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 . . . .)
Drug usage ending in death? Sounds good to me.
At least they will die doing what they loved.
Not Meth Head, crackheads. Why change the name, the drugs are of the same family. GO FAST, as fast as you can. It is just that amphetamines are more powerful than cocaine. Just like everything, the goal is bigger/better and more powerful.
I am starting to think that We Must Turn our Faces away from the destruction. Like Lots Wife, we should not look back and think of “how great it was”. I am sure Soddom and Gomorah at one time were nice, and so was the US. That is no longer true, though there are nice and godly places.
I’m not going down without a fight. I love this country and truly believe our best days are yet to come.
Well, that explains alot. Most of them are in government.
Yep!
Walter White would be mad at such poor chemical practices.
Is this a move to “legalize” Meth to control the purity?
Your answer makes no sense.
Oregon has abrogated membership in the Union and is no longer a real member
Oregon needs to have their high school chemistry classes teach students how to make the good stuff....call it Heisenberg....
;-)
I am always stunned at the Freepers who confuse what the laws and regulations say with what is actually happening on the ground.
My grandpa made his living getting construction contracts by bribing dozens of state officials for decades.
He never got caught.
None of the officials ever got caught.
The mass media never found out about it.
Government corruption at all levels will destroy, and is destroying, our country.
It has to change.
Government corruption will continue to expand.
We are in the “late empire” stage.
Great leaders may be able to slow it down, and perhaps even temporarily halt the decline for a short period of time.
But—long term—imho—this ship is going down—and folks are beginning to figure out they are on their own.
One my friends lived near Portland and constantly talked about the awesomeness of Oregon. Mid-sentence, she up and moved to West Jefferson NC. “Oregon is wonderful. So beautiful and so progressive. I’m outa here to go live around conservatives”
Lol. Oopsie
The problem with stealing elections is that you still have elections. In urban areas, you are selected rather than elected. Selection comes with $$$ so it is highly prized. Many times, it stays in the family when they retire.
But you also have to protect your position from people who want it. So if the Party wants you to vote one way but the community wants you to vote another way, suddenly you have a target on your back.
When anything goes wrong, the Democrats get the blame because there are no Republicans. California has that issue now. Oregon as well.
make the stuff they gave to pilots in WW2
The mechanism to fight is not available. You end up in jail, or you vote the way you believe, and nothing can change. One voice against the voices of Billionaires even Trillion dollar companies, you lose. The people in power from the City Hall, to the United Nations, do not care a whit for your opinion. They allow the vote, because it keeps people playing the popularity game.
Sorry, I will fight too. If you are living in a Blue State, GTHO and fight to inform the new place you are living about the horrors of the West Coast, or East Coast if you are there. Of course only Montana and North Dakota on the North are still America, but from the Great Lakes to NY are gone too.
Trump will be back, things will happen, the table is about to be kicked over.
Gregg Phillips announced that the Pit will be livestreamed; the entire election fraud machinery is going to be exposed, live. Foreign influence, 1 billion $ involved, and at least one fed agency. The 2020 election was an act of war.
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