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This is the culture of meth. It’s not going away.

We had a meth dealer living in our very respectable garden apartment complex. We wrote letters to management and to the police for a year, even went in person to the police hq where we were literally laughed at because the cops weren’t interested unless the bad guys were actually COOKING meth. Selling wasn’t a problem.

Finally, after almost two years of persistent letters including PHOTOS, the resident’s “connection” stopped showing up here and one low-level “seller” was arrested. The “connection” was an ultra scary Mexican guy who swaggered all over the property in expensive leather pants and a huge black hat. Looked like a caricature of a bad guy….hopefully he won’t come back.

And so, the meth culture grows and thrives all over the place, even in the supposedly nice, safe community. You have to take responsibility for your kids, grandkids and friends, and don’t expect help from “the community.”

I saw our neighborhood in TX lost to meth. It took 6 years for a quiet rural valley to turn into meth central with dog fighting rings. Hubby and I were going to build our retirement home on that land.

I’ve been looking into the world’s drug problem for the past couple of months and I’m finding that each drug requires it’s own solution.

Oregon has had success with cutting down meth labs by making the main ingredient a prescription, but they haven’t cut down the addiction rate. The dealers are just importing meth instead of making it at home.

I’m thinking that the solution to meth is to understand what caused the epidemic in the first place. Amphetamines were sold OTC until 1970, then made prescription only. As the feds cracked down on it, a way to make concentrated product was invented (meth). Turns out that it’s more compact and profitable for the dealers. The people who want to use amphetamines had their supply of the mild stuff cut off and turned to the bad stuff.

So, one possible solution is to keep meth as illegal as all get-out, but make the amphetamines more available. (We didn’t have an amphetamine epidemic back in the 50’s and 60’s.) Give the addict strict penalties for possessing the bad stuff and give them easier access to a softer choice.

And we’re going to have to realize that there are evil people out there who are going to do evil things - regardless of drugs or alcohol. :(