Meth has changed, and it’s sabotaging Oregon’s mental health system

Oregon Public Broadcasting ^ | 08/04/2022 | Emily Green (The Lund Report)

[aimhigh]

Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series

In the state with the highest rate of meth use in the nation, the drug is driving severe mental illness among criminal defendants at the state psychiatric hospital, and other patients are paying the price.

Every time Anthony Ware got out of prison, he noticed the meth in Portland tasted more like chemicals. “My daily routine was like, wake up, eat a piece, let that kick in, and then smoke to keep my high,” he said of that time in his life. It was the “good stuff,” cooked by local bikers, that got Ware hooked on meth nearly two decades ago, he said. Then the drug cartels started making it. By 2018, the drug reminded him of “paint fumes.”

The changes Ware witnessed were at the heart of an article published in The Atlantic magazine this past October. In it, journalist Sam Quinones contended that cartels’ new formula for making meth is driving people into the throes of psychosis and homelessness at a much higher rate. With this “new meth,” he wrote, “traffickers forged a new population of mentally ill Americans.”

The observation holds particular relevance for Oregon, which has the highest reported rate of meth use in the nation. And more than two dozen interviews by The Lund Report with those involved in Oregon’s behavioral health system reveal that at every level, it’s well known that meth has changed — and that it’s inflaming Oregon’s already blistering addiction, mental health and homelessness crises like never before.

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Despite Oregon’s early attempts to combat meth, its reach has only worsened:

> In 2020, Oregon jumped from having the ninth highest rate of meth use in the country to the highest, according to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health data.
> The volume of meth confiscated on Oregon highways saw a 75% increase between 2016 and 2020, according to drug trafficking reports.
>Meth-related emergency department visits in Oregon climbed about 20% in both urban and rural areas between 2018 and 2021, and last year, urban hospitals alone saw more than 16,000 meth-related emergency department visits, according to Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems data.
>The number of those patients spending more than 24 hours in an emergency department bed doubled during that time. The price of meth has dropped to as little as $5 for a three-day high, while the potency has increased. Anecdotal reports suggest meth overtook heroin as the drug of choice among Portlanders experiencing homeless as early as 2007.
>In 2019, Portland’s only sobering center closed, with its operator, Central City Concern, citing an inability to safely sober the increasing number of people coming in who were behaving violently and erratically while under the influence of meth and similar drugs.
>Methamphetamine contributed to more deaths in Oregon than fentanyl and heroin in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

(long article continues at link . . . .)

[little jeremiah]

Good to see you, AuntB! I was very worried about you, I hope your living situation and life have settled down and you are in a good place. I don’t think I’ve run into you since after the fire.

[apocalypto]

Yes, China. And Mexico. Those are the countries Quinones blames. I highly recommend his bestseller, THE LEAST OF US. It gives an excellent overview of the meth problem.

[cgbg]

We have had almost two years of promises that “the table is about to be kicked over”.

You have seen the old cartoon about Lucy and the Football, right?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqzA1VOiC-M

[little jeremiah]

Think what you like.

[AuntB]

Thank you so much. Yes I have a home in a safe neighborhood.

[little jeremiah]

Good! There was a worry in the back of my mind for a long time.