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Meth has changed, and it’s sabotaging Oregon’s mental health system
Oregon Public Broadcasting ^ | 08/04/2022 | Emily Green (The Lund Report)

Posted on 08/04/2022 1:25:19 PM PDT by 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.

- - - - -
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 . . . .)


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: chat; drugcartels; drugs; justsayno; mentalillness; meth; methmadness; newmeth; notexcerpted; oregon
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Oregon is in continual competition with Washington to be the least churched state in the union. This is the result.
1 posted on 08/04/2022 1:25:19 PM PDT by aimhigh
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To: aimhigh

Isn’t Oregon’s mental health system where they take normal people and try to convince there is something wrong with them?


2 posted on 08/04/2022 1:26:36 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: aimhigh

“In the state with the highest rate of meth use in the nation...”

This explains Portland.


3 posted on 08/04/2022 1:27:55 PM PDT by BBQToadRibs2
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To: aimhigh

Oregon. One of the most locked down cities during the Chinese flu.


4 posted on 08/04/2022 1:29:06 PM PDT by subterfuge (I'm a pure-blood!)
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To: subterfuge

Oregon has been demoted to a city?


5 posted on 08/04/2022 1:32:19 PM PDT by GingisK
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To: aimhigh

Hmmm, doesn’t Oregon also have assisted suicide?
Maybe just reclassify the addicts as attempted suicides and let the problem correct itself.
What do you mean, I have no feelings?


6 posted on 08/04/2022 1:34:42 PM PDT by Ex gun maker. (Free thinking is now a radical concept, I will not be assimilated by PC or EV groupthink!)
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To: aimhigh

Meth addicts are the worst. Heroin addicts are peaceful while they are under the influence. Meth addicts are up all night and they hit the streets while people like me are going to work and they are actively dangerouse.


7 posted on 08/04/2022 1:36:27 PM PDT by forgotten man
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To: aimhigh

“rice of meth has dropped to as little as $5 for a three-day high”

Does this mean staying awake for three days? No wonder people go crazy taking this stuff.


8 posted on 08/04/2022 1:37:05 PM PDT by packagingguy
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To: aimhigh
When I read this, I swear I hear someone playing slide on a resonator guitar.

#dobro

9 posted on 08/04/2022 1:37:16 PM PDT by Oberon (John 12:5-6)
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To: All

Sigh. Keep the paint fume smell outta my meth.


10 posted on 08/04/2022 1:37:28 PM PDT by BipolarBob (lazy FReepers don't have a homepage.)
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To: aimhigh

“Oregon is in continual competition with Washington to be the least churched state in the union. This is the result.”

Agreed.


11 posted on 08/04/2022 1:38:00 PM PDT by MercyFlush (☭☭☭ Soviet Russia must be destroyed. ☭☭☭)
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To: fieldmarshaldj; GOPsterinMA; NFHale; BillyBoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkA7xQb6uPk&ab_channel=thesmallaxe5


12 posted on 08/04/2022 1:38:44 PM PDT by Impy ("We didn't steal the election, we swear!!!" - Sincerely, The Election Thieves )
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To: Twotone; VeryFRank; Clinging Bitterly; Rio; aimhigh; Hieronymus; bray; 1malumprohibitum; ...
If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
13 posted on 08/04/2022 1:44:39 PM PDT by Twotone (While one may vote oneself into socialism one has to shoot oneself out of it.)
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To: aimhigh
'With this “new meth,” he wrote, “traffickers forged a new population of mentally ill Americans.'

The people at Oregon Public Broadcasting have no idea how many Americans have succumbed to mental illness. Every "woke"/leftist American, every American who votes for Democrat politicians, every American who has allowed himself to succumb to the Decadence of Western Civilization is mentally ill, and this is not hyperbole.

14 posted on 08/04/2022 1:44:47 PM PDT by Savage Beast (Americans DESPISE the corrupt elites, their media toadies and their corruption of the US government!)
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To: aimhigh
'With this “new meth,” he wrote, “traffickers forged a new population of mentally ill Americans.'

The people at Oregon Public Broadcasting have no idea how many Americans have succumbed to mental illness. Every "woke"/leftist American, every American who votes for Democrat politicians, every American who has allowed himself to succumb to the Decadence of Western Civilization is mentally ill, and this is not hyperbole.

15 posted on 08/04/2022 1:45:43 PM PDT by Savage Beast (Americans DESPISE the corrupt elites, their media toadies and their corruption of the US government!)
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To: aimhigh

By 2018, the drug reminded him of “paint fumes.”
= = =

So, get only FDA approved meth.

Hey, Dems, how about a 1.5 billion bill to inspect and certify meth? And add on another 1.5 billion for samples for Congress.


16 posted on 08/04/2022 1:47:23 PM PDT by Scrambler Bob (My /s is more true than your /science (or you might mean /seance))
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To: forgotten man

It’s when they are coming down that the violence escalates.


17 posted on 08/04/2022 1:48:55 PM PDT by Scrambler Bob (My /s is more true than your /science (or you might mean /seance))
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To: aimhigh

Ah, so that’s the problem - the “good stuff”, Methamphetamine cooked up by biker gangs, everything was just sweetness and light. Then, the stuff went downhill.

I call bull$&@t, insofar as I watched “the good stuff” ruin a lot of people’s lives back in the 80s and 90s. Probably ruined a lot of lives in the 00s and 10s too, but by then I stopped watching. Methamphetamine is Poison. So is Fentanyl, bath salts, all that &$@t.


18 posted on 08/04/2022 1:50:55 PM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: aimhigh

and both Oregone and Washington are all mail in ballot states and there has not been a pub state govt for a couple of decades at least here in Washington....


19 posted on 08/04/2022 1:51:39 PM PDT by cherry (;)
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To: aimhigh

“Every time Anthony Ware got out of prison, he noticed the meth in Portland tasted more like chemicals.”

Get off that biker crank and get Mr. White’s Blue Meth from down in New Mexico.

If taste is your thing, rumor has it that a Mr. Pinkman puts Chili Powder is his bathtub speed.


20 posted on 08/04/2022 1:51:44 PM PDT by Round Earther
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