Drug use is exist because people are trying to enhance their lives and drugs are thought to be a way to do that. People obviously feel better when they first start using drugs or they wouldn’t continue using them. Drug addiction could be eradicated for the most part if we want to live in a totalitarian society without freedoms. That’s the direction that the war on drugs put us on and creates a cure that’s worse than the problem. I think a rational approach would be to recognize that drugs do appeal to some people for a variety of reasons and try to address the reasons and provide treatment to those that are hurt by drug use. This won’t happen of course.
9
I live near a hospital, and hear ambulance sirens on and off throughout the night. Often I wonder how many of those calls are for drug overdose.
2
This problem is tied to poverty and lack of opportunity wherever it arises. it is horrible - for those who abuse meth, and for all around them. For entire communities. The users destroy themselves a few cells at a time, in what appears to be their entire body. They look shrunken and prematurely aged. I don't believe that meth ever stopped being a problem in many rural areas.
6
Teenagers awaken to the dangers of maijuana? Not a chance when Bernie Sanders or comedians tells us it's ok to smoke marijuana. They are old and out of touch. Today's marijuana is not the marijuana they grew up with.
6
@Sean Marijuana laced with other drugs is not marijuana any more that a boilermaker is beer.
11
Wow, who would have guessed that with Adderall and Ritalin prescriptions at historic highs for record rates of ADHD kids there might be more meth deaths? Methamphetamine is the base drug of these ridiculously over-prescribed medications. It is not all that different from the opioid crisis. Cheap drugs over-prescribed. Meth used to made of pseudoephedrine now its made from Adderall and Ritalin.
7
@Jim
The vast majority of people who have been prescribed Adderall or its generic equivalent use it responsibly. It has never been shown to be a gateway drug to Methamphetamine. Red states that have deaths related to opioid and methamphetamine abuse should take another look at their republican legislatures and their policies.
27
Are you a chemist? These are different compounds and not interchangeable.
9
At one point, amphetamines were commonly prescribed by physicians. How is the present situation better than it was back then?
3
@Gopal A lot of it was prescribed to women for weight loss. College kids took it from their mothers to stay up all night cramming for exams.
4
Meth can make addicts do horrible, violent things. Do those death numbers include victims of meth-induced violence or other dangerous behaviors? Helping the addicts isn't only about their well-being--although obviously that's important. It's also about protecting the community.
16
I was startled be the sentence about overdose deaths nationwide, from the “ 35 states that report it.” What states don’t report overdose deaths, and why don’t they?
27
For every meth death, how many are addicted and walking zombies? (AKA "tweekers").
From what I've seen, the suffering and psychosis are horrific.
Too much focus on death, not enough on how many users there are and what their lives are like.
16
Getting tired of hearing stories implying that somehow people are using drugs because they are homeless. If they weren't buying drugs and spending their time lying around on drugs instead of working, they could afford housing. The only positive about these people is that they provide a warning to others about what not to do.
12
@Tom
I think that's a very inaccurate portrayal of how the cycle of poverty can work. People may be homeless because they are using drugs and, once they are homeless, have a much harder time to get a job (not many businesses are willing to hire someone from the street). Regardless of whether they are homeless, addiction is addiction and exceptionally hard to beat; if it were easier, people with addictions wouldn't be choosing to continue to be addicted.
13
@Kopelman I have talked with people who have used a lot of drugs, they tell me it is not that hard to stop using, there must be real genetic differences in people concerning addictive potential.
3
There is a lot of meth use in the Portland area. Meth users are easy to spot - essentially walking zombies. But, the real tell is their teeth. Meth rots teeth and also creates a craving for sugar, which exacerbates the problem. You see meth users in the grocery store buying big bottles of soda. The front teeth rot away to stubs. I've wondered how - if someone got off of meth - they could get a job with their mouth looking so bad. Seems like dental services would be an important part of rehab for these folks.
10
@Susan, it's the over-stimulation of their nervous system; their jaw clenching & teeth grinding is what leads to the destruction of the teeth.
3
It’s a combination of a number of factors, including grinding. Google “ meth mouth” and you’ll get an explanation from the American Dental Association.
7
If they are homeless and hungry, where do they find the $$ for meth?
9
@Nycdweller
Meth is cheaper than rent
5
@Nycdweller, by committing "survival crimes" (per our city council) - stealing and fencing your property.
