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 $5 for a three-day high, while the potency has increased. Anecdotal reports suggest meth overtook heroin as the drug of choice among Portlanders experiencing homeless as early as 2007.
>In 2019, Portland’s only sobering center closed, with its operator, Central City Concern, citing an inability to safely sober the increasing number of people coming in who were behaving violently and erratically while under the influence of meth and similar drugs.
>Methamphetamine contributed to more deaths in Oregon than fentanyl and heroin in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
(long article continues at link . . . .)
There is no supervisory or inspection apparatus in place for the grows. No monitoring types of chemicals, fertilizers, etc.
And ignorant people addicted to that crap are taking all those impurities into their bodies.
Guess who gets to pay for their medical treatment when they finally implode from decades of putting contaminants and toxins into their bodies?
Sabotaging???
Strange use of words.
Addicts sabotage the mental health system.
Or, more accurately, the idiots that vote for the idiots that run the state are sabotaging the system.
Such a waste of an individual’s life! shaking head!
Guess they don’t make meth like dear old grandma used to make anymore...
As someone personally affected by oregon's defective mental health system,
I can answer that question a definite affirmative.
Ever wonder why the dems want open borders?
Billion$ in profits, and a populace so hooked on the gov’t teat, they’re easy to control.
Taking away their guns is the final ticket to victory.
It’s crazy to think that people willingly ingest something and have no idea what it is. They are mentally ill to begin with but the meth guarantees a permanent and debilitating psychosis.
You’ll know these people by their smiles and skin. It’s pure poison.
I don’t think Meth has changed. It appears to be same. Possibly it’s the people who use it have changed.
They need The Hand of GOD.
I don’t know about least churched, in rural and small town Oregon.
The reason OR is a hell hole is because we’ve had mail in voting since the late 1990s. Once Dems started to fill positions due to fraud, they controlled more and more. Every election is rife with fraud. And they legalized every drugs (for users) last year, supposedly a ballot measure passed it, but I doubt the count was honest. A few years before a ballot measures legalized marijuana (under strict rule which are NEVER enforced) and there are countless people sorry they voted for it. It’s ruined many counties.
In my valley, there are more bums/homeless/crazed people than I’ve seen here in more than 20 years. More ODs.
People who say “Oregon deserves what they get and voted for” - not true.
Oregon, Washington, California, and now Colorado have stolen elections, along with other states. But these are the worst. NY state probably very bad too. Anywhere there are masses of illegals, there is massive election fraud, that’s another factor.
Meth has become much more pure in the last decade or so.
The old biker crap was “bathtub crank” - nasty stuff.
If you lived in Oregon, then you would understand why Meth is their preferred drug. My apologies to the decent people stuck in that hell hole
It is interesting how meth has a “look.” You can tell a meth head instantly by their appearance.
“There is no supervisory or inspection apparatus in place for the grows. No monitoring types of chemicals, fertilizers, etc.”
Actually there is. I’ve read the legal stuff in detail, each legal permitted grow op had to be monitored and checked, as well as the product, and sold only to authorized state stores or whatever.
But it is ignored and the state does not follow its own rules re: mj grows. Our state gov is totally corrupt. State representatives (R of course) asked maggot she-governor Bitch Brownstain for NG to help get rid of the massive illegal grows and she ignored their requests.
This has has ruined my county and others. A few years ago the “legal” mj that went to the state lab to test for forbidden chemicals had something like a 90% fail. And we are surrounded by out and out illegal grow ops that are destroying the countryside, the rivers and streams, stealing water, pouring noxious chemicals into waterways and the ground, killing animals, leaving filth and trash, and so on.
In fact the streams and rivers here have a lot of E.Coli now because the slave labor craps anywhere and it goes into the waterways.
I could go on and on.
Sodom and Gomorrah on one side and Zombie APOCALYPSE on the other with World governments that want to set the Planet on Fire.
.
Three years ago it seemed we had things pretty good.
.
“They need The Hand of GOD.”
Or the wrath of His terrible swift sword.
My little sister loved
Portland. I visited several Times and it was always Raining and Dreary. Beautiful area , wished I’d
Seen more.
Sad place.
Well, it’s been downhill since the Wehrmacht was using the Good Stuff (Pervitin).
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