Explain the patterns of methamphetamine abuse, including the history and amphetamine psychosis

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: In the United States, the emergence of widespread methamphetamine abuse was intermingled with the marijuana and LSD scene during San Francisco's "Summer of Love and Peace" in 1967. Almost from the beginning, however, speed freaks—as methamphetamine
abusers were called—whose behaviors were anything but loving or peaceful, became the outcasts of that society.

Prescription amphetamines, widely administered during the 1960s for weight control
and as a way to combat drowsiness, resulted in large numbers of abusers. D -amphetamine was classified as a Schedule II drug in 1970 and the number of d-amphetamine prescriptions decreased by 90 percent from 1971 and 1986, the pills were still out there, and people found ways to continue an abusive pattern of drug-taking behavior.

As crack cocaine became increasingly associated with the urban poor and powder cocaine with upscale affluence in the 1980s, amphetamine abuse declined dramatically. In the 1990s, however, as crack cocaine and powder cocaine abuse began to diminish, methamphetamine abuse reemerged on the drug scene. Once identified with the countercultural 1960s, methamphetamine became a major stimulant of abuse in the United States, with its popularity now concentrated among working-class people rather than among the poor or the affluent

Methamphetamine became one of the few drugs reported as equally or more prevalent than other illicit drugs in areas outside America's inner cities. In the early 1990s, distribution of methamphetamine was dominated by organized groups operating out of southern California and Mexico, with trafficking routes extending through several U.S. states, including Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Texas. Soon after, however, thousands of "homegrown" methamphetamine laboratories began to proliferate in small towns and rural areas throughout the nation, typically situated in mobile homes, campers, vans, and easily hidden farm sheds, making their detection by law enforcement agencies extremely difficult. As of 2006, retail outlets have been required by federal law to limit the sales of numerous cold remedies
that contain pseudoepinephrine—an essential ingredient in the making of methamphetamine.
In effect, products that have formerly been "over-the counter" are now "behind-the-counter."

Customers cannot make a legitimate purchase of more than the equivalent of approximately seventy 60 mg tablets per day and must provide photo identification upon purchase and sign a logbook recording the transaction. Because liquid anhydrous ammonia, commonly used as a farm fertilizer, is another ingredient in the making of methamphetamine, fertilizer dealers have resorted to the installation of security systems to protect their supplies from theft.

While output of these small domestic laboratories is relatively small, the adverse impact on a local level is considerable. Toxic residue from methamphetamine manufacture, approximately five pounds of waste for every one pound of methamphetamine produced, has seeped into the soil and contaminated rivers and streams. Children have suffered from the inhalation of toxic fumes emitted during the process of methamphetamine manufacture,
from fire and explosions that result from the volatile ingredients, and from abuse and neglect by methamphetamine dependent parents .

Methamphetamine has become a major club drug in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities A smokable form of methamphetamine hydrochloride called ice (also referred to as crystal meth) is particularly dangerous. Its name originates from its quartz-like, chunky crystallized appearance.

Ice appeared on the drug scene in Hawaii in the late 1980s, but its abuse did not expand to the mainland to a significant degree until the latter 1990s. The combination of a purity of 98 to 100 percent and a highly efficient delivery route through the lungs produces a high level of potential for dependence. The association of its use with high-risk sexual behavior is a major public-health concern

Methamphetamine withdrawal—and amphetamine withdrawal in general—is very similar to the course of events described earlier for cocaine. First, there is the "crash" when the abuser feels intense depression, hunger, agitation, and anxiety within one to four hours after the drug-taking behavior has stopped. Withdrawal from amphetamines, during total abstinence from the drug, takes between six and eighteen weeks, during which the intense craving for amphetamine slowly subsides.

Amphetamine psychosis: A set of symptoms, including hallucinations, paranoia, and disordered thinking, resulting from high doses of amphetamines.