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When I was in high school there was a girl who lived across the street. She was in her 20s and smokin’ hot. I saw her 20 years later. Vacant expression. Lost all of her teeth. Looked as if she was in her 60s. She was a longtime meth user.
I hate methedrine. Hate everything about it. Hate it so much, can’t even rationally discuss it.
That stuff is truly evil. I guess someone really did come up with a drug that is worthy of those high school drug score stories.
Is methadrine the same thing as methamphetamine, because that is what those “meth” public service announcements are about. 
ETA: Cite.
Wow, sure put the smashed egg as your brain on drugs ads to shame.
The problem is, true as they are, I think a lot of kids don’t believe it could be “that bad.” I think Dr. Phil’s show on those meth/junkie twins was as stark a lesson as anyone could get on the subject. They’re real. Kids who are inexperienced in the ravages of meth might think those ads filled with actors are overkill.
They ought to go into some rehab hospitals or take the camera to the streets and give these kids the real deal (even though these ads aren’t exaggerating in the slightest).
Some of the print ads are pretty good too. My favorite is the lipstick one.
Yep. “The Man” has cried wolf so many times over so many drugs that they’ve lost all credibility in my book. Even though I strongly suspect that meth is worse than other things which have been similarly portrayed over the years (like pot), I wouldn’t believe any agency in any way connected with state or federal law enforcement, rehab or anti-drug funds about the issue.
Here’s what recently happened to my friend’s brother, on account of meth:
I don’t remember if it was in Montana or North Dakota, but there are anti-Meth ads all over in one of them, big billboards to just small signs in farmer’s fields. I had no idea it was such a problem out West in the small towns. I guess I’m just insulated from it in my nice little middle-class life in the suburbs?
It’s a pretty big problem up here too Ginger.
I got to see a lot of it first hand (I never did any meth myself, but my roommates did, and I saw the friends they made and would bring over who were often homeless and would crash in our apartment).
Probably a good idea I got out when I did.
Those commercials scare the hell out of me, by the way.
My understanding is that it’s not only raging in suburbia, but it is the 21st century version of Mother’s Little Helper. Respectable housewives are falling prey to it because in the beginning it “gets them through their busy day.”
How about this one?
There’s a girl out here - maybe 21 years old - who was really pretty a few years ago. Gorgeous. She worked at the corner store and I remember envying her flawless skin. She started hanging out at the meth dealer’s place across the street from me. She used to rock the waif look, now she just looks like a skeleton with some rawhide pulled over it.
Thing is, all you’d have to do to see what would happen is look at the dealer herself. She looks like she used to be very pretty. Now she’s all dried up with no teeth. Evidently the message simply isn’t strong enough for some people.
It happens everywhere and I have seen accounts of wealthy housewives getting hooked on it and looking like a $3 street whore after a couple of years and then divorced of course. It does seem to affect the smaller, poorer, more rural towns than others however. I haven’t lived in my hometown in 15 years but I can read the local paper online and every other week, someone I know is arrested for meth. States take that stuff seriously these days and they are looking at years of hard time. In many ways, it is worse than crack yet people just can’t point fingers at the black neighborhoods.
The bigger problem with meth is that you don’t need to just avoid it yourself, you also don’t want to live near a meth lab because they can and do explode with alarming frequency because of the volatility of the manufacturing process that tends to take place in apartment bathrooms and rural trailer houses. Even people that normally keep to their own business really, really need to report suspected meth labs near them for their own safety. The problem is national and that is the reason that stores now have restricted access to common cold medicines. Around here, they have a logbook, a 1 box purchase restrictions, and check ID’s even for parents purchasing infant cold medication.
Like I said, that stuff is really bad news in every way and it is the real incarnation of the nightmare drug.
They scare me too, because I know they’re true.
The pot ones I can laugh off (not that I smoke anymore), but the meth ones… not so much.
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I blame marijuana. I think meth is a serious problem and is really high up on the list of things I wouldn’t ever toy around with. But so many people are used to the government screaming and panicking about kids toking up in their parent’s basement, we’ve been conditioned to dismiss all anti-drug messages as hyperbole.
Here is an outstanding discussion of the best anti-drug ad ever produced. It’s effective because it (rather surprisingly) tells the truth: smoking pot is kind of boring and you probably can find better things to do with your time. But it’s not going to kill you or anyone else and it won’t destroy your life.
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My problem with these ads is they’re not really that realistic. Doing meth does not mean you’ll start whoring yourself out, or get beaten up, or so on. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. The age group these ads tend to be aimed at (“Kids these days with their drugs!”) are really bad at thinking that far forward. If it were up to me the campaign would be about the more immediate consequences. You make the idiotic decision to sell your iPod or whatever for extra cash. You need to call your parents and tell them you just failed three finals and are getting kicked out of college. Essentially, make it more comprehensible to short-term thinkers.
Kalhoun: Don’t cite Narconon. It is a Scientology group, and not affiliated with Narcotics Anonymous.
