newly popular ways to destroy lives

[chronovore]

The entirety of FRONTLINE: the meth epidemic can be viewed online. Well, not by me; I can’t get it to stream properly. But I am very interested in this horrid drug, which is apparently so easy to produce that it now means I can’t stock up on kids’ cold medicines when I come back to the USA from time to time; the stuff I want has an ingredient necessary to cooking meth. So I peeked at Wikipedia for info, in lieu of watching the show, and found out:

• Both the Axis and Allied forces distributed Methamphetamine to their troops. Hitler received shots of it.
• It was first created by a Japanese scientist in 1919
• At one point, it was socially acceptable to take it
• It is used to tread ADD/ADHD
• The Indiana state police found 1,260 labs in 2003, compared to just 6 in 1995
• Meth labs are easy to make, and potentially very mobile

I am almost positive the cabbie that drove me back to my hotel was high as a kite on this stuff. It was very late at night, but he talked a mile a minute, was constantly doing at least one other thing while driving the car, and frequently wanted to look back at me to talk while the car was moving, you know, forward. Scary stuff; I felt too relieved to reach the hotel, and forgot to get his license plate or call the cops. Completely unsafe.

The Bush Jr. administration says that pot is a gateway drug, so instead of focusing on fighting Meth use, they are focusing on fighting marijuana. I knew a lot of potheads in Santa Cruz, and none of them were interested in amphetamines like meth or cocaine; they all thought it was evil. Still, maybe I should trust the Shrub's expertise on crank...

Comments

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

The gateway propaganda is doubly dangerous; it is like drawing a line in the sand next to a cliff, and claiming that stepping over the line is like jumping over the cliff. If someone /does/ step over the line-in-the-sand, they may next try jumping off the cliff, because they assume the warning was realistically accurate and, really, just how bad can the cliff be, then?

[weezie13.livejournal.com]

Agreed. What really needs to be driven home with proper drug education is that marijuana and methamphetamine are diametrically opposed highs with completely different risks. Lumping them all together is just plain stupid especially with the propaganda-like commercials for anti-marijuana campaigns. One of the advertisements in question shows some kids smoking a joint and then one of them shoots themself in the head as a result in a "this is cool" / not-so-vaguely suicidal manner.