How that thing made it to production remains a mystery. It promises to be a laughingstock for many years to come.
Posted on 05/15/2005 7:44:01 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
NEW YORK (AP) -- Employers are catching more workers using methamphetamine, but the drug’s spread into the workplace appears to have slowed considerably, a new study finds.
Employers who screen job applicants and workers for drugs saw the number testing positive for amphetamines increase by 6 percent last year. Positive tests for methamphetamine, one of two stimulants in that class of drugs, increased by 3 percent, according to a report to be released Monday by Quest Diagnostics Inc.
The figures are based on the results of 7.2 million workplace drug tests conducted in 2004 by Teterboro, N.J.-based Quest, one of the country’s largest drug screening firms.
The limited increase contrasts sharply with 2003, when the number of workers testing positive for all amphetamines surged 44 percent and those failing the test for methamphetamine jumped 68 percent.
The percentage of workers testing positive for all drugs was unchanged at 4.5 percent. Of workers who tested positive, 55 percent failed the screening for marijuana, 15 percent for cocaine and 10 percent for amphetamines.
The popularity of methamphetamine has surged in recent years, prompting many states to try to limit the sales of the decongestant pseudoephedrine that is commonly used to make it.
But even as officials have worked to crack down on the manufacture and sale of the drug and encourage treatment, drug users have proven persistently creative at cheating on workplace tests. Such cheating will be the topic Tuesday of a hearing by a House of Representatives subcommittee.
A survey on methamphetamine use by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showed 5.7 percent of people older than 26 said they had used the drug.
“It’s just a little too soon for us to know what it (the workplace testing data) means,” said Leah Young, a spokeswoman for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
How that thing made it to production remains a mystery. It promises to be a laughingstock for many years to come.
Oh take it from me, Meth is GREAT, it makes a new man out of you, unfortunately all the new man wants is more meth
Please save your compassion for a child who needs your help. Once someone becomes an adult, the decisions they make are of their own free will.
Talk about coincidence. I actually was reading the article this pic is from yesterday. There are several other pics of people suffering from the ravages of meth.
The woman is 42.
After five years of taking meth, Theresa Baxter says she has experienced everything but death. She says being on meth is the closest thing to being a zombie, a member of the living dead.
Indeed, Baxter's two mug shots offer what is perhaps the most dramatic juxtaposition of health and hell in King's collection.
The first picture dates to 2002, when she was arrested for identity theft and fraud. The second comes from November. In nearly 31/2 years, she has gone through an eye-rubbing metamorphosis. Forty pounds lighter. A loose bandage covering a cyst on her cheek. A road map of deep wrinkles. She looks nothing like her former self.
She's 42.
"It's scary," Baxter said, sitting inside the Multnomah County jail. "There are no words to describe it" -- she began to sob -- "I can't stand to look at myself in the mirror."
She is serving a five-month sentence for theft and drug possession. Baxter said she understands why someone would want to use her face in a prevention program.
She opened her mouth as she cried. All but the two front teeth are missing on top. One of the pair, the gray one, is about to fall out. If it's like the others, she said, it will crumble with a bite of food.
A former heroin user, Baxter said she began using meth to escape depression. It was cheaper and better. And like many addicts, she would take repeated hits, allowing her to stay up for days. The longest run? "I remember 14 days, straight through," she said.
She couldn't eat because the drug amplified her senses, making the smell of food unbearable, and played with her head.
"I would cook meat for my boyfriend," she said, "and I'd get it in my mind that it was a mouse in the pan. I couldn't bring myself to eat it."
When Baxter was high, she couldn't handle anything touching her, including water. So, she didn't shower.
Every binge ended with a couple days sleep. She didn't fade. She crashed. "You close your eyes once," she explained, "and you're out. People could dance on you and you wouldn't know it."
The Faces of Meth>
just a little more of the government unable to control the fringes so it controls the masses instead.....
Uh..Plan "Z"..Outsource to India.
You know what ....you have a point. All the same it amazes me how people mortgage their lives for such a thing as meth.
I think that's part of the story ... the rest of the story being that illegality of lesser stimulants increases motivation to seek out stronger ones (to get buzzed as quickly as possible to lessen the chance of getting caught while using) while removing a possible disincentive (namely, having to start breaking the law to get the stronger stuff). Drug criminalization fuels the development of ever-stronger drugs.
Yet your answer is to legalize everything.. You have anything other than wild conjecture that that will help the meth problem?
Holy crap! Circulate that photo on MTV!
You've misunderstood my argument ... and failed to show what's "wild" about it. Legalizing lesser stimulants could have, and still might, help the meth problem; if that toothpaste is out of the tube, legalizing meth can help the drug-that-comes-after-meth problem.
This explains a few of my users here at work.
Is this article implying that 4.5% of workers tested tested positive for ALL drugs or that that percentage tested positive for A drug? If the former I will make sure I avoid places where people work.
That meth its good stuff.
Sure does cure stupidity in the long run though doesn't it.
It provides energy. Now if the addicts actually did something with that energy it might be a different story. But they don't.
Is that the new HOMER?
Meth is cheaper than cocaine, more easily available, and the high can last about 8 - 12 hours as opposed to coke, which is relatively short lasting.
LOL. Now that you mention it, ... !!
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