# Meth: Before and After + Question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 29, 2006, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670 "2006-06-29T20:24:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ddgryphon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ddgryphon)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/1 "2006-06-29T20:24:22Z")
If this belongs in MPSIMS please pop it over there:
I can’t remember why, but I ran across this:
> **[Partnership to End Addiction](https://drugfree.org/)**
>
> Partnership to End Addiction is the nation's leading organization dedicated to addiction prevention, treatment and recovery.
and read a little more.
My question, what are the actual statistics on Meth? Is it something that can be given to you without you knowing it (The old LSD in the Coke trick) or am I just a paranoid product of 1960’s aggressive anti-drug ads?
(I’m still haunted by the “Every day there is no sunshine” commercial)
Thanks
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/2 "2006-06-29T20:49:47Z")
[Ah, Side Show Bob](http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_8.html)
I don’t see why it couldn’t be slipped in a drink, or given to you as something else (no, really, it’s an advil). But I’d guess you don’t get _that_ addicted by accident.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/3 "2006-06-29T20:57:41Z")
[Here is a quick fact sheet about crystal meth.](http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs5/5049/index.htm)
It is smoked or injected, not taken orally, so I don’t see how you could be slipped any.
It’s bad. Really bad. Even my very libertarian, drug enjoying friends think crystal meth is “scary stuff”.
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### Author:  [@Bongmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bongmaster)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/4 "2006-06-29T21:05:39Z")
This site may have some useful info even if it is coming from a slanted source:
> **[Office of National Drug Control Policy | The White House](https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/)**
>
> The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) is a component of the Executive Office of the President. ONDCP leads and coordinates the nation’s drug policy so that it improves the health and lives of the American people. ONDCP is responsible for...
From what I understand meth use is a pretty big problem, especially in rural america. I have been around it, tried it, and known some people who used it regularly. I can see why some people would get hopelessly addicted to it, especially when you are compounding problems like depression.
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### Author:  [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/5 "2006-06-29T21:40:10Z")
> [@Joey P](#):
>
> [Ah, Side Show Bob](http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/DrugIssue/MethResources/faces/photo_8.html)
>
> I don’t see why it couldn’t be slipped in a drink, or given to you as something else (no, really, it’s an advil). But I’d guess you don’t get _that_ addicted by accident.
Why do those people have sores all over their faces? Is that a reaction to the drug use, or are they all beaten up? The patterns don’t look like anything that could be caused by an injury, unless they use their faces as ashtrays.
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### Author:  [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/6 "2006-06-29T21:57:50Z")
Meth can be taken orally, injected or smoked.
Likelihood and severity of addiction are highly dependent on the method and usual dosage.
From this study - [A comparison of ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ users of amphetamine, cocaine and heroin: two distinct populations?](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=9581005&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_DocSum), there are two salient tables: first, the [severity of dependence](http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9896/druguse2groupsdependence2ay.jpg) and second, the corresponding [method of use](http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/4450/druguse2groupsmethod8vw.jpg). (‘Contact’ is those who have been exposed to the law and/or treatment)
As for statistics, the National Survey of Drug Use and Health is conducted every year. Here are the [numbers](http://oas.samhsa.gov/amphetamines.htm) specific to amphetamines. But these presentations are distilled. There’s also the annual Monitoring the Future survey conducted among high school students.
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### Author:  [@OKFMDOA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OKFMDOA)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/7 "2006-06-29T22:02:07Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#):
>
> Why do those people have sores all over their faces? Is that a reaction to the drug use, or are they all beaten up? The patterns don’t look like anything that could be caused by an injury, unless they use their faces as ashtrays.
From the whitehouse page linked above:
“Chronic users at times develop sores on their bodies from scratching at 'crank bugs,”’ which describes the common delusion that bugs are crawling under the skin."
Last night I had a dream where there was a huge (grapefruit-sized) evil looking spider and my Dad told me it was a “Flesh Spider.”
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/8 "2006-06-29T22:17:50Z")
It ain’t always bug scratching. I, um, _have a friend_ who would pick and scratch at pimples, scratches, bug bites, etc, to the point where she is still covered with scars (much fainter now, thank God) 15 years later. Not much meth or speed, but lots of coke.
If I see someone picking at a sore and they have a couple of other obvious (to one of “us”) features, I immediately think “tweaker.”
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/9 "2006-06-29T22:20:04Z")
Besides, who wants to waste good dope on a bobbysoxer newbie who didn’t even ask for it?