8
It is horrifying to hear about deaths from drug use. My best friends brother overdosed on heroin in 2013, weeks before we graduated from high school. He was such a light in our lives, and his friend ran away, leaving him to die alone instead of calling 911. It is traumatic to remember that year.
I want to say that I think it's interesting to see where a lot of these deaths are happening. It seems similar to the list of places with high teen pregnancies and other issues. I'll leave this thought as it is, maybe you will see the same pattern I'm seeing.
11
I’d like to have heard more about the increased strength of the new Mexican Meth.
Scientifically - what is different chemically; What are the different effects; etc.
9
Hardly new. Crystal meth has been around forever, smokable ice since the 1980's. Potency has increased and prices lowered, just like every other drug since the war on drugs began.
Maybe reporters, elected and law enforcement officials should watch more TV. "Breaking Bad" would be a good place to start.
Always behind and always losing, America's war on drugs. Makes our efforts in the Middle East or Southeast Asia look triumphant by comparison.
And. of course, this self inflicted disease isn't ever the users fault, they are blameless victims of evil Mexican cartels.
7
"Far more potent than earlier versions?" What I tried 20 years ago was potent enough, my goodness ..
5
@Aaron You and me both! According to DEA data, meth purity was at an all time high in the mid to late 90's. San Diego County was the meth capital of the world in 1992-95. We called it crank or crystal back then.
2
Walter White is behind this. I watched a documentary about this on AMC.
7
Well Dorothy, it appears that Oklahoma, like Kansas, is no longer the storied paradise of Broadway. Now it is home to Watchmen and drugs.
Their State government should put the highest priority on controlling all their drug problems - Trump is useless.
9
Local experience suggests meth is most popular among poor, rural whites, compared to other drugs. What percentage of the meth users were psychiatric cases before they became drug users is not known, but unless the drug itself causes decreased intelligence along with other kinds of mental impairment, anecdotal evidence suggests meth is also a drug choice of the stupid.
Locally, we often hear about meth addicts, who are also often makers or sellers of the drug as well, being arrested for crimes of abject stupidity, such as driving under the influence while on probation with drugs and guns in the vehicle and attracting the police by things like erratic driving, having broken lights, and expired license plates. Sometimes (not that recently that I know of) meth addicts would try to steal live wires so they could sell the copper, winding up electrocuted. Another local report: Several meth users crossed a barrier onto a live bombing range at the local Marine base in order to find shell casings and other ordinance that could be sold for scrap. A couple died of thirst and exposure after hours of wandering unprotected in the desert, and some were blown up.
It may someday be possible to treat addiction but you can never cure stupid. And it is stupid that teenagers have no food, no shelter, and no medical care anyplace in America. We often just throw the future on the ash heap of history, offering up all kinds of excuses for what is basically garden variety stupidity.
3
Heisenberg must be back. Or maybe Jesse's gotten back to business up in Alaska. How's he distributing?
3
Part of the solution is right there in the 2nd paragraph - “Having nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat — that’s where meth comes into play,” said the girl, 17, who asked to be identified by her nickname, Rose. “Those things aren’t a problem if you’re using.”
Why is this girl, or any other kid, homeless in the first place? Any drug is difficult to quit once one starts, but can't we work to remove the conditions that lead people to try anything to get out of their misery, even if it's only the temporary fix of booze/meth/etc.?
26
Thanks to author of this article and this comment for pointing out the succinct summary. What do we have to say for people to get it?
3
If it's not opioids, it's meth. If it's not meth, it's alcohol. If it's not alcohol, it's weed.
It's not a drug problem, it's a social, cultural, and economic problem. It's a problem that so many people don't see much reason not to throw their life away.
If you have a loving family, a job that provides adequate security, and friends and neighbors who you interact with as humans, drugs don't seem so attractive.
61
@Andy
And if you had a childhood safe from physical and sexual abuse
I know so many white collar professionals who look like they have it all (career, family, community) who are drinking and drugging to dull the pain of trauma from long ago.
And similarly, I know a number of folks who are the black sheep in the family. No one can figure out why one kid is ‘off’ when the rest from that good family are doing so well. The odds are high something bad happened to the black sheep but not the other kids.
