IF ONLY THEY'D KNOWN

A recent survey of local high schools revealed that 20 percent of our
juniors and seniors have tried methamphetamine, and 10 percent are current
users. Many of our young people are addicted to this devastating and
powerful drug. This area is known across the nation as "Meth Mountain"
because we have such a serious problem with this drug. Every week we read
of labs being busted, people arrested, and people dying from this drug.

I have written extensively about the effects of methamphetamine on the
brain and personality. Every day I meet addicts that tell me, "Doctor, if I
had known what this drug was going to do to me I never would have tried it."

Methamphetamine disrupts the chemical connections in the pleasure center of
the brain. This disruption is what causes the high, and also causes
personality changes. Over stimulation of the pleasure center in the brain
causes damage to it, and results in long term depression. Users become
anxious, irritable, and suspicious. They get paranoid and violent.

Methamphetamine destroys the life of the addict. They lose their homes,
their jobs, and their families. They abandon their children, beat their
wives, lie, cheat, and steal.

All they can think about is how to get more drugs, steal more drugs, make
more drugs. They don't control their lives any more. Cravings control their
lives.

Long term brain damage results in paranoid schizophrenia, manic depressive
disorder, panic attacks, Parkinson's disease, and dementia.

This drug is made out of Red Devil Lye, anhydrous ammonia, kerosene,
acetone, all caustic, corrosive, and flammable chemicals. Your body does
not have enzymes to break this stuff down to water and carbon dioxide like
everything else. You break it down into chemicals called hydroxy free
radicals, which are caustic, toxic chemicals, and they eat holes in the
substance of the brain.

We are facing a social catastrophe in methamphetamine. Twenty percent of
our high school seniors have tried it, and 10 percent are regular users.
That statistic does not include the high school drop outs that have even
higher rates of drug abuse.

We can look forward to 20 percent of our children abandoned by their
parents, 20 percent of our work force cannot do their jobs, 20 percent of
our population is brain damaged and more or less disabled or dead.

If we had a contagious disease sweeping through our community that was
causing that much death and destruction, the CDC would be camped out in the
high school parking lot and the whole city would be under quarantine.

Every business in our community needs to take an active role in combating
this problem. Every church needs to make sure their kids have access to
accurate information about drug abuse, and get involved in outreach to the
addicted and pre-addicted drug users in our community.

This is not somebody else's problem. This is OUR problem. We can't wait for
somebody else to do something about it. It will destroy our community while
we're waiting.