Crystal methamphetamine
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The 1936 film Reefer Madness developed a cult following because of its over-the-top depiction of the evils of marijuana. Getting stoned and going to a midnight showing became a ritual for many college students.
The recognition that pot is not a direct route to an asylum for the criminally insane, as it was for one character in the film, fueled the hilarity for late-night moviegoers. The divergence between perception and reality has become an issue in recent years for other recreational drugs.
Last month four scientists from Columbia University published an analysis of previous studies on methamphetamine use that called into question some of the purported damaging effects of the drug on brain functioning. The review in Neuropsychopharmacology found that short-term effects of the drug actually improve attention, as well as visual and spatial perception, among other things.
Moreover, chronic users—the ones who would be expected to suffer most—remain largely unimpaired. The researchers found that they experience brain and cognitive changes “on a minority of measures” in brain imaging and psychological tests. “Cognitive functioning overwhelmingly falls within the normal range,” the report states, while adding that researchers’ pre-existing assumptions about meth's detrimental effects "should be reevaluated to document the actual pattern of cognitive effects caused by the drug."
While recognizing the potential for abuse, the researchers emphasize that misinterpretations of the scientific evidence can wrongly stigmatize drug abusers and lead to misguided policymaking. One study, for instance, asserted that meth abusers might be too cognitively damaged to benefit from rehabilitative treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapies. “Findings from this review argue that such concerns are unwarranted,” the researchers state.
In Thailand, efforts to stem meth use have gone as far as banning all amphetamines, a class of drug that is used medically for treatment of ADHD and other conditions. “My main goal really was to make sure that we are rigorous in the science before we are political,” says Carl Hart, a substance abuse researcher at Columbia who was the lead author on the Neuropsychopharmacology paper. “I think, with meth, we have been political.” (Neuropsychopharmacology is part of Nature Publishing Group, which also includes Scientific American.)
The article asserts that some of the misconceptions surrounding meth go beyond findings on mental functioning. Drug education campaigns often publish photographs of “meth mouth,” severe tooth decay among users because of the lack of saliva. But dry mouth is a condition common to other drugs, such as the prescription antidepressant Cymbalta and the ADHD medication Adderall.
Hart says he was impelled to do the research because of distortions of the evidence for harm from crack cocaine. During the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, pronouncements about lasting prenatal harm to children whose mothers used the drug turned out to be overblown: long-term effects on brain development and behavior were fairly small, and children were sometimes ostracized or received medical diagnoses that were mistakenly attributed to effects from the drug.
The review by Hart and colleagues elicited a firm counterpoint from National Institute on Drug Abuse director Nora Volkow, some of whose research is critiqued in the Neuropsychopharmacology paper. “Because of the far-reaching public health implications of this issue, it is essential not to forget what we do know about meth-induced neuropathology, which is plenty troubling,” she says. Volkow points out that the vascular effects of meth can lead to strokes and hemorrhages. The drug, she notes, has also been shown to produce inflammation, atrophy and structural changes in brain tissue. “Similarly worrisome is a recent report of increased incidence of Parkinson’s diseases among individuals with a past history of methamphetamine abuse [compared with] the general population,” she says, adding that meth abuse can be “neurotoxic to the human brain.”
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27 Comments
Add CommentThis commentary from Gary Stix is junk science because it fails to balance the deleterious effects of meth. For example Hydrogen Sulfide, a deadly poison, is not going to end up in medical pot shops anytime soon either, just because H2S is beneficial vasodilator in miniscule quantities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe over vociferous anti-drug people have a long history of exaggeration and lies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to damage from abuse, that is a problem also shared by plenty of "legal" drugs, like vicodin and oxycontin. A significant percentage of illegal-drug damage would be alleviated by clean, consistent, contaminant free manufacturing.
