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CRYSTAL METH ADDICTION: MONTANA'S VIOLENT AD CAMPAIGN
DISTURBING METH WARNING ADS IN MONTANA
Meth turnoff
Posted: Friday, June 29, 2007 4:59 AM by Allison Linn
Categories: Health careThe image of a teenage boy beating up his own mother so he can steal money from her purse will not quickly fade from memory. Nor will the scene in which a young woman has sex in exchange for drugs -- which her boyfriend collects -- while she says, in a voiceover: “I love my boyfriend. We’ve been together since like eighth grade. He’s my best friend. He takes care of me.”
The Montana Meth Project isn’t aiming for subtle in the third wave of a TV, radio and print campaign designed to keep teens from even trying methamphetamines. After graphically showing kids what the addictive, destructive drug can do to their bodies, the campaign has turned its attention to how meth can lead you to abuse and exploit the people you care about.
Montana Meth Project
The ads, which are garnering interest from other states including Arizona, are not for the faint-hearted -- or weak-stomached. But Jeanne Cox, executive director of the Meth Project Foundation, said the project’s creators found the in-your-face approach was the only way to get the attention of kids who are used to violent video games, horror movies and graphic music videos.
They say the ads also are getting results, having already helped spur a steep drop in teen meth use and meth-related crime in the state. Force yourself to sit through them, and it’s not hard to see why. The ads may offend some, but they’re much more likely to make you think twice about doing drugs than a shopworn slogan like “just say no.”
See the ads here.
Having lived in San Diego, one of the crystal meth capitals of the nation and often visiting Redding, California, another meth capital, I've become sensitized to the problem of this drug.
I have often read articles, especially while in San Diego about the phenomenon of hard-working, middle-class, white suburban couple doing meth every morning before they go to work. And surviving in this mode for many many years.
On the other hand, I've known individuals who have used meth for "only" five or six years and having had their brains fried so that they seem to live in another world where each hour is made up of 20 minutes and clocks revolve like whirligigs. It's not a happy sight. Still, they function at their jobs.
And then there are the regular "blow ups." By that I mean explosion in the houses in the countryside where people are doing their meth chemistry in a bathtub and something goes very wrong and there are pieces of them and their houses all over the meadows.
I believe meth addiction is one of the many responses humans must make to the speeded up life that we live. For a counter-movement to fast foods and fast drugs check out this site Slow Foods International.
![Frontline - The Meth Epidemic [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41DZRM2KS5L._SL160_.jpg)
Study suggests higher U.S. "crystal meth" use
By Will Dunham 2 hours, 6 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. users of crystal methamphetamine tend to be young, poor, white men often with an incarcerated father, according to a study suggesting that its use may be more common than previously estimated.
The findings, published on Friday in the journal Addiction, were based on interviews with 14,322 people ages 18 to 26 in 2001 and 2002. The study found that 2.8 percent of those surveyed said they used the drug, often called "crystal meth," in the past year, and 1.3 percent used it in the past month.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health.
NIDA officials said the rate seen in this study is higher than other studies have found. For example, NIDA said a 2004 survey it conducted showed use among Americans ages 19 to 28 at 1.5 percent in the previous year.
The survey results painted a portrait of these drug users.
They were heavily white rather than black or Hispanic, although Native Americans had very high usage rates, the study found. They tended to be poor, also use alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs. Male users were more likely to have had incarcerated fathers.
Crystal methamphetamine is a form of methamphetamine, an addictive synthetic stimulant. It resembles small fragments of glass and is typically smoked using glass pipes.
The study found most people who used it did so only occasionally, with just a small proportion of frequent users.
Its use was associated with violent behavior, drug selling and arrests. Particularly among women, its use also was associated with risky sexual behavior such as unprotected sex.
The drug was used more often in the Midwest, South and especially the West, and less often in Northeastern states.
"The study showed not only greater use of crystal methamphetamine, it also suggests the drug is associated with risky and antisocial behaviors, including other illicit drug use," NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow said in a statement.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
A couple of excerpts from book reviews about meth
American Meth: A History of the Methamphetamine Epidemic in America
Methamphetamine: the quintessential American drug. American housewives, heads of state, businessmen and poets alike have acquired a taste for the yellow, crystalline powder. Everyone from Hitler to President Kennedy to Elvis to Jack Kerouac indulged in one of its many forms, and its presence has been an invisible hand shaping events, preparing the ground for the strangest drug epidemic the world has ever seen. Today methamphetamine is everywhere, and there seems to be no way of stemming its growth.
It is the backbone of Ritalin and the 'club drugs" Ecstasy, Eve and Cat. According to the DEA statistics, approximately four percent of all Americans have used clandestinely manufactured methamphetamine. In the 1960s and 1970s millions of mainstream Americans used and abused prescription amphetamines; today, anyone with a stovetop, a beaker, and a little know-how can make its derivative, methamphetamine, with chemicals purchased at the hardware store and pharmacy down the street.
American Meth is the unprecedented story of a molecule in all of its incarnations, and the deep but little-known impact it has had on American life over the course of the last century. Told from the viewpoint of author Sterling Braswell, whose life has been touched by the drug, American Meth is a deeply personal drama that illuminates the epidemic we live with today.
Iced: The Crystal Meth Epidemic
In September 2006 came revelations that Reverend Ted Haggardpresident of the thirty-million-member National Association of Evangelicalshad purchased methamphetamines from a male prostitute. Most people were left scratching their heads. Methamphetamines? An estimated 1.75 million people in North America are addicted to meth. As Jerry Langton explores in Iced---his fascinating but alarming social biography of the drugmethamphetamines are a plague that threatens to become a major social problem. Meth produces a quick and powerful high that exhilarates the user with feelings of ebullience and confidence. It is frighteningly addictive, however, and estimates suggest that even first-time users have a 98 per cent addiction rate. The side effects are devastating, and include depression, anxiety, irrational and uncontrollable or even psychotic behaviour. Its much more than a medical problem. Meth is so easy to manufacture that labs are springing up all over North America. Its a law enforcement nightmare! Meth addicts will do literally anything it takes to get high: solicit, rob, steal, even kill. Iced is the first book to expose each and every facet of the epidemicfrom its historical origins to its current appearance on streets and neighbourhoods all over North America. From interviews with addicts themselves to experts in drug addictionincluding doctors, law enforcement, politicians, and health care professionals-Iced is a portrait of a seductive killer.
