PATH TO DESTRUCTION: METHAMPHETAMINE A DEADLY DRUG

Methamphetamine makes permanent holes in precious brain
tissue.

The metabolites, or byproducts, of the substances cooks use in
unsanitary labs kill healthy cells, resulting in permanent damage.

When her brother killed himself at the age of 24, Dr. Mary Holley, a
gynecologist and founder of MAMa, Mothers against Methamphetamine,
took it upon herself to learn about meth. Holley's brother had only
begun using the drug two years before.

Cold medicines are combined with an acid and a base, such as lye,
Drano, battery acid, antifreeze, and kerosene, to create the deadly
drug.

"You can't break this stuff down into carbon dioxide and water like
you do everything else," Holley writes in a widely distributed
pamphlet called, "Meth Death." "Your body turns it into ... caustic
chemicals and they eat holes in your brain. This brain tissue does not
grow back."

Meth's addictive and damaging effects begin immediately in the body of
a first-time user.

"Meth does in one night what it takes a year of alcoholism to do to
the brain," Holley said in a speaking engagement Sunday evening at
Heritage Baptist Church in Texarkana. "One time, and you will use
again. You may think it's your decision, but it's not. Meth is in
control from the first second it enters the body."

Holley says 75 percent of people who try meth will use again within
one week. In a video created by MAMa entitled "The High is a Lie,"
images of Holley's brother, shortly before his death, illustrate
meth's effects.

"I can never get back what I lost that night," Holley quoted her
brother as saying about the first time he smoked ice, a highly popular
form of meth.

Meth first creates a daylong high that induces feelings of ecstasy,
confidence, intelligence, strength and control in the user, Holley
said. For a time, the intensity of the high increases with each use,
but this euphoric period does not last.

Meth first creates a daylong high that induces feelings of ecstasy,
confidence, intelligence, strength and control in the user, Holley
said. For a time, the intensity of the high increases with each use,
but this euphoric period does not last.

Side effects from the drug, including anxiety and muscle spasms, are
usually self-medicated with sedatives such as Xanax or Valium,
powerful benzodiazepenes with life-threatening and addictive
properties of their own, or powerful painkillers such as Oxycontin or
Hydrocodone, an opiate commonly known as Vicodin, also addictive.
Eventually the prescription drugs don't calm the side effects as more
and more meth is used, leading meth addicts to mix their poison with
heroin.

The high that lured the user into addiction slowly dissipates after
repeated use. The addict now uses only to relieve the "crash," a
period of paralyzing depression, paranoia, anxiety and often
psychosis. Meth is no longer fun but stopping means 12 to 18 months of
living hell as nerve cells that once maintained mood and personality
slowly heal, Holley said. It was during his crash period Holley's
brother found a gun in a relative's home and chose to end his pain.

"He didn't know it would stop someday," Holley said. "He blew his
brains out because he just couldn't stand it anymore."

Holley says this happens because meth turns off important brain
functions over time. Cells containing dopamine, a neurotransmitter
that is crucial to regulating emotions and rational thinking, are
turned on like a faucet, dumping the powerful chemical into the brain
for 12 to 20 hours. Cells that usually tell the dopamine-containing
ones to turn off cannot communicate with them any longer and
eventually shut down. Nerves controlling levels of other important
brain chemicals such as seratonin are also affected, Holley said.

When the dopamine in these nerve cells is depleted, a crash occurs. At
first, the crash lasts only a day or so but its severity increases
dramatically over a short time.

"Eventually the crash controls your life," Holley said.

While using, the excess of neurotransmitters and other damaging
effects on brain function lead to visual, sensory and emotional
hallucinations, Holley said. "Not only does the person see snakes
crawling on the ground, they feel bugs are covering their skin,"
Holley said. Users commonly pick sores on their skin in an effort to
rid themselves of the phantom "meth mites."

Emotional hallucinations cause a person to feel baseless rage, often
leading to violent, deadly behavior. Holley displayed photographs
depicting children of meth-addicted caregivers. One child was nearly
bald because her mother's meth-using boyfriend plucked them out one by
one while high. Holley warns that the child of the meth user often
begins using at an early age with the result being death or
incarceration as a juvenile.

Recovering from a meth addiction is painful and hard. For 12 to 18
months the brain continues to experience debilatating side effects
such as severe depression, psychosis, aggressive behavior, the
inability to experience pleasure and memory loss, for example, as the
body endures the crash. Gradually the brain begins to heal and some
semblence of normalcy returns, Holley says. "But the wiring is
different now, and some of the damage is permanent."

Meth does not discriminate among races, genders, or socioeconomic
status, which Holley demonstrates by displaying a photograph of
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's meth-using daughter.

"If it can happen to her it can happen to anyone," Holley
said.

Before a user reaches rock bottom and makes the decision to get clean
or is forced to stop using by the criminal justice system, Holley
recommends friends and family show the user "tough love." Providing
money, housing and other forms of support simply enable the user to
continue sinking deeper into their addiction.

During the crash period the addict probably does best in a lock-down
residential setting where medical and psychological treatment is
available. Relapse rates are high when addicts are free to seek meth,
Holley says.

"The most horrible agony any family goes through is watching a child
disintegrate from meth," Holley said. "The addict is going to break
your heart."