Addiction & Mental Health Resources

Introduction

This video investigates meth addiction in America: the impact on individuals, families and communities, and the difficulty of controlling an essential ingredient in meth—ephedrine and pseudoephedrine—sold legally in over-the-counter cold remedies. [Taken from YT description]

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Quotes

“Congress mandated [in 2006] that cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in meth, only be sold from behind the pharmacy counter. As a result, most states limited consumers to just three boxes per purchase. But now, meth cooks are using a new recipe that requires as little as one box of cold medicine. They call the recipe “shake and bake“.

“You’re mixing things that are never designed to be put together – strong acids and bases, drain cleaners, engine starters, things like that, that were never supposed to be put into the same bottle. So it’s incredibly dangerous to do. But when you’re strung out on meth, you’re willing to do a lot of crazy things.”

“It’s huge. It affects not merely the users but it’s the leading cause of property crime. It’s the leading reason why children are removed from their homes and sent into foster care. It’s very hard to go to any part of Oregon and not experience the effects of methamphetamine on ordinary people.”

“In terms of dopamine release, the mother of them all is methamphetamine. You get an increase from this base level to about 1,250 units. It produces a tremendous release of dopamine. The brain isn’t designed to produce this kind of a release. This really doesn’t occur from any normally occuring rewarding activity. That’s one of the reasons why people, when they take methamphetamine, they report having this euphoric experience that’s unlike anything they’ve ever experienced.”

“What researchers have discovered is that meth creates its rush of euphoria by altering the part of an addict’s brain that generates dopamine. They experience it as an inability to experience pleasure. Everything feels kind of gray and hopeless, and nothing feels good. And so in their mind, the only way to feel better is to take more methamphetamine. And hence you have relapse and people going back to using.”

“Methamphetamine, unlike most other hard drugs out there, is uniquely susceptible to supply side intervention because it’s not something you can grow. It’s not something you get out of poppy fields or out of coca plants. It’s something you gotta cook up in a factory, you gotta make this stuff.”

“During one 18-month period in the early 1990s, the Amezcua brothers purchased 170 tons of ephedrine from the nine factories and shipped it into the United States, where it was turned into two billion hits of meth. The meth on America’s streets was suddenly cheap, plentiful, and, most important, remarkably pure. And soon the addiction rate skyrocketed, creating the first great spike of American meth abuse.”

“When the purity of the meth on the street falls, not only do fewer first-time users become addicted, but those who are addicted find it easier to get clean. And that gives places like On Track and its director, Rita Sullivan, a chance.” NOTE: Rita Sullivan was fired following an investigation. The suit alleged that Jeremy Braun intimidated and coerced his patient to have sex with him during a drug counselling session and that Rita Sullivan, as OnTrack’s founder and director, knew about this sexual abuse and prior incidents of sexual abuse of OnTrack clients by Jeremy Braun.

Methamphetamine Use Disorder

• Amphetamine vs. Methamphetamine
• Bupropion and Naltrexone in Methamphetamine Use Disorder
• Debunking Crystal Meth Myths
• Methamphetamine Abuse: A Perfect Storm of Complications
• Methamphetamine Psychosis Diagnosis & How To Treat It
• Methamphetamine Use Disorder: The Next Addiction Crisis
• Shooting Meth vs. Smoking Meth: The Dangerous Differences
• Stimulant Use Disorder [PDF]
• Stimulant Use Disorder DSM-5 Diagnosis
• The Dangers of Crystal Methamphetamine
• The Reward Circuit: How the Brain Responds to Methamphetamine