(That’s the story in my family 3/5 of us are doing great - advanced degrees, solid marriages, great careers - and 2/5 are alcoholics. One of my alcoholic siblingS has been in recovery for 20+ years and moved from our white collar privileged experience to a blue collar job in a rural town and spends most of his free time at AA. The other is just now struggling to get sober.
I found out last year that both were sexually abused by a neighbor when we were kids (neither knew about the other - both tried to tell our parents, but in the 1970s, people didn’t believe kids). The dirty old man neighbor was paralyzed by a stroke before the rest of us were old enough to be targets.
49
If the problem of vaping is synonymous with school age; medical personnel attend any and all educational systems and talk about the problem.
If the vaping addiction has reached adults, then we all know to stop and stop now!!
Our lungs only need and want AIR. Nothing more.
Don't add anything else to it. No cigarettes, no vaping;
ONLY AIR.
If you work where the environs includes coal, steam, poisonous particles, the company must supply their employees with aids to keep the dangers out of the LUNGS.
The answer is simple; only air for lungs.
The question is why did we begin this invasion to our bodies.
These companies who sell this poison, should be stopped.
Anyone using these drugs, should listen!!!!
4
You posted for a different story.
This article is not about vaping...
1
America still clings to the Norman Rockwell image of small towns everywhere. Reality is different. Meth and alcohol have been long favorites among people in those towns to combat the despairing quality of their lives. Not much to do for kids. Not much work to find for adults. A lot of boredom. Not much hope.
9
@blgreenie -- Decades ago when I was in high school a friend spent a summer in a small midwestern town. Coming home he reported that there was nothing for teens to do except drink and have sex. Half the high school girls were pregnant. These problems have a very, very long history.
8
Knowing full well I'll get blowback for this: personal responsibility has a role - a large role - in this "crisis." It is more realistic to just admit that not everyone will be helped. People should not need incentives to take care of themselves, behave with some awareness that their actions bring consequences, either good or bad. And they definitely should not expect "others" to take care of them. "Others" have a lot to take care of already.
13
This article and many of the comments repeat a destructive mis-use of language. The word 'addiction' and all of its derivatives have become so debased that hey probably shouldn't be used, ever.
When it had a real definition, addiction referred to a 3-part phenomenon: tolerance, craving and withdrawal illness. This fit morphine use exactly, and alcohol use moderately well. It is catastrophic to try to fit stimulant [cocaine, meth] or cannabis use into that framework. Stimulants and cannabis show little evidence of producing tolerance [the amount to get high is about the same for a light / initial user as for a heavy user, although the heavy user may push the upper limits harder] . Withdrawal of neither stimulants nor cannabis causes withdrawal illness--and thus, the craving is of a different kind.
Trying to cram a shark and a tiger into the same box is NOT going to be rewarding. And I don't see how the box can be retained.
3
@Stephen
I respectfully disagree. Stimulants cearly lead to all three parts of the addiction model that you're referring to. Stimulants have well established tolerance and withdrawal in primary literature. I agree that the withdrawal presentation is different than alcohol or benzodiazepines, but I believe that distinction has little value and obfuscates the reality that withdrawal from stimulants is a real and intense fact of stimulant addiction. If you disagree, please refer to stimulant abuse/dependence criteria in the DSM-V.
4
Stephen, ahem, have you ever tried to quit drinking coffee cold turkey?! Stimulants are the real deal.
1
@Kopelman The one thing I feel qualified to say in response to yout comment is that the DSMs have been and are as political as they are scientific.
Well, I also have personal experience of cocaine users [2 of them, one twice] who used massive amounts of the drug until they became too ill to continue, necessarily stopped suddenly, and immediately started to become healthier. Is that a withdrawal syndrome?
1
One point stands out for me. "Most poor adults in the state do not qualify for Medicaid coverage that would help those with meth addiction gain access to treatment, because the state has chosen not to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act." Sad. More blood on somebody's hands because of money and some hard headed thinking. Their is plenty of money in this country.
The coming and going meth use just seems to cycle through the generations. I had a friend that died 20 years ago from meth induced heart failure. He didn't ever seem to care about treatment until it was too late but not everyone wants to be trapped in an addiction cycle.
9
Unfortunately, like so many other things in DC, nothing will get the politicos' attention until a large number of people have died and others have had their lives ruined by meth. A recent example is the haphazard and late response to the opioid crisis. Don't expect too much from the feds any time soon.
