• Crystal
  
• Ice
  
• Glass
  
  Description
  Methamphetamine was created as an artificial chemical substance. Methamphetamine is a powder, sometimes made into capsules or pills.
  
  Use
  Amphetamines are taken orally or injected. However, the addition of "ice," the slang name for crystallized methamphetamines has promoted smoking as another mode of administration. Just as "crack" is smokable cocaine, "ice" is smokable methamphetamine. Intravenous use of methamphetamines is abused by a subculture known as "speed freaks."
  
  Dangers and Effects
  Chronic abuse produces a psychosis that resembles schizophrenia and is characterized by paranoia, picking at the skin, preoccupation with one's own thoughts, and auditory and visual hallucinations. Violent and erratic behavior is frequently seen among chronic abusers of amphetamines, especially methamphetamine. Methamphetamine, in all its forms, is highly addictive and toxic.

DEA Fast Facts

• Meth is made in America as well as internationally
  Unlike heroin, cocaine, or Ecstasy, it is produced here within our borders. We can’t blame other countries for this problem.
  
  
• Meth is not just a big city problem
  Meth has become the most dangerous drug problem of small-town America. Traffickers make and distribute the drug in some of our country’s most rural areas. Twelve to fourteen year olds that live in smaller towns are 104% more likely to use meth than those who live in larger cities.
  
  
• "Tabletop" labs on the increase
  One of the reasons meth is such a threat in rural America is because it is cheap and easy to make. Drugs that can be bought over the counter at local stores are mixed with other common ingredients to make meth. Small labs to cook the drug can be set up on tables in kitchens, countertops, garages or just about anywhere. Although superlabs, operated by sophisticated traffickers still supply the majority of meth, these smaller tabletop labs have increased exponentially in the last decade, setting an alarming trend.
  
  
• Meth hurts not just individuals, but families, neighborhoods and entire communities
  Meth is a powerfully addictive and violent drug. Its use can result in fatal kidney and lung disorders, brain damage, liver damage, chronic depression, paranoia and other physical and mental disorders. Recent studies have demonstrated that meth causes more damage to the brain than alcohol, heroin, or cocaine.
  
  Environmental harm: The chemicals used to make meth are toxic, and the lab operators routinely dump waste into streams, rivers, fields, and sewage systems. The chemical vapors produced during cooking permeate the walls and carpets of houses and buildings, making them uninhabitable. Cleaning up these sites requires specialized training and costs an average of $2,000-$4,000 per site in funds that come out of the already-strained budgets of state and local police.
  
  Hundreds of children are neglected every year after living with parents who are meth “cooks.” More than 20% of the meth labs seized last year had children present.
  
  

  July 20, 2004 This Is Your Brain on Meth: A 'Forest Fire' of Damage By SANDRA BLAKESLEE People who do not want to wait for old age to shrink their brains and bring on memory loss now have a quicker alternative - abuse methamphetamine for a decade or so and watch the brain cells vanish into the night. The first high-resolution M.R.I. study of methamphetamine addicts shows "a forest fire of brain damage," said Dr. Paul Thompson, an expert on brain mapping at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We expected some brain changes but didn't expect so much tissue to be destroyed." The image, published in the June 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, shows the brain's surface and deeper limbic system. Red areas show the greatest tissue loss. The limbic region, involved in drug craving, reward, mood and emotion, lost 11 percent of its tissue. "The cells are dead and gone," Dr. Thompson said. Addicts were depressed, anxious and unable to concentrate. The brain's center for making new memories, the hippocampus, lost 8 percent of its tissue, comparable to the brain deficits in early Alzheimer's. The methamphetamine addicts fared significantly worse on memory tests than healthy people the same age. The study examined 22 people in their 30's who had used methamphetamine for 10 years, mostly by smoking it, and 21 controls matched for age. On average, the addicts used an average of four grams a week and said they had been high on 19 of the 30 days before the study began. Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant made in clandestine laboratories nationwide. When taken by mouth, snorted, injected or smoked, it produces intense pleasure by releasing the brain's reward chemical, dopamine. With chronic use, the brains that overstimulate dopamine and another brain chemical, serotonin, are permanently compromised. The study held one other surprise, Dr. Thompson said: white matter, composed of nerve fibers that connect different areas, was severely inflamed, making the addicts' brains 10 percent larger than normal. "This was shocking," he said. But there was one piece of good news: the white matter was not dead. With abstinence, it might recover.

  
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