THE AUSTRALIAN Crystal meth is the new heroin 5/9/05

[crystalmel]

Another Australian article on Crystal meth

THE AUSTRALIAN
Crystal meth is the new heroin
Amanda Hodge
September 05, 2005

CHINESE drug syndicates are targeting Australia as a growing market for crystal methamphetamine - a cheap, addictive and highly dangerous drug that police and doctors warn is the new heroin on Australian streets.

Known as ice for its highly pure crystalline form, the drug can be bought for as little as $50 a gram and is earning a sinister reputation as users swamp the nation's hospitals, psychiatric services and courts.

A National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre study has found the methamphetamine problem is now as large as heroin abuse was during its peak in the late 1990s. As many as 73,000 people nationwide are addicted to methamphetamine, about 1 1/2 times the number of heroin addicts.

Australian Crime Commission spokesman Kevin Kitson said many Chinese syndicates involved in heroin importation had switched to synthetic drugs because they were not crop-cycle dependent and could be manufactured in almost any location.

The commission's latest drug report found the syndicates were deliberately carving out a market in Australia, and noted a rise in the median purity of crystal meth on the street market.

Smoked, injected, snorted or anally inserted, crystal meth releases a flood of dopamine and seratonin to the brain, removing inhibitions and creating a feeling of euphoria.

But the comedown from the drug can involve depression, and in a growing number of cases serious psychosis.

The NDARC study found a 58 per cent rise in the number of hospital admissions for drug-related psychosis since 1999. Between 2003 and last year, 3190 methamphetamine users across the nation were taken to hospital for mental and behaviour disorders.

Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital emergency care director Gordian Fulde estimated violence associated with crystal meth in his hospital had risen five-fold between 2000 and last year. "I have been emergency department director here for 25 years and nothing has scared me as much as these people," Dr Fulde said.

"We see people who are totally disinhibited, totally violent and out of control."

Link:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16492875%5E2702,00.html

 

[plazma]

Continuing the journalistic quality standards you'd expect from the same people who bring you FOX news.

-plaz out-

 

[rah]

Plazma; which points in the article did you disagree with?

 

[rah]

The article could possibly be referring to grams of speed which have been cut.
It is common for methamphetamines to be sold as either pure points (for smoking, injecting) or cut grams (for snorting). Not that this is really relevant to anything.

 

[fcuking_in_heaven]

Plazma; which points in the article did you disagree with?

We're waiting. maybe the price is wrong but pretty much everything else seems to be correct.

fcuk in heaven

 

[JoeBloggs]

this is pretty much the exact same as the other recent article about meth, except slightly re-worded.

 

[gher]

$50/g balances out the $50/pill that gets quoted in all the ecstasy seizure articles.

 

[Fry-d-]

Amazing that the most insignificant and irelevant piece of information in the article creates the most discussion.

 

[rah]

The moral of the story... meth abuse is really bad. Be careful people.

 

[TheYellowDart]

CHINESE drug syndicates are targeting Australia as a growing market for crystal methamphetamine

Hmm, why are they bringing race into this? I'm sure you will find that we make plenty of the stuff here without the help of the Chinese. It just seems so irrelevant.

a cheap, addictive and highly dangerous drug that police and doctors warn is the new heroin on Australian streets.

Yes it is pretty damn cheap and I've seen some of the nasty side effects of addiction to it but I fail to see how meth is in any way whatsoever similar to heroin. The effects of each drug on the body couldn't be further from eachother. Besides, I thought crack was the new heroin?

Known as ice for its highly pure crystalline form, the drug can be bought for as little as $50 a gram and is earning a sinister reputation as users swamp the nation's hospitals, psychiatric services and courts.

If the nations hospitals, psychiatric services and courts are being swamped maybe this is an indication that the current prohibitionist strategy in the minimisation of the harm of drugs just isn't working?

A National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre study has found the methamphetamine problem is now as large as heroin abuse was during its peak in the late 1990s. As many as 73,000 people nationwide are addicted to methamphetamine, about 1 1/2 times the number of heroin addicts.

Australian Crime Commission spokesman Kevin Kitson said many Chinese syndicates involved in heroin importation had switched to synthetic drugs because they were not crop-cycle dependent and could be manufactured in almost any location.

The commission's latest drug report found the syndicates were deliberately carving out a market in Australia, and noted a rise in the median purity of crystal meth on the street market.

Again they pull the race card. Maybe these syndicates are switching to methamphetamine because heroin is simply becoming out of favour with the drug-using demographic? Maybe it's because precursors to these synthetic drugs (of which heroin actually is too, for that matter, it doesn't occur naturally -- morphine/codeine do) are cheaper?

Why is it always the foreign criminal syndicates who conspire to get innocent young okker aussies addicted to every new drug that jumps on the market? Is it that far a stretch of the imagination that these criminal sndicates are just reacting to market trends and customer demand? They say the black market is the most perfect example of capitalism at work one will ever come across.

Smoked, injected, snorted or anally inserted, crystal meth releases a flood of dopamine and seratonin to the brain, removing inhibitions and creating a feeling of euphoria.

But the comedown from the drug can involve depression, and in a growing number of cases serious psychosis.

The methods of administration listed, while true enough, seem to be included more for the shock value of "the lengths those psycho junkies will go to to get high". I find this especially apparent in their inclusion of intravenal/muscular and rectal administration but the convenient exclusion of oral administration.