11
Meth overdose and addiction is centered on human needs, mental illness, lack of support and jobs. It is the need that drives the horse. Interdiction, at the border, UPS, USPS, FED EX, Those are just delivery services. ALL driven by the money in the demand.
We can spend billions on policing, won’t stop the violence or supply. The suppliers and their guns etc. are driven by the money.
The demand is driven by human weakness, lack of treatment, lack of support, housing.
Treat the disease demand.
Look at ways to get the money out of the game, government clinics and supply? No money the suppliers move on, with their guns and territorial “ market” battles. Read up on prohibition. Didn’t stop the use, just took the money underground, along with the guns and hits.
12
It is far easier to hassle pain patients and add all kinds of rules for opioids when in fact the real problem is these people are choosing addictive substances. Which brings us to the real problem and that is you can NOT legislate your morality on other people, it does not work. One only has to look at the use of alcohol which went abated despite what people did to control it including making it illegal. That didn't work, did it. Nor will this work. They are chasing their tails and just want to act like they are doing something when they hassle pain patients. How dare people take drugs to ease their pain! But all these people whether in physical or emotional pain are looking for something to take the pain away. You will not stop it until they stop being in pain.
32
For at least the last 30 years, people who use any illicit drug probably also drink alcohol and use other drugs. We simply can't treat drug addiction as a one-drug-category issue. Furthermore, it's well known that drugs of choice go in cycles of popularity. As people become familiarized with the downside of one drug, they move on to the next. We have well over 120 years of history of this. I am a retired addiction treatment center developer and manager. We need to treat ALL drug addiction. To do otherwise is foolish.
21
Here is an area where President Trump could do something positive that would register bipartisan acclaim. Lead the way in making treatment accessible and affordable for everyone who needs it. Provide incentives for people to become clinicians specializing in treatment of drug addiction. Give people the resources they need to transition back into society as functioning, contributing citizens. Addiction cuts across race, gender, religion, geographical location, income level, type of employment, educational level, and political preference. It's an equal opportunity destroyer. We can help people. We just need to find the will to do it.
5
Drug rehabilitation treatment is rarely successful in treating addiction to powerfully narcotics. I'm afraid harsh measures in wiping out drug dealers is needed. The demand is too great to control.
2
@Pepperman You are not correct in your assertion. About 1/3 of addicts can get clean in the first treatment. Most others will eventually get clean if treated again. A few cannot, sadly. Demand will decrease when we start treating problems at their core, not when addiction starts.
8
@Pepperman If only we could initiate some kind of war on drugs.
7
As a very wise harm reduction advocate shared, you don't control intoxication by controlling the intoxicant. Until we address underlying, systemic problems leading to addiction... poverty, mental health, despair, access to care.. we will continue to play whack-a-mole with an ever increasing list of deadly substances, to great bodily and financial cost.
94
@Chicago epi, I see what you did, and it's the same mistake so many make. Drug use is not restricted to those in poverty and dispair. As a matter of fact, there would not be a rehabilitation industry without a lot of well-to-do drug abuser.
The connection between Afghani poppy fields and global pharma is the nexus that needs more examination.
10
@Chicago epi This is partially true. Basically every addictive drug is abused as a "pain killer." But the immediate reward of a drug hit compared to say a counseling session or working a new job is pretty low, which is where controlling drugs come in. If it's expensive and difficult to get access to that drug, but easy to go to rehab or get mental health care, etc, people are more inclined to actually kick their addiction.
2
@Chicago epi
In other words, the abusers / addicts are never guilty or deserve critique, it is always the society which pushed them there, otherwise they would have been all perfect or so. Crass.
2
This article certainly exempifies the "whack a mole" approach the US has to drug use. Reporters choose the title that makes the story seem more important. Here it is "A new drug scourge". The average reader cannot possibly be expected to understand the relationship between new more potent forms of meth, the very successful campaign against the opiod manufacturers, the import of fentanyl from China, etc. If we had a drug czar who could avoid the short term political gains from selective emphasizing of border interdiction, screeds against or for medicaid expansion we could at least have a coherent national policy. A well supported group of planners, combined with new paths for rapid changes in law with full evaluation of how effective they are may really help. At present this is a political football, with constant turnover at CDC, but it could be much better. Inflammatory articles in the NYT and other sources fly rapidly from the teenage vaping of pot and nicotine to the rise in deaths from methamphetamine. There must be a better way.
