Methamphetamine a growing problem
It won’t be news to anyone that methamphetamine is on its way to becoming the principal drug scourge of America. This insidious substance brooks no class distinctions, affecting everyone from the homeless to the upper echelons of society. The ease of manufacture, the profitability and the extremely addictive nature of this drug combine to make it an almost impossible problem for individuals, families and law enforcement to deal with in any kind of significant way.
Once addicted, few people ever manage to resist the pull of methamphetamine’s siren song. Their lives, and the lives of their families and loved ones, become an unending series of personal confrontations, run-ins with the law, life-threatening binges and overdoses and dealing with the devastating health problems that result from using, and manufacturing, meth.
Oddly enough, many people may think this drug is a relatively new plague on society, but in fact, amphetamine has been around in one form or another since the late 1800s. It was first synthesized in Germany in 1887, but nothing was really done with the drug until the late 1920s when was used to treat everything from depression to congestion.
Methamphetamine, which is more potent and easy to manufacture, was discovered in Japan in 1919. Its crystalline nature made it soluble in water and therefore a good candidate for injection. Amazingly, it is still manufactured legally in the U.S. and sold under the trade name Desoxyn.
So this drug is no stranger to American society. It has been used and abused here since the early part of the 20th Century, but was, for the most part, mainly an urban problem.
It is only recently it has begun its move into rural America, devastating communities across the nation and spreading its poison like some cunning and duplicitous chemical virus.
Its production is almost impossible to control since the chemicals and materials needed to make it are readily available, evidenced by the proliferation of meth labs in small towns all over America.
And it is no different here in McMinnville. One hardly sees a week go by without a report of a meth lab being discovered by local law enforcement.
Families are torn apart and children are thrust into the care of the state while their parents languish in jail. And sadly, the drug gains such a hold on the user’s psyche the large majority of them re-offend shortly after being released.
So how do we battle this chemical behemoth? There are no easy answers, but one method that has had at least some success utilizes a very basic premise, education.
The problem here is that many parents find drug use, like sex, a very uncomfortable subject to discuss with their children, but if we are to get beyond this scourge we must learn to communicate the incredible dangers of this drug to our children. And we must do it over and over again until it becomes ingrained.
We have to be cognizant of the fact that one tryst with this seductive monster may pull our children into an inescapable nightmare of highs and lows. We have to convince them that this is one drug they can never “just try it out to see what it’s like.”
They must be made to realize the only way to defeat this plague is to avoid exposure at any cost. They must be made to understand where this drug is concerned, once is never enough.