Methamphetamine (known on the street as speed, meth, crystal-meth, and glass) is a central nervous system stimulant of the amphetamine family. Like cocaine, it is a powerful “upper” that produces alertness and elation, along with a variety of adverse reactions. The effects of methamphetamine, however, are much longer lasting than the effects of cocaine, yet the cost is much the same. For that reason, methamphetamine is sometimes called the “poor man’s cocaine.”

Meth can be swallowed, smoked, snorted, or injected. Sold as a powder, it can be mixed with water for injection or sprinkled on tobacco or marijuana and smoked. Chunks of clear, high-purity meth (ice, crystal, or glass), which resemble rock candy, are smoked in a small pipe, much as “crack” cocaine is smoked. Some users spread the powder on aluminum foil, heat the foil and inhale the fumes that are released.

At lower doses, meth makes the user feel energetic, alert, self confident- even powerful. With continued use these pleasurable feelings typically diminish, and most users report the need for increasingly higher doses to achieve euphoria. Under the influence of the drug, users often become agitated and feel “wired.” Their behavior becomes unpredictable. They may be friendly and calm one moment, angry and terrified the next. Some repeat meaningless tasks, such as taking apart and reassembling machinery. Others pick at imaginary bugs under their skin.

After a number of days on glass, during which time they barely sleep or eat, users become too tired to continue or have no meth left and begin to “crash.” Initially, the crash is marked by agitated depression, sometimes accompanied by an urge for more. But these feelings soon give way to lethargy, followed by a long deep sleep. The depression returns, however, once the user awakens, and may last for days- a time when the potential for suicide is high.

With prolonged high-dose use of long binges, stimulant psychosis may develop. The psychotic user may feel intensely paranoid, hear voices, and experience bizarre delusions, believing, for example, that other people are talking about him or following him. Meth-induced panic and psychosis can be exteremely dangerous and may result in incidents of extreme violence. Psychosis may persist for days after the last dose of meth. Indeed, there are many reports of users remaining paranoid, delusional, apathetic, and socially withdrawn for weeks. Occasionally, methamphetamine-related psychosis lasts for years. But, in these cases, experts believe the drug has probably triggered symptoms of a pre-existing mental disorder.

Dangers and consequences of meth use:
? Sleeplessness
? Loss of appetite and weight loss
? Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
? Elevated body temp
? Skin ulceration and infection, the result of picking at imaginary bugs
? Paranoia
? Depression
? Irritability
? Anxiety
? Increased blood pressure, due to the constriction of blood vessels, that may produce headaches, chest pain, or irregularly heartbeat and lead to stroke or heart attack
? Seizures
? Permanent damage to brain cells caused by injury to small blood vessels serving the brain
? For pregnant women- premature labor, detachment of the placenta, and low birth weight babies with possible neurological damage, poor feeding and lethargy
? For IV users- AIDS, hepetaitis, infections and sores at the injection site, and infection of the heart lining and valves

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