21
@WHM There is a better way. We need to give people tools to manage their lives from early childhood onward. That would eliminate a lot of drug experimentation that leads to addiction. My clients often told me that they started using in elementary school. We need to address these children's needs before they use.
8
Addiction and population control go hand in hand, evidently. Follow the money. Nefarious greedy Sacklers leading the world. Like the mafia selling H in the ghetto, once they decide a life isn't worth anything, the goose starts laying the golden eggs.
7
@Ms M. what do the Sacklers have to do with Meth again. Pls enlighten me
2
@Elizabeth All willing participants. Off the street or legal, these people are vulnerable to those who think ttheir lives are meningless. I'd like to start the conversation there. Creating a safety net between the most vulnerable and the devils that produce nd sell.
2
Choices.........
4
Does there ever come a time when the person who chooses to purchase meth in lieu of food or shelter becomes responsible for the ramifications of such a choice?
31
It doesn’t seem that way. How many drug rehabs should one person get and still expect society / insurance companies to pay for them ?
I can understand and sympathize with someone in chronic pain becoming addicted to medication, but the others are making a conscious choice.
9
@Susan Dallas You may be overlooking the fact that not all pain is physical. Mental pain also exists and is often just as hard to bear as the worst physical pain. It's causes usually lie beyond the control of the sufferers, often in deprivation in childhood or misfortune and injustice later in life.
39
@Susan Dallas I think rehab is something people should have unlimited chances at and I am willing to pay my part. Sometimes it takes multiple trips before it finally takes.
I'm willing to do that not only because it benefits them, but also because having as many sober functioning people as we can in this country vs addicted ones also benefits our society at large.
36
Meth use is much more diverse in its purposes than opioids. For example, Women sometimes like it for weight control. Workers putting in long hours use it to maintain stamina and focus. Some people with mental illness such as ADHD use meth as a street alternative to doctors. Given that meth provides some relief for legitimate problems, meth is going to be tough to beat.
13
@mdd Literally everything you lay out is not a "purpose" but an "abuse"
2
Here is the root of the drug problem in this country: the willingness of people to become addicts. We must understand this process and deal directly with it. It’s foolish to put so much effort to try to stop the the importation of drugs. It’s the demand for those drugs that drives the problem. Let’s fund research to end drug addiction.
47
People are willing to become drug addicts because, with all addiction’s dangers and depredations, it is better than their ordinary, hopeless lives. Life = unrelieved misery; Drugs = possibility of temporary relief. It doesn’t have to be appealing or rational to be true.
42
@Jerry Totes Not a single one of the 7000 alcoholics and addicts I treated ever thought they would become addicted. They did not choose to become addicted. Each one thought they'd be the one who could "experiment" without becoming addiction.
15
@Pottree It doesn't help that our 'culture' is essentially an isolating economic system confined solely to the material realm and devoid of any deeper meaning.
7
I am an emergency physician in San Francisco and despite all our tremendous challenges with substance abuse in our city, we keep trying to think creatively and create new capacities that don't exist elsewhere with public-private partnerships. We successfully built an alcohol sobering center over 17 years ago where over 60,000 clients have sobered safely from alcohol, most of them overnight. We have a medical respite center for the homeless and marginally housed who need care and attention (ie, a chemo patient who is vomiting), but not a hospital. We have a free standing psychiatric center where we try to avoid placement of "5150s" or 24 hour psychiatric holds. And we will be building a "methamphetamine sobering center" this Spring for that population of homeless methamphetamine users who deserve better than an ER hallway bed all night long. God knows we have our fair share of health care issues here...but we are trying to find solutions.
Scott Campbell MD, MPH
President, San Francisco Emergency Physician's Association
96
@GB The introduction of medical respite centers as a intermediary between the streets and a hospital stay is a brilliant idea and one that should catch on throughout the country. My husband is a hospital physician and his chief complaint is of drug addicted and/or homeless people taking up hospital beds for relatively minor issues and reducing his capacity to treat those genuinely needing to be admitted for medical emergencies. No one wants to turn away homeless people or drug addicted people , especially in bad weather, but the frustration is that hospitals are not designed to address these problems. We need places that are.