I think the biggest victims of meth were the children of very heavy users. Some of the work I was doing indirectly involved a number of heavy meth users. Friends in AA suggested that it would take 5 years for a heavy meth user to get life back in order, and at the time it seemed as good a guess as any. Hard information was even harder to come by, I spent a fair amount of time looking for info and never found any that was helpful. I suspect now that the damage may have been social and psychological(?).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough I have no experience with meth, I’d be tempted to try it unless the establishment apologizes for classifying marijuana users as sick or evil and get real. I suspect, but do not swear, some marijuana users become sick or evil because they are told so.
I wish marijuana was not classified as a recreational drug. I’ve used it since the early ‘70s because it stimulates objectivity, empathy and sex. If I use it in a recreational setting, it is to be at my best in public. The wars on drugs are attempts at spiritual genocide. It has left me without close friends.
No. Good wars on drugs are to allot things better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou smoke because some brain chemicals are missing or not being produced to help you feel social. Reality feels good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBullies have the same problem, different chemicals are missing.
The "Evil Problem" is because most bullies smoke pot for a different reason. It's easier for them to victimize people.
All things can be use for good or evil. The use is up to you.
Call it meth and you take out the stinger, because the harmful part is amphetamine. If you use this drug you are asking for great bodily harm due to the physical sensation of being able to go without sleep, all the while clenching your teeth and fracturing them. The brain perceives a hyper-awareness when in fact it is running very quickly without being able to think critically. I was given adrenalin to stop an asthma attack and I felt so good I have never forgotten the feeling it had given me, and to this day I would like it again, but know it is not necessary, so my mind overrides the desire to use it again. A methamphetamine high is stronger than an adrenalin dose. Pure crystal methamphetamine cannot be found in the drug market. If the acid used to make the drug is not properly neutralized, it will destroy your mouth and rot your teeth. This also happens to bulimics, since along with the food comes hydrochloric acid that damages the teeth. This study sounds too much like a green light for methamphetamine use, but the side effects of street drug use is consistent with the warnings given. You cannot compare marijuana with this drug. The author should spend a week in Fresno ("America's meth capital", just Google it and there it is) "chilling" with ice users, because after reading this article I got the impression that methamphetamine is not really all that bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to change our focus away from drugs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReality is beautiful, if you take the time to look around at all the good around us.
Why isn't reality good enough for some people?
Getting wasted is NOT spiritual. I'm sure you know what spiritual really is, and it's not a excuse to get high.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a selfish attempt to escape by preventing normal brain function.
War on drugs has NOT left you without close friends.
Close friends trust you and enjoy your company.
Where did your friends go and why? Are they really friends?
Think about it, you can work it out and make positive changes.
It's up to you to do good for yourself and others.
It always helps to talk with someone you respect.
@Bops - I think BaldEgalitarian may be referring to the War on Drugs putting friends of her or his in jail, and thus losing them that way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree marijuana is not remotely in the same camp as methamphetamine, or even Ritalin. Marijuana is more like coffee, not in terms of its effects of course, but in terms of its health effects. Alcohol, on the other hand, is far worse in its health effects than either coffee or marijuana.
Having experimented a little with "ice" - the purest form of methamphetamine - while in college, I can report that the "hype" warning against its use is well founded. Meth use quickly influences the user into seeking the next source for it. If researchers test meth users while giving them an endless supply, they won't see impairment, but if they test them while depriving them of their next "bump", or during the "come down" after three days without sleep, they will see very different results.
On the other hand, I agree that work on substances like Ritalin and Adderall should not be hampered. The real problem here is not so much the societal demonization of drugs, it is the heavy-handedness of Federal drug scheduling.
Marijuana should be fully legalized. Amphetamine and related drugs should be tightly regulated. The question, of course, is how to monitor and enforce such regulations without tempting another unfortunate and unnecessary Drug War.
