Methamphetamine Drug Abuse

Methamphetamine drug abuse is one of the most horrific types of addiction. Here are the facts about methamphetamine.

Methamphetamines

Meth has several nicknames, including glass, and ice because it looks like shattered ice or broken glass. It can also come in a powdered form that is either white or in the colors of green, yellow or pink, depending on what it's cut with. Meth can smell like rotten eggs.

People involved in methamphetamine drug abuse either smoke it or inject it, causing an extremely fast and intense intoxication that can last as long as fourteen hours.

Where Meth
Comes From

A large source of the U.S.'s methamphetamine drug abuse comes from home meth labs located throughout the country. The recipe for meth is readily available over the internet and includes ephedrine, a common ingredient in over-the-counter cold and allergy remedies.

The ephedrine is then treated with hydrogen chloride gas, a highly corrosive gas that can cause severe skin burns. Breathing in the fumes of hydrogen chloride gas can cause coughing, choking, inflammation of the nose, throat, and upper respiratory tract, and in severe cases, pulmonary edema and death.

No Quality Control

Those who make homemade meth tend to be uneducated and have very little understanding of chemistry. Don't expect any quality control in a homemade meth lab.

These "cooks" will dilute their product with all kinds of materials, including baking soda, lactose, Epsom salts, quinine, mannitol - which is a diuretic and laxative, procaine - which is a local anesthetic - as well as ether, insecticides, MSG, photo developer and strychnine.

Meth Cooks

According to Paul Gahlinger, M.D., Ph.D., author of Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse, meth cooks are heavy users of their own products, suffering from the ill effects of meth, including extremely violent behavior. They have been known to attack police with scissors, chain saws, and firebombs.

One meth lab investigator is reported as saying, "These folks are biohazards in and of themselves. They have open sores, chemical burns, higher incidences of HIV, TB, and hepatitis. They even sweat the by-products of these drugs."¹

Return from Methamphetamine Drug Abuse to the Home Page

¹Paul Gahlinger, M.D., Ph.D., Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to Their History, Chemistry, Use and Abuse (New York: Plume: Published by the Penguin Group, 2001, 2004), 215

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