😉
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### Author:  [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/10 "2006-06-29T22:20:38Z")
> [@OKFMDOA](#):
>
> From the whitehouse page linked above:
>
> “Chronic users at times develop sores on their bodies from scratching at 'crank bugs,”’ which describes the common delusion that bugs are crawling under the skin."
>
> Last night I had a dream where there was a huge (grapefruit-sized) evil looking spider and my Dad told me it was a “Flesh Spider.”
Interesting. Nice drug, that meth.
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/11 "2006-06-29T22:31:49Z")
The delusion just isn’t that common… _Reefer Madness_, anyone?
:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/12 "2006-06-29T22:36:22Z")
A special on Meth in Wisconsin had a sheriff saying that 99% of the inmates in his county jail, were there on Meth charges.
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### Author:  [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/13 "2006-06-29T22:42:44Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#):
>
> The delusion just isn’t that common… _Reefer Madness_, anyone?
>
> :rolleyes:
I’m confused about the rolleyes here. Almost all of the people in those before/after shots had sores or lesions or something on their face. So from that sample it looks like the _sores_ are common. What causes them? Is it mind bugs, or people just picking at themselves because they’re twitchy and don’t have anything to do with their hands, or what?
I also don’t understand how a cheesy movie from 1937 is supposed to make me think that delusions among meth users aren’t common.
Color me confused…
sinjin
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### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/14 "2006-06-29T22:47:15Z")
Here’s the skinny on meth.
The only decent ways to get high on it are snorting, smoking, and shooting–in that order, from least effective to most. Taking a pill won’t do much for you (there’s a prescription pill form of it, which disappoints most users who try it; nobody buys it unless they legitimately have the prescription), so that’s right out. Snorted, it’s far more abrasive than (say) cocaine. You’d generally be able to tell it apart visually anyway because it’s crystalline-looking while snortable coke is, well, powdered. If someone smashed the meth up well enough and you don’t know what you’re doing you may mistake meth for coke, but if you’ve ever snorted coke you’ll know pretty much instantly that it’s not llello–coke feels light and ‘natural’ in the nostril, while meth burns.
Smoking: Pretty popular way to do it, better than snorting, and all you need is a spoon, a really cheap plastic pipe, or a lightbulb. The thing is that it can’t really be slipped into weed without the smoker noticing; for one thing, it’s considerably more expensive than pot, so there’s really no incentive for the dealer to slip it in unless it was specifically asked for; and it has no date-rape potential whatsoever because it actually makes you _more_ awake and alert. For another thing, it’s smoked in a fundamentally different way from anything else (except heroin and maybe crack, but if you think you’re smoking crack, somebody slipping in meth is the least of your problems): you have to hold a flame under it for several seconds, until it melts into a liquid and then boils and smoke comes out of it. It’s not like pot or even “cocoa puffs” (pot with coke sprinkled on it) or PCP, where you just put a flame on it and puff as hard as you can.
And if you’re shooting it, well, you probably pretty much know what you’re getting in to.
> [@Lamar Mundane](#):
>
> Why do those people have sores all over their faces? Is that a reaction to the drug use, or are they all beaten up? The patterns don’t look like anything that could be caused by an injury, unless they use their faces as ashtrays.
Probably mostly from being beaten up or burning their faces making it, if they’re do-it-yourselfers (which are rare, BTW, at least in the city; maybe more common in rural Missouri or whatever). Living in the meth capital of North America, and having smoked it and snorted it a few times in high school and spent a lot of time around a lot of different people who used it pretty heavily, I’ve never in my life seen anyone with the “meth mouth” or facial injuries they always show you in those pamphlets.
> [@OKFMDOA](#):
>
> “Chronic users at times develop sores on their bodies from scratching at 'crank bugs,”’ which describes the common delusion that bugs are crawling under the skin."
Your bullshit detector should go off when anti-drug agencies warn about highly specific delusions that users of a certain drug should have, like there’s some central, nefarious agency that broadcasts the same exact thought to every single person who smokes that drug. You might not know that if you’ve never taken drugs, but it should; that sort of talk is almost always bullshit.
That said, one of methamphetamine _abuse_’s (not simple use or even regular use–I’m talking about high-all-day-and-all-night-and-never-sleeps type people, who are BTW pretty rare) common side effects is obsessive thinking, which leads to the stereotypical compulsive cleaning and skin-scratching. I’ve never heard of “crank bugs”; I do suppose it’s possible that someone could imagine that bugs are crawling under their skin, but that’s an old line that’s been pulled on a lot of different drugs and it doesn’t have much validity to it IMO.