The review by Hart et al. was rather selective and not unbiased:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2011/12/meth-really-isnt-that-bad-for-you-part.html
http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2011/11/meth-really-isnt-that-bad-for-you-or-is.html
Investigators in the field (other than NIMH head Nora Volkow) are working on rebuttals to the Neuropsychopharmacology review.
"We need to change our focus away from drugs."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSays who?
"Drugs" have been around as long as food has. Are you saying there are no beneficial drugs? Get rid of "big pharma?" Is wine a drug? Mushrooms? (Notice I did not say what kind of mushrooms.)
The part that should be stopped is the abuse, and that was my primary point.
It can be true that Marijuana should be fully legalized but addiction of meth may cause number of different health related problems. There are many people addicted to meth and they experience many health diseases. Sometimes, it is directly affect on our brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<a href="http://www.controllingaddiction.net/articles/drug-addiction/meth">Meth Addiction</a>
Most psychological tests on mind performance are quite poorly sensible ones, you need to be really bad for the test detecting a decrease in any ability. Seriously damaged brains, such as hydrocephalus brains, can sustain an apparently normal activity, when symptoms finally appear, they're just catastrophic. Metamphetamines were used during WWII to improve fighters performance. You can see a lot of films about aircraft carrier landing accidents involving pilots having made a too high use of these drugs, and a lot of cases of very hard to treat and poor prognosis "Amphetamine psychosis" appeared after. The experience of liberalization of drug use and sale was done in China in the XIXth century, the britons controlled the previously existing opium market, and the number of opium addicts reached some 6 million. It won't be wise repeating this kind of experiences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell i do not use drugs except those prescribed by a physcian as they are prescribed...i can say from most of the comments i've read if you are high on life then you must be on a really bad trip. thank goodness you don't use or abuse drugs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyep i agree although cannot medically smoke nor do use marijuana. it should be legalizied or alcohol and tobacco illegalized. meth probably is bad for most since most people appear to be idiots before they ever started using drugs. i nearly get hypertension when i hear of news reports speaking of prison overcrowding when the DEA and others report that 48% of all prison offenders are nonviolent marijuana dealers. sure throw them in there with hardened criminals an see what unfolds. heck the judiciary and law enforcement system wold collapse with non-violent cannibas users and dealers. give these guys and girls a prison education and see what you get. for the record i do not use "pot" nor any other illegal drug.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is pro-drug propaganda...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, why so many people have their lives devastated by this an other drugs? If drugs were as harmless as the author of this column indicates, rehabilitation and recovery centers would be non-existent...
It seems that this is one of those papers that will be retracted.
@davidhill222 - Have you taken ANY drugs, ever (legal or illegal)? Some drugs are not only harmless but beneficial.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain, the abuse needs to stop not the proper use.
The article isn't "pro-drugs" it's pro-research, and blames the irrational stigmatization of substances (as opposed to the rational tendency toward regulation) for hampering serious medical investigation into the possibe applications of stigmatized substances.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll drugs/medications are risky. Making such products illegal makes it far more available, notably to the kids. Prohibition is beneficial only to the gangsters and mafias. It corrupts the working of democracy. It creates an addiction to black markets. It kills the responsibility of humans. It is a total nonsense at the start. There is no serious drug problems, there is only a drug prohibition problem. Full legalization of drugs and reasonable regulation is the only solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEverything our body takes in, be it by inhalation, eating/drinking or even surface contact via skin, has an impact upon our body. The difference between food and drug is only a matter of degree. They all add chemicals to the complex chemical reaction that is the human body. Some are good and some are bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf drug addiction were to be treated as a medical problem, which it is, instead of a legal issue, our jails would empty and drug abuse would plummet. We would also generate significant gains in tax revenue.
