PUBLIC HEALTH REELS FROM METH

Imagine the attraction of a cheap drug that brings euphoria, massive weight
loss and endless energy.

Then imagine the impact on public health of large numbers of people
ingesting concoctions that include cold medicine, drain cleaner, battery
acid, lantern fuel and match heads 97 all cooked up in bathtubs by amateur
chemists.

Public health officials across the state see the consequences of
methamphetamine in prison inmates and families victimized by these
brain-damaged, often violent, addicts.

"Right now, this is one of the biggest health problems we have in this
state," Deanna Babb said. "It's huge."

Babb, a nurse practitioner, and Marlene Tocher, a psychiatric nurse, worked
together with addicts in the Cascade County Detention Center. They
attracted an over-flow crowd to their Thursday workshop on the substance
called chalk, crystal, crank, ice, fire, batu, zip, white cross and meth.

"Then there's red-neck heroin," Babb said with a laugh. "I love that one."

Although the drug has zoomed to prominence as a menace in recent years,
Babb said mankind discovered the basic recipe in 1919.

"It was called the drug without a disease," she said.

But it was a drug with powerful effect on the human body and psyche. Babb
said traces of meth were discovered in the bodies of Japanese Kamikaze
pilots in World War II.

A profound nervous system stimulant, she said meth brings a rush of
pleasurable feelings that lasts longer than cocaine. The damage to the
brain and other organs of the body can last a lifetime or result in death.

Babb said medical science has traced distinctive brain changes up to five
years after meth use has ended. Unfortunately, the powerfully addictive
drug makes quitting nearly impossible, especially with the plentiful, cheap
supply.

"It's easy to make," Babb said, displaying a book known as the meth bible.

She said a person can pick up "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacturing" at
bookstores like Barnes and Noble or on the Internet. A person with an
eighth-grade education could assemble most of the ingredients and equipment
from their garage.

A lab might contain canning jars, tubing and portable coolers with items
like coffee filters, pillow cases and cheese cloth for straining. Those
items combined with a distinctive smell should trigger a call to authorities.

Babb described the smell as similiar to cat urine. A member of the audience
recalled the odor as cat urine mixed with the essence of dirty, wet socks.

Those ingesting it seem to ooze the odor from every pore.

"That is really useful at the E.R.," Babb told the audience at the
three-day Montana Public Health Association conference at Kalispell's
WestCoast Outlaw Inn.

The stench of cat urine and dirty socks oozes buildings hiding labs long
after the operations get busted. The waste products produced during the
meth manufacture may pose an environmental hazard to an entire town.

Some Montana towns, like Shelby, have faced major investments to protect
the water supply as these wastes found their way the town's wells.

Along with addiction, greed motivates people to risk everything to cook up
a batch of meth. A quarter gram of the powder equates to $5 while an ounce
nets $1,7.

Even at $1,7, Babb said an ounce offers the consumer over one hundred hits.
Compared to cocaine and heroin, meth offers the brain a bargain-basement high.

According to Babb and Tocher, meth increases the heart rate and blood
pressure and changes the way the body secretes and absorbs dopamine.

"Dopamine is the 'feel good' neurotransmitter," Babb said.

Over time, a person's body adapts and demands more and more of the drug to
provide its pleasure rush. From the first doses, the user's brain chemistry
begins to change and become dependent.

Babb told the health care audience to look for signs of increased activity
and hyper vigilance or paranoia as symptoms. She described prisoners she
had seen as acting like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Rotten or completely missing teeth, skin eruptions from a failing liver and
extreme weight loss complete the not-so-pretty picture of a meth addict.
The drug induces an extreme form of anorexia.

"This is why the drug is so seductive to women," Babb said. "Men make it -
women use it."

The experts said meth is one of the few drugs that claims more female
addicts than male. The West, Southwest and Midwest have growing numbers of
female users.

Detention center interviews revealed many women were attracted to meth to
lose weight and gain energy. Babb and Tocher looked for the "stick-thin"
syndrome to determine when a former user had relapsed back on meth.

Young men often complain of chest pain. Other symptoms include dry skin,
welts, nausea, vomiting, blurred vision, fever, twitching, heart attack and
stroke.

Users don't just come from the wrong side of the tracks. Meth's false sense
of well-being and temporary energy boost has seduced people in all segments
of society, helping to spread other health menaces.

"If you're high on meth, you don't care who you sleep with," Tocher said.

As meth use spreads, public health officials face explosions of
sexually-transmitted diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B. Shared needles
have helped fuel an epidemic of the blood-borne hepatitis C virus.

Tocher said some research shows young men of 18 or 19 are vulnerable
because the frontal lobe of their brain which controls impulsiveness has
not fully developed. Even worse, meth halts further development of that
area of the brain.

"When a young man has used meth at that time, it's like they're arrested at
that point," she said.

Mood changes, aggression, depression, insomnia and sometimes psychosis take
over their lives.

"You will see some clearing after people get off the drug," Tocher said.
"At least, that's your hope."

The two public health experts provided a list of tips for anyone
interacting with a person with symptoms of a prolonged meth binge, also
called tweaking.

- -- Keep at a 7- to 1-foot distance

- -- Don't shine a bright light on them

- -- Speak slowly in a low-pitched voice

- -- Move slowly

- -- Keep your hands visible

- -- Keep the tweaker talking because silence may mean paranoia is mounting

- -- Place the person in a safe area (like a rubber room)

- -- Expect the hyperactive phase to last 3 to 6 minutes