Posted on 07/19/2004 8:22:02 PM PDT by neverdem
People who do not want to wait for old age to shrink their brains and bring on memory loss now have a quicker alternative - abuse methamphetamine for a decade or so and watch the brain cells vanish into the night.
The first high-resolution M.R.I. study of methamphetamine addicts shows "a forest fire of brain damage," said Dr. Paul Thompson, an expert on brain mapping at the University of California, Los Angeles. "We expected some brain changes but didn't expect so much tissue to be destroyed."
The image, published in the June 30 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, shows the brain's surface and deeper limbic system. Red areas show the greatest tissue loss.
The limbic region, involved in drug craving, reward, mood and emotion, lost 11 percent of its tissue. "The cells are dead and gone," Dr. Thompson said. Addicts were depressed, anxious and unable to concentrate.
The brain's center for making new memories, the hippocampus, lost 8 percent of its tissue, comparable to the brain deficits in early Alzheimer's. The methamphetamine addicts fared significantly worse on memory tests than healthy people the same age.
The study examined 22 people in their 30's who had used methamphetamine for 10 years, mostly by smoking it, and 21 controls matched for age. On average, the addicts used an average of four grams a week and said they had been high on 19 of the 30 days before the study began.
Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant made in clandestine laboratories nationwide. When taken by mouth, snorted, injected or smoked, it produces intense pleasure by releasing the brain's reward chemical, dopamine. With chronic use, the brains that overstimulate dopamine and another brain chemical, serotonin, are permanently compromised.
The study held one other surprise, Dr. Thompson said: white matter, composed of nerve fibers that connect different areas, was severely inflamed, making the addicts' brains 10 percent larger than normal. "This was shocking," he said. But there was one piece of good news: the white matter was not dead. With abstinence, it might recover.
I don't see how that "slams the Libertarian argument", since Libertarians have never argued that it's not self-destructive and stupid to abuse methamphetamine.
And a similar photographic montage of decline could be made for large numbers of chronic alcoholics, but few people would use that as an argument for bringing back Prohibition.
Those are some of the most disturbing images I have ever seen. The first time I saw them, years ago, I was dumbfounded. I was just thinking about those photos the other day...how weird!
No idea where it came from. Just street slang. There is some base-level community-of-interest among people who are down-and-out in a city. But nobody likes tweakers (or 'tweekers'). They would steal from their own mothers in a heartbeat. The drug owns them, in a way that not even crack owns people.
Well, put those pictures backwards, and it is a good simulation of what that woman would look like after 8-10 shots of whiskey!!!
Do you know what the story is behind those pictures?
oh but let's go ahead and legalize all drugs so people can ingest whatever they want...NOT. great post...Much of this damage is similar to what Ecstacy does to the brain
"Hey, what I do in the privacy of my own house..." blah, blah, blah.
"oh but let's go ahead and legalize all drugs so people can ingest whatever they want...NOT. great post..."
Yes, because the current (unconstitutional) federal war on drugs has been a sparkling success. It prevented all these pictures posted here from actually happening. They're really just expensive hollywood special effects shots.
After all, I'd much rather have countless billions in federal tax dollars going after a crack head instead of using them to kill more terrorists. Who cares about protecting our borders when there's some guy with a dime bag of marijuana in his house?!?!?!
Too bad we don't honor the bill of rights and let the war on drugs be a state's rights issue. Or pass a constitutional amendment to make it a federal issue, just like they did with prohibition. Nah, too logical.
Here's a wild idea:
The federal government worries about important things like national security and kiling terrorists before they kill us.
The states worry about local enforcement problems like deciding what narcotics they want legal.
And finally, the federal government fully enforces second amendment rights, so if a crack or meth head tries to rob me to pay for their habbit, I can pull out a 10mm and show them the error of their ways.
Gee, what I pie-in the sky dreamer I am. I must think I'm somewhere in the first 150 years of american history to expect that kind of constitutional government!
Your post puts the subject quite clearly into view, whereas others dance around it. Young people should be made aware of knowledge such as this, given to them in real doses rather than being fed a lot of other crap. "harder to quit than anything I know of" is pretty strong stuff.
I think our young folks are prepared to hear the truth for a change. Heck, we might even steer a few away from such a life by giving it to them honestly.
I forgot to answer that part. I'm not sure there is an Official Dictionary for words like crackhead, speedfreak, and tweeker. I would draw a distinction for my own use. To me, "speed freak" includes people who take, oh, Dexamyl or stuff like that, for the rush. There are probably people who do that, who have jobs and are functioning. "Tweeker" is a derogatory term on the street, referring to the ones that cannot function except to relentlessly pursue the next hit. It's not Dexamyl they want, it's crystal meth. They are usually paranoid in the way that schizophrenics are often paranoid. The phone company follows them around; the CIA is after them; FBI snipers are waiting in the park to kill them. They come across as "nuts" the first time you meet them, and so they cannot get or hold jobs. They are broken people with broken brains. They will never do anything with whatever promise they once held. The will lie and steal their way to the next hit until they die, looking like that woman in #15.
I presume there are people who get on that stuff and somehow pull out of it. But others are rendered psychotic the first time, and they never come back.
ping for later flame.
She's awlrite, she's awlrite, she's awlrite.................COCAINE!!!!!
You note that dosage would have to be increased 10 to 30 times to get the same effect as smoking meth..
Does that apply to adults, or children?
I would be interested in seeing the same studies done on Children that have been prescribed ADD drugs for extended periods..
I hope to G-d you are right, but am pretty sure that such a study will confirm that many children's brains have been severely damaged..
Great graphic, so colorful.
Speed kills.
There are other casualties with cooking meth.
The illegal labs are not exactly controlled situations. Lots of kids exposed because daddy makes meth.
Anhydrous ammonia is used in cooking it and this stuff is a serious caustic. Lots of burns with accidents.
Then there are the lab explosions, and the fires.
Lots of cops and firemen exposed.
Also, never mix diet coke and aspirin.
There was a time toward, and after, recovery that my normally ever-present, effervescent, downright pleasant, shining Irish smile just wasn't happenin'. I'd have to kickstart the appropriate responses to jokes ("Laugh goes here, Ha Ha.."). It's like being animated rather than really alive...
Thank God, He works miracles in our tiny lives still! I have grown out of that haunted, Roger Corben Zombie look, started a family, and said NO several times, kept my teeth and a smile to park'em in.
Parents, loved ones: meth is the MOST lethal, deceitful drug and "support" environment a person can lose themselves in. If you see a loved one experimenting, or diving head on, EARLY intervention is SO important, because meth is extremely dangerous to the pulmonary system, brain and central nervous system, as well as the soul.
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