Due to an accident early on in childhood I have cervical spinal cord compression is three locations. I was also born with cervical spinal stenosis to make matters worse. I have been on pain killers, traction, and many modifications to a normal active life since I was 10 years old. I have lived with daily pain for as long as I can remember. Even with perscribed strong pain killer (yes, I am an addict, but a legal addict), I am still coping with tolerable pain everyday. Recently I had an inflammation flare up which causes the compression to the cord to worsen and the pain threshhold goes to intolerable, (put an ice cube on the inside of your wrist just below the palm of your hand to get a since of what intolerable feels like)now imagine that pain from the neck down through shoulders and arms....during one of these episodes while on a trip I literally tried to jump out of the car to stop the pain. The pain medication cannot touch this type of pain. Now here's what all this whinning is leading up to. During my last episode, my friend was visiting. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was on chemo therapy. She had her Medical Marijuana with her and didn't hesitate to offer to share it. I refused, I could'nt imagine it would touch the pain I was in. Morphine barely relieved it. I finally gave in and took two (spittering and sputtering and coughing) doses. I inhaled once more, now more relaxed, I was able to keep it in longer. Within minutes my mind percieved the word pain in the area affected but all the intolerable suffering and agony was gone! There are no words that can express what it felt like to be in a pain free state for the first time in 58 years!! I am no longer narcotic pain medication, my liver is back to normal, my life is good. I cannot imagine not keeping cannabis as a alternative to hard narcotics!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding the longer term health effects of methamphetamine: I had a son who'd gotten addicted to methamphetamine. He'd gone to a one-year-plus rehab program and appeared to have "recovered", ...where "recovery" is a euphemism meaning, "I still crave the stuff, and probably always will, but have learned to just put up with that and NOT use again." Then he suddenly died from the cardiovascular damage that had been done by meth abuse (that was in 2007), and that is no hype. So legal or illegal, methamphetamine is highly addictive and is also otherwise damn dangerous stuff. Don't rationalize or over intellectualize yourselves into believing otherwise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAllot what things better? The 60 trillion dollars the ultrarich sucked out of the economysince 1980? the whole timedownsizing and saying they weren't pocketing humongous profits and in these lean times cut back take a wage cut so no one is laid off. People like the current speaker of the house who is a big sneaky whuss crying at the drop of a hat, and Nancy Pelosi who got a sweetheart deal from Visa for tabling the house version of the credit reform act and she made millions from the deal. the credit act passed(the senate version) no thanks to her. Why do you think these uber rich jockey for jobs that pay just under 119,000 a year. itr isn;t from a sense of duty and a desire to serve the people. Its from a desire to serve themselves-literally! theyWill NEVER win the war, but it is imminently fundable. 1 in 13 people is caught up in this massive crtiminal justice system. the courts and everything connected to it from prisons to guards, suyppliers probation/parole etc makes it the drivin g force and major player in our ecoonomy. That is why if you need info on the effects of drugs etc I go to the UK ministry of health. They can be trusted to give straight accurate and undistorted info with no agenda.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere, you can't even trust a police officer not to lie to your face. I was riding with a friend and she was pulled over. the cop told her "implied consent" gave him the direct authority to search her car. I tolde him if that is what it does he better get his boss and the DA to agree that that was what implied consent is defined as Then I can slap an injunction on the wholedamned department and sue you all for being poorly trained and too dumb to read.
"The hate-love relationship will likely continue into the indefinite future."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, not indefinite. Our understanding and perception of drugs is rapidly changing. It won't be long before most people look back on the past half-century's, and some people's (Luddites') current, attitudes to drugs like most people looked back on half a century's, and some people's (bigots'), attitude to negroes in the American Deep South half a century ago.
Methamphetamine is FDA approved. Go check their website:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm088582.pdf
It's prescribed to children, but you must be over the age of 6
"Meth’s persistent bad boy reputation means that medical marijuana dispensaries will not be expanding their offerings to include speed any time soon."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat are you talking about? Methamphetamine is a Schedule II drug in the US, meaning that a doctor can legally prescribe it. The major brand name for prescription meth is Desoxyn. Didn't you bother to read wikipedia first? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine