Crystal Meth / Methamphetamine / Ice - Educational Video #2

Local police chief talks about the Meth problem in the land of Rocori. Producer: Duane Kuss, WOW Training. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive central nervous system stimulant that can be injected, snorted, smoked, or ingested orally. Methamphetamine users feel a short yet intense "rush" when the drug is initially administered. The immediate effects of methamphetamine include increased activity and decreased appetite. The drug has limited medical uses for the treatment of narcolepsy, attention deficit disorders, and obesity. Most amphetamines distributed to the black market are produced in clandestine laboratories. Methamphetamine laboratories are, by far, the most frequently encountered clandestine laboratories in the United States. The ease of clandestine synthesis, combined with tremendous profits, has resulted in significant availability of illicit methamphetamine. Large amounts of methamphetamine are also illicitly smuggled into the United States from Mexico. Long-term methamphetamine abuse can cause addiction, anxiety, insomnia, mood disturbances, and violent behavior. Additionally, psychotic symptoms such as paranoia, hallucinations, and delusions (such as the sensation of bugs crawling under the user's skin) can occur. The psychotic symptoms can last for months or years after methamphetamine use has ceased. Of an estimated 108 million emergency department (ED) visits in the U.S. during 2005, the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) estimates that 1,449,154 ED visits were associated with drug misuse or abuse. DAWN data indicate that methamphetamine was involved in 108,905 of the drug-related ED visits. According to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an estimated 5.77% of the U.S. population aged 12 or older used methamphetamine at least once in their lifetimes for nonmedical purposes. Further data indicate that past year methamphetamine use was higher in the West (1.6%) than in the Northeast (0.3%), Midwest (0.5%) or South (0.7%) in 2006. The rates of past year use in 2006 were similar to those in 2002 in each respective region. In 2006 there were an estimated 731,000 current users of methamphetamine, aged 12 or older, representing 0.3% of the population. Among persons aged 12 or older, there were 259,000 recent, new users of methamphetamine taken for nonmedical purposes during 2006. These estimates do not differ significantly from estimates for 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. Results of the 2007 Monitoring the Future survey indicate that 1.8% of eighth graders, 2.8% of tenth graders, and 3.0% of twelfth graders reported lifetime use of methamphetamine. In 2006, these percentages were 2.7%, 3.2%, and 4.4%, respectively. From 1996-2006, the number of admissions to treatment in which methamphetamine was the primary drug of abuse increased from 41,045 in 1996 to 149,415 in 2006. Methamphetamine admissions represented 2.5% of the total drug/alcohol admissions to treatment during 1996 and 8.3% of the treatment admissions in 2006. The average age of those admitted to treatment for methamphetamine/amphetamine during 2006 was 31 years. Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs