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.
Sadly, you are correct, as I know from experience. My 24 y/o daughter gets out of prison in August (after a year) and then will be entering a drug rehab program for another year. She was shooting the stuff up for over a year. She walked out on her boyfriend and her 2 y/o daughter and lived on the streets. We tried our best to get her into a rehab then, but she kept disappearing on us. Then she burglarized my house and got caught in a stolen vehicle with drugs. She has totally ruined her life. I just pray that her time in prison has been a sobering experience for her. She said she has "found Jesus", but I guess we will see how long that lasts...
I don't know if this is true or not, this is just what I was told:
Since the stuff is usually produced by people who are not experts, and often mess it up, a bad batch with impurities is often produced and of course, sold anyway.
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Actally, it is pretty easy to make (once you get past the hassle of finding a pharmacy that will sell you pseudo-ephedrine based cold/cough pills in high enough quantities to make a batch). Pretty much if you can follow the instructions in an ordinary cookbook, you can make meth. There are a lot of toxic chemicals and fumes involved, so it's pretty common for the meth-lab to catch (explosively), if the "cook" is tweaked while making it. Bad batches also happen, and usually, just get sold.
He didn't have any problems at all, until the last month of his life, when he "discovered" the wonders of Xtal meth.
Within ONE MONTH, he went from a well respected young man with a job and a bright future, to street brawls, and a closed casket funeral. Because he lost it, and shot off his head with a shotgun.
That is an awful, but all too common story. I'm not sure that I would blame a bad batch, since all batches are inherently bad. One of the things you need to remember about meth is that at the same time it's screwing with you mentally, you're usually also suffering from extreme sleep deprivation (leading to the "shadow people" meth junkies often see), and malnourished. The combination of these effects combine to make most addicts VERY, VERY paranoid, unstable, voilent, and (when they can't get any), depressed and despondant. From a statistical point of view, it would be more likely that your neighbor's son was detoxing without any way to get more. Detoxing from meth is a terrible thing, and even locked in a room by friends, I was as close to suicidal as I had ever been. That's just my guess however. More kids really need to be educated about this stuff.
Meth is commonly thought of as a poor, rurual drug, which is often the case. It is very important that parents in suburban and urban areas talk to their kids about this stuff though, since it is starting to get more and more common in cities from what I've seen, and is hitting a whole new market where most kids have never even heard of the stuff, and don't know anything about it. A lot of urban kids are under the impression that it's less serious that cocaine, when in fact, I think (subjectively) that it is far worse than heroin.
There's some pretty sick stuff in there.
If the Marines did it to him ... he would not have been charging for it .... :<)
What say the brethren
Requium for a Dream was also a horrifying one. It might have just been my experiences and knowing people who never got out of it, but by the end of the movie, I was sure glad no one else was in the room.
Satisfactory!
;)
Well, no. There are many bad laws which have never been justified by any actual facts, yet are used for social control and state financial purposes.
I'd say that was enough cause to insist on reason backed up with facts and logic. If this had been the attitude of the founders, there wouldn't be an America in which you could feel safe to hold that opinion.
"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."
And these same moronic drug abusers are the same who moan about mad cow disease, unsanitary restaurants. Go figure
p.s. I hate illegal drug users and abusers! You make me sick! And meth, the most disgusting toxic ingredients known to mankind, the druggies are literally dieing to get their dirty hands on the stuff. Eewww
And so it goes they sold their soul to the devil.
Quite a likeness she has to Satan.
Be warned, Satans deciples are growing in numbers.
Satan is an equal opportunity $oul taker.
"That's what I've seen too. The crackheads you can sometimes pull back. The tweakers are gone. They are broken people with broken brains, and no one knows how to fix them"
fix the brain after drug abuse especially meth?! Not until doctors do complete brain transplants .. when pigs fly.
I wonder if similar differences are seen with chronic Ritalin use in children.
"I've never seen a 40-year-old tweaker."
Unfortunetly I have. She has the same look as the women in the above photos. She is pushing 60, consumes Xanax like candy and a half pint of liquor to wash it down with. One sneaky evil lieing piece of walking trash. Now that I see they all get the same facial features after years of abuse I can spot a meth abuser right away, they all have the same gaunt hollowed out look like a witch face. Nasty ugly zombies !
I joke quite often that I have a drinking problem with OJ, no matter how much I buy, I drink it ALL within 24 hours! I just can't stop!
Sounds like you have a very serious vitamin C defiency. You need to consult with a doctor or risk becoming diabetic down the road.
Neither ever occurred to me. Why would anyone want to voluntarily do that to themselves?
Hey, what I do in the privacy of my own house..." blah, blah, blah.
Yeah until these freaks start robbing stores, drug stores, homes to get their next fix. I wouldn't pee on them if they were on FIRE. Adios freakin drug users.
No... I have never seen the level of rapid mind and body deterioration like Meth does. I have seen other drug users, but none have had the complete inability to function like what happens on Meth. Their body wastes away, their skin breaks down, and their teeth fall out. A friend lost a brother to this drug. Bad as some other drugs are, Meth is in a whole 'nother category.
"Then she burglarized my house and got caught in a stolen vehicle with drugs. She has totally ruined her life. I just pray that her time in prison has been a sobering experience for her. She said she has "found Jesus", but I guess we will see how long that lasts..."
Please I am not trying to be cynical just realistic about the pitfalls of meth/drug abusers. They are extremely crafty liars. I have tried to help many many, actually too many young single female parents who got hooked on drugs. Only one woman out of ten years of dealing with these lost souls was truthful, reliable and steadily gainfully employed. I eventually wrote a praising reference letter to the bank she had applied to for a new home loan and got. Sadly the others are lost forever and even dangerous. Do not allow them to use lies, emotional blackmail to suck you down into their H*ll. Don't deny or drown in denial when you see the classic signs or red flags. The one who made it gives me hope and faith that there is a reason us good people keep searching for the hopeful ones.
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