SEVERE DAMAGE TO BRAIN POSSIBLE

The immediate high from crystal meth may be unbeatable, but long-term
use of the the drug could ravage the human body and mind.

"It causes severe damage not just to your brain and by producing
psychiatric symptoms, but also it causes severe damage to other
systems like the cardiovascular system and central nervous system,"
said Dr. Dhanapal Natarajan, chief psychiatrist for Mental Health
Services in Regina. "If you ignore this in the early stage, you will
end up with a permanent psychotic state."

Dr. Leo Lanoie, Medical Health Officer for the Prince Albert Parkland
Health Region, emphasized the psychiatric and psychological effects
are only half the story where methamphetamines are concerned.

"They make your heart rate go up, your blood pressure go up, they make
you sweat, they make your pupils dilate," said Lanoie, a specialist in
addictions medicine.

"With overdoses people get so much muscle contraction that they get a
break-down of muscle ... which can actually cause kidney failure
(because of muscle particles entering the blood stream)."

Heart attack and stroke can be deadly effects of an overdose. With
long-term meth use, bodies lose normal control over blood pressure and
pulse rate, arteries harden, the heart is damaged. Neurological
changes make users weak and twitchy. Men can experience erectile
dysfunction.

Crystal meth and other forms of methamphetamine are stimulants which
act on the pleasure centre of the brain. Meth causes that nerve centre
to release excessive amounts of dopamine, which controls the release
of adrenaline.

"If you have sex and the amount of dopamine released is one (unit), if
you use cocaine it's three (units). If you use crystal meth it can be
11 (units), so that's the significance," explained Lanoie.

Meth use can also cause hypersexuality, leading to indiscriminate,
unprotected sex, increasing the incidence of AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases.

The powerful release of pleasure hormones is what makes meth so
addictive. When a user comes down from such an extreme high, the crash
is a harsh contrast and that the person may develop the abstinence
syndrome, a psychological type of withdrawal.

"The withdrawal symptoms are very, very unpleasant ... they get into a
very depressive mood and increase the aggression associated with
that," said Natarajan. "They're craving for the drug and the easy way
to get out of these unpleasant symptoms is to take one more dose. So
that sustains the habit. That way, you get hooked on this with
probably less than five uses."

Meth users are also prone to seizures and quickly develop a tolerance
to the drug, which means higher doses are required to create the same
level of euphoria originally created.

The end result of chronic use can be brain damage which impairs memory
function in a way similar to Alzheimer's disease. Former users of meth
may experience difficulty retaining new information.

Psychotic flashbacks can be triggered by meth and may reoccur for as
long as two years after users are clean. Lanoie explained that these
are known as pseudo-hallucinations.

"If you have a true hallucination, you're not aware of it. If you have
a pseudo-hallucination, you see it, but you know it's not real -- and
that scares the heck out of people."

Auditory and tactile hallucinations are a common result of high doses.
With the tactile hallucinations, users experience the sensation of
something on their body.

"(Meth users) get all of these sores and a lot of people think it's
from contamination (of the body by the drug)," Lanoie noted. "It's
just that they get this feeling that there's stuff crawling on them
and they keep trying to scratch it away."

Users can also experience paranoid delusions coupled with aggression,
which makes even emergency medical treatment difficult.

Recovery from chronic methamphetamine use is extremely difficult as
people develop depression and what's known as anhedonia.

For people already prone to mental illness, meth use can trigger that
illness.

Methamphetamine use can also have disastrous effects on people's
relationships and lives in general. Some people turn to prostitution
and crime to fund their habits. Aggressive and violent anti-social
behaviour often lead to job loss or academic failure.

"By the time they get into the drug abuse habit, they have burned all
the bridges. They might have done so much psychological damage to the
relationships around them that it's very hard to re-establish," said
Natarajan. "That's where the society and the family should be aware
that these people have behaved that way because of the effects of the
drugs, so we should be ready to accept the problem and help them out."