The NDARC study found a 58 per cent rise in the number of hospital admissions for drug-related psychosis since 1999. Between 2003 and last year, 3190 methamphetamine users across the nation were taken to hospital for mental and behaviour disorders.

The first statistic is irrelevant. What the author is trying to imply is that there has been a 58% rise in the number of meth-related psychosis while the actual statistic is for hospital admissions due to psychosis which are related to all drugs.

The second statistic is an attempt to bolster the firsts implications that there has been a huge rise in drug-related psychosis but it doesn't actually do this for two reasons: a) It provides a single statistic which only covers a single period of time. It doesn't provide any other data to compare rather it relies on the previously stated statistic to imply an increase. b) It doesn't explicitly state that use of methamphetamines were the cause of all of these mental and behavioural disorders. I don't doubt that many would have been a direct result of meth abuse, but if the statistic doesn't explicitly say that it's quite irrelevant.

Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital emergency care director Gordian Fulde estimated violence associated with crystal meth in his hospital had risen five-fold between 2000 and last year. "I have been emergency department director here for 25 years and nothing has scared me as much as these people," Dr Fulde said.

"We see people who are totally disinhibited, totally violent and out of control."

A 500% increase in 5 years is absolutely massive and doesn't seem to correlate with my first-hand experience but I'm willing to concede on this point as I'm sure Fulde would be much more aware of such a trend occuring within his hospital than I would. I think this is again quite telling that in order to reduce these negative aspects of drug use we must find a different approach than just telling people it will kill them and turn them into a loser.

 

[nO_iRiS]

Meth doesnt cause a feeling of euphoria.

 

[BigTrancer]

According to me and everyone I know who has tried methamphetamine, it does cause euphoria, particularly when smoked. I guess your definition of euphoria might be different, as might your meth...

BigTrancer

 

[rah]

Race card?

 

[nO_iRiS]

I stand corrected. Ive never tried it personally, but my friends use it on a regular basis and take it just to speed themselves up. The reason Ive never wanted to touch it was because I didnt think it was worth it just being a speedy drug with no euphoria. Should give it a try.

 

[plazma]

Rah: My disagreements with the article are legion, apart from taking a completely alarmist tone, along the lines of the "reefer madness" classic, ensuring that meth heads are painted as being dangerous violent psychotics, the article seems to lack any real journalistic credibility, blaming outside influences for the availability of cheap drugs, and essentially taking the standard line of the majority of tabloid crap written to scare people away from drugs and scare them away from people who use them.

I'd wager that if you spend 72 hours awake and drinking you'd end up with just as much probability of being violent and psychotic as you would after a 72 hour meth binge.

Sure it's damaging if used to excess, but what drug isn't?

Enough?

And smoked methamphetamine is one of the smoothest euphoric highs you'll find around. Pity about it being about as good for your lungs as inhaling battery acid.

-plaz out-

P.S : Rah, it seems to me you're letting your own negative experiences colour your attitude towards the drug as a whole. Just because it does that for you, doesn't alter the fact that the vast majority of people don't find it makes them violent and or psychotic.

 

[rah]

Well my personal opinion varies. I am one of those people who when does meth to excess turns into a violent-sociopathic-skitzophrenic. Drinking a lot would just make me fall asleep. And I believe being addicted to methamphetamines to be the worst addiction one could have.

 

[macca macca]

Another Australian article on Crystal meth

As many as 73,000 people nationwide are addicted to methamphetamine, about 1 1/2 times the number of heroin addicts.

How could they poissibly get a statistic like that? I know for a fact, they didn't ask me if i was addicted to meth.

 

[Zaineaol]

^lol macca
no_iris: do your self a favour, meth really isn't that great - it SOMETIMES provides me with a feeling of euphoria, but due to tollerance these days, to get to that point, theres a whole shitload of money going down the drain - and that god damn crack pipe is such an arse!

ATM i'm seeing a few people fall down the meth hole, i myself am trying to pull myself out - and its working to an extent...

believe no one that meth is cheap - simply because with use - tollerance builds so quickly, and it becomes alot easier to just buy a gram instead of the points you were getting, coz you still smoke that in an hour (assuming u'd be vapourising and smoking your meth)

If you havn't taken meth, read up on it, and im sure there would be something - even here on bluelight and erowid that isn't anti-meth that would sway your ideas...

i prefer 4-MAR when i find it - but that doesn't happen often... hell most the meth i find in melbourne is the crappy powdered shit thats cut to hell

 

[swifty]

Meth definitely creates euphoria... used responsibly, meth is great fun IMO...

 

[ayjay]

This thread really should be merged with the other one - it's virtually the same media story, in the same paper.

I'm with plaz - a typically crappy piece of journalism. There's no doubt that meth is a powerful drug that needs to be treated with respect - but I can't see horror story media like this doing anything to reduce the damage. Quite the opposite in fact.

As for the "new heroin" - that's garbage. Heroin users haven't all switched to meth (although some did around 2001 when the heroin "drought" was at its worst - and in Sydney, there was a spike in cocaine injecting). Just remember, speed in its various forms has always been the second most popular illicit drug in Oz (after good 'ol choof of course). I think there has been an expansion in the market for meth, because of the recent increase in availability of higher purity forms (dare we call it ice, or is that reserved for 4-MAR ). Maybe meth is the 'new heroin' in that it is replacing heroin as the most demonised drug in media?