The drug destroys the receptors and as a result may, over time, permanently reduce dopamine levels, sometimes leading to symptoms normally associated with Parkinson’s disease like tremors and muscle twitches. As addiction deepens, meth wreaks havoc on the brain. In advanced cases of addiction, users can become psychotic with effects that mimic schizophrenia.
Meth increases the heart rate and blood pressure and can cause irreversible damage to blood vessels in the brain, which can lead to strokes. It can also cause arrhythmia and cardiovascular collapse, possibly leading to death. The drug has been known to compromise immune function and interfere with AIDS medications.
In the first effort to calculate the national price of meth abuse, a study said the addictive stimulant imposed costs of $23.4 billion in 2005. While the authors, from the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., caution that many impacts were difficult to quantify, their study suggests that meth takes an economic toll nearly as great as heroin and possibly more.
Federal surveys suggest that the share of Americans using the drug in a given year has stabilized, at about 1 percent of the population over age 12, which is far higher than the rate for heroin but half the rate for cocaine. About 400,000 Americans are believed to be addicted to meth, but a rising number are smoking it rather than taking it orally or snorting it. Smoking brings a faster, jolting high, quicker addiction and more ill effects.
Federal statistics show that the number of clandestine meth labs discovered in the United States rose by 14 percent in 2008, to 6,783, and has continued to increase, in part because of a crackdown on meth manufacturers in Mexico and in part because of the spread of a new, easier meth-making method known as “shake and bake.”
Data on meth lab seizures suggest that there are tens of thousands of contaminated residences in the United States. Meth contamination can permeate drywall, carpets, insulation and air ducts, causing respiratory ailments and other health problems.
Though the United States has made significant headway in the fight against small meth producers with tighter restrictions on the sales of the medications used in its production, enormous labs in Mexico and Asia continue to supply American users.
The meth epidemic is not just a scourge of the American heartland. It has a powerful foothold in Europe. The number of countries in Europe reporting seizures of methamphetamine more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, to 25 from 11, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Drug experts say there is no methadone, no silver bullet, to treat methamphetamine addicts.
The Obama administration has been delaying the release of a report critical of Mexico for weeks in an apparent effort to minimize diplomatic turbulence with the Mexican government.
The report completed in mid-May 2010, obtained by The New York Times, is called the 2010 National Methamphetamine Threat Assessment by theNational Drug Intelligence Center of the Justice Department. It portraysdrug cartels as easily able to circumvent the Mexican government’s restrictions on the importing of chemicals used to manufacture meth, which has reached its highest purity and lowest price in the United States since 2005.
The report — which in previous years has been distributed to state and local police forces and posted online without fanfare or controversy — has not yet been released, partly because of the increasingly delicate politics of the United States-Mexico border and drugs.