studies were conducted on normal volunteers in controlled environment of psychiatric wards. Rather than give one massive intoxicating dose, they were given a very tiny dose hourly. The first subjects would enter the acute paranoid psychosis within 24 hours and just about all subjects would enter the state within 36 hours. So it is just "lucky" that speed freaks don't typically dose themselves with a couple of milligrams per hour long term or there would be lots of violent loonies wandering the streets.

[enfield]

People who want to 'do' meth (however it is that they 'do' it) should be left free to partake. It's a self-correcting problem.

[gregintenn]

People who want to 'do' meth (however it is that they 'do' it) should be left free to partake. It's a self-correcting problem.

I sort of agree with your comment, but I can say that I've seen some of what I thought were pretty good, if a bit too impressionable, young kids ruin their lives with the stuff. When I was young, it didn't take too much persuasion to get me to try or to do something. I'm not saying I would have tried this, but thank God it wasn't available to me. I have kids, and I would sure prefer it wasn't available to them either.

[enfield]

How will they develop character if they never learn to face temptation or peer pressure and say 'NO'? If we withhold everything harmful from children, aren't they just birds in cages? Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement (to coin a phrase ).