51
@JW
Medical respite is a success in San Francisco and many other cities including Boston. I would encourage your husband and your hospital leadership to reach out to the San Francisco Department of Public Health for guidance. Your community deserves it
3
@GB Thanks. I will suggest this to him. Financial resources are more limited in southern states like Arkansas. I'm sure he would be interested in knowing more about how such centers are funded in your city, as that is a question that would immediately be asked by local hospital leadership.
2
Just another dreadful consequence of the neoliberal policies both parties have been pursuing for decades.
6
@Ed Watters how, exactly?
5
It's the drug, not the person.
What I'm saying is that today in almost 2020, we are sophisticated enough to understand a good deal about what happens to the brain when an individual abuses meth. When the abuse reaches the point the victim is addicted, the person is practically helpless.
The point is obvious. Get rid of the meth! It could be done if we and our elected representatives have the will to fight this scourge.
Unlike some illicit drugs, meth has no good purpose whatsoever, nor is it derived from foreign crops. It would therefore be less complicated to eliminate than heroin or cocaine It can and should be wiped out, but it only will be if our leaders declare war on its purveyors.
3
@Joe To your point, sure, our fearless leaders could wipe out the supply of most of the hard drugs many of our fellow citizens have a problem with. But then that would interfere with the billion $ drug interdiction industry as well as the for-profit prison industry. Any way you slice it, there are people getting wealthy off of the misery of the 'deplorables.' It's not a political party thing, because both parties indulge in the payday. The real recovery is to treat the demand side of the equation. And that means hosting government programs that support the citizens, not contribute to the looting of our poor and middle classes (not to say this is just a poor man's disease... it can happen to anyone). Yes, that also means fortifying the very deficient mental health resources in our 'wealthy nation.' It seems so funny that after declaring a war on drugs in the 70s, spending what amounts to trillion$ of dollars over decades, we have a worsening drug epidemic, shorter life expectancies, huge prison populations and worse outcomes for many who need help.
10
Please don't ignore the third/meth connection. I too used meth for about 6 years, during that time I also ignored my thyroid condition. For the first time in 30 years, my thyroid function became normal. I did not take my thyroid medication regularly as I was afraid to go to the doctor during peak use. I smoked meth. Somehow it stopped my thyroid from fluctuating. I have hashimotos. I am now in treatment and am taking my medication as prescribed. My levels are normal, however, I have gained 40 pounds and my glucose levels fluctuate again. When I was using, I ate and functioned normally. I slept regularly most of the time and was gainfully employed the entire time. I now am looking for work. Please research how this could be possible. There is something to this. While I continue treatment and remain clean, I think there is more to this epidemic than meets the eye.
33
No mystery, law makers ignore human reality. Follow the pain. Follow the search for pain relief: emotional, physical, lack of basic needs: . food( eat to stay warm) clothes ( it is winter), shelter, companionship, hope.
23
In America, we are too eager to think there’s a simple answer to it all: the magic of superstition. OK chose not to expand and support Medicaid not only because they’re cheap, but because they think the answer is always JESUS. Go ask them.
3
This article is pretty stigmatizing. The idea that serving people with substance use disorders instead of people with "real" mental illness is less important work is a strange, zero sum argument for a psychiatrist to make. As I work with peers that are in recovery from methamphetamine use, they all have the same question -- how do you even overdose on methamphetamine? This idea that is is "more pure" now than it was in the past is not supported by evidence. If people are dying from secondary conditions that are related to the use of methamphetamine, that's not an "overdose" in the way we are used to having that word used. I hope we can discover why these deaths are being classified as overdoses, and also end the narrative of methamphetamine use disorder as untreatable.
9
@Athena I don't think the psychiatrist was making an argument that substance abuse is less important than treating severe mental illness, but the increase in patients with psychiatric symptoms from substance abuse does put a strain on finite resources and it does limit resources for those with severe mental illness. So yes, it might be a "zero sum" issue at this point, but I think the point is that there is a need for increase in resources, not the exclusion of the substance abuse treatment.
As an emergency physician working in a meth-infested community I saw plenty of overdoses of meth - seizures, hyperthermia (temperatures up to 108), muscle breakdown (rhabdomyolysis), kidney failure, as well as the chronic ravages of the drug (psychiatric, cardiac, dental, etc.). So your peers in recovery may never have had an overdose and have not seen what happens with one. But they certainly occur, and they certainly can be fatal. One way or another, meth is a deadly drug, whether it is an acute overdose or a chronic deadly spiral.
8