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### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2006, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/15 "2006-06-29T22:50:22Z")
> [@sinjin](#):
>
> I’m confused about the rolleyes here. Almost all of the people in those before/after shots had sores or lesions or something on their face. So from that sample it looks like the sores are common.
That proves nothing except that the folks who wrote the pamphlet could find some small number of people who suffered from facial injuries and convince them to get their pictures taken for an anti-drug publication. There’s nothing common about those sores. I’ve known lots of meth users and never once seen them IRL. If the people in the photos are even meth users at all, they’re probably all or almost all people for whom methamphetamine abuse is but one of a complex set of issues, most likely including hygienic ignorance, domestic abuse, and chemistry mishaps in spades.
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### Author:  [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2006, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/16 "2006-06-30T02:39:49Z")
> [@sinjin](#):
>
> I’m confused about the rolleyes here. Almost all of the people in those before/after shots had sores or lesions or something on their face. So from that sample it looks like the _sores_ are common. What causes them? Is it mind bugs, or people just picking at themselves because they’re twitchy and don’t have anything to do with their hands, or what?
>
> I also don’t understand how a cheesy movie from 1937 is supposed to make me think that delusions among meth users aren’t common.
>
> Color me confused…
>
> sinjin
Sorry if I confused you. The rolleyes was in response to the “crank bugs” bullshit. It certainly doesn’t have to be delusions- it can be poor personal hygiene, chronic picking and scratching, whatever.
The cheesy movie from 1937 was full of “oooh, scary” bullshit just like the “do (insert drug name here) and you’ll hallucinate and go insane!” garbage about thinking there are bugs under your skin.
And I figure that these various website don’t want to show you relatively healthy-looking people who also do drugs- much more effective and scary to show total losers… :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2006, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/17 "2006-06-30T05:37:29Z")
There is some solid information in this thread (hats off especially to **fetus** and **EJs Girl**.
I haven’t much to add, except to quote Abbie Hoffman (approximately,) “Stay away from needle drugs. The only dope worth shooting is Richard Nixon.” Tricky Dick is dead now, so I can’t be accused of inciting violence.
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### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2006, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/18 "2006-07-01T07:57:12Z")
I appreciate the recognition, **AskNott**. I can’t say with a straight face that all of the decisions I’ve made in my life were good ones, but I did a lot of research and I try my best to use that knowledge to fight ignorance.
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### Author:  [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/19 "2006-07-01T10:53:16Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#):
>
> Sorry if I confused you. The rolleyes was in response to the “crank bugs” bullshit. It certainly doesn’t have to be delusions- it can be poor personal hygiene, chronic picking and scratching, whatever.
>
> The cheesy movie from 1937 was full of “oooh, scary” bullshit just like the “do (insert drug name here) and you’ll hallucinate and go insane!” garbage about thinking there are bugs under your skin.
>
> And I figure that these various website don’t want to show you relatively healthy-looking people who also do drugs- much more effective and scary to show total losers… :rolleyes:
I always figured “crank bugs” is what someone who’s never felt the itchy drug feeling before _thinks_ that’s why tweakers (or other drug users) scratch all the time.
It isn’t that people think they have bugs on them (I suppose some might from time to time) but meth, speed and coke can make you itchy and picky. It can also make it so you don’t realize you’ve been scratching the same spot for 20 minutes and rubbed it raw. The next day it’s scabby and you pick at that. And just like your parents used to say, if you pick at it, it’ll get worse.
As for meth mouth: The couple of times I’ve tried meth I ended up grinding my teeth together all night. I can’t say for sure but I’d happen a guess if I did meth alot my teeth wouldn’t like that very much. I’ve never known hardcore meth users but the long term coke and heroin users I’ve known all had bad teeth. I think it’s mostly due to long term neglect.
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meth-before-and-after-question/362670/20 "2006-07-01T15:28:59Z")
> [@Seven](#):
>
> It isn’t that people think they have bugs on them (I suppose some might from time to time) but meth, speed and coke can make you itchy and picky. It can also make it so you don’t realize you’ve been scratching the same spot for 20 minutes and rubbed it raw. The next day it’s scabby and you pick at that. And just like your parents used to say, if you pick at it, it’ll get worse.
I’ve also heard that scratching feels really good when you’re on meth, so a lot of people scratch their skin even if they’re not feeling itchy.
That is one drug I’d never even be remotely \*tempted \*to try. Dat shit is _poison_. Some manufacturers use stuff like brake fluid, drain cleaner and whatnot in the crystalization process.
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