The craving is so powerful that if they can't buy from suppliers, meth addicts will make their own brews, using recipes available over the Internet or in book shops, with ingredients that can be purchased in bulk from drugstores. The side effects of chronic use include itchy scalps and skin, scabs from all the scratching and teeth that fall out. The drug triggers sleeplessness, agitation and violence. Researchers say the damage to the brain may be irreversible. That has to change.
Money is needed in large amounts for education, enforcement, treatment and environmental cleanup.
Unfortunately, politicians, at both the state and federal level, have failed to grasp the scope of the problem. Gov. Gray Davis inexcusably vetoed a bill that would have created meth site cleanup standards. Predictably and understandably, local and state governments' limited answer to the meth threat has been to attack the supply side. It's a response weighted toward cops and prosecutors, leaving little for education, treatment and cleanup. An adequate police response to attack the supply side of the meth threat is essential.