The whole 'faces of meth' and 'not even once' meth education programs here in the United States, Lindsey Lohan, and that tweaker stripper on the drug rehab documentary show 'Intervention' are probably what you mean, or that is what a lot of people think your average meth user looks like or will look like eventually if they keep using the drug.
Yeah, exactly. We don't see many people who look like that. I'm not sure if there are people who look like that in the US, or if it's just propaganda.
When I lived in a large city with lots of meth you could tell who the hardcover addicts of it were since they were usually men who looked a lot older than they were and if they smoked it or injected it they usually were missing all or most of their teeth, some got paranoid or nervous, they would have difficulty holding a conversation or did not make sense when they talked, and were quick to get angry over nothing.
The tooth loss is a poverty thing, not a meth thing. I mean, I'm not disputing that meth is terrible for your oral health, but if middle class or wealthier users (who totally exist) start having teeth problems, they just go to the dentist and get them fixed. Worst case scenario, dentures a little earlier than planned.
However I have also met a lot of younger people who unless they told you how they use meth you would have no idea they used it, or did use it at times or in the past. The same goes for people I know who are or were into other drugs like coke, crack, dope and other opiates.
There's conflicting research, but the general consensus is that *most* drug users "age out" of stimulant use (they are less likely to use as they get older). So it's not really a good comparison to look at a larger group of young users with a smaller group of "die hard" older users. For the record, I've encountered older/long term stimulant users who "look it" and others that you wouldn't be able to tell at all. That said, pretty much everyone in Australia has terrible sun damaged skin.
I think if you shoot it all bets are off. I have had a few side effects I am not pleased with. Some of the way your body releases meth is through the pores. When the pores struggle to open and expel the poison they can get infected a bit. I have had a few of those on my back. I read every book about meth I can find so I know what the hell is going on when something arises.
Whoa I missed this post. What a bunch of stigmatising nonsense.
Your skin isn't a toxin filter - that's the role of your liver, kidneys and (to a lesser extent) your lungs. You don't excrete meth through your pores.
I take back what I said earlier about not knowing anyone that looks that bad as those mug shots they post. Street prostitutes look like that, a lot of 'em. Being homeless, addicted, and prostituting takes away everything a female human being has.
So not all street based sex workers are homeless OR addicted to drugs? Some of them are actually making a decent amount of money in a form of work with no overheads and no boss. I totally get that some people experience trauma from doing sex work when they have no other choice (especially in criminalised environments) but it's really gross to project your stigmatising views about how YOU would feel having sex for money on people who are doing that work.
The only way you can sink any lower is being on death row. And the two are equatable in my mind: YOU ARE DYING. When you are addicted, homeless, and a prostitute you are busy killing yourself. When you are on death row society has deemed you acceptable for extermination i.e. to be killed.
I really don't understand why you're mixing sex work in with homelessness and addiction as something that "kills" you? Would you like to clarify, if you're talking about a specific demographic or experience? You're really generalising in a pretty unpleasant way.
Those girls that ended up on the street, I wonder where they came from. Does anybody love them? What happened? Frontline I think it was, profiled three women that were murdered in Las Vegas and their bodies dumped in the same spot. They all had lives much like most of us, boyfriends, husbands, children, parents. The pictures shown of these woman at an earlier time, they looked like most of us do. Regular people. They still had hope in their eyes. Then they got hooked. Then they ended up on the streets behind their habits. Then, tortured, raped, and murdered, the final insult.
Again, this isn't a linear progression of cause and effect? Were the women working to support habits, or were they just drug using women who found street based sex work to be the most accommodating form of work for them as drug users? Would their job make them not "regular people" (wtf?) if they hadn't been raped and murdered? Would you be labeling their drug use a causative factor in their deaths if they'd been murdered by their spouse, which is far more likely to happen?
Research done in Australia from the 90s to today has consistently found that the 'categories' in the sex industry are porous and it has a lot of mobility - ie, workers who work on the street are likely to move to/from other forms of work (like brothel work, stripping, private escorting, etc) as their needs require. There's no "what a street based sex worker" looks like. You've probably met more than one woman who's done sex work (inc on the street) and not even known it.
