Pubdate: Sun, 19 Jun 2005
Source: Springfield News-Leader (MO)
506190371/1001/ARCHIVES
Copyright: 2005 The Springfield News-Leader
Contact:  http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1129
Author: Pamela Brogan  and Larry Bivins

METH AS LETHAL FOR FAMILIES AS BODIES

The Drug Destructive Often Devours Parents, Then Sets To Work On Kids

Whether it's smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected, methamphetamine is 
more addictive and more damaging to the brain than cocaine, heroin and most 
other illegal drugs.

It's also unusually efficient at ruining lives, ensnaring entire families 
and turning parents and children into addicts fixated only on their next 
euphoric high.

"If the adults use it, the kids are going to be around it and get roped 
in," said Dr. William Haning, director of the Addiction Psychiatry 
Residency Program for the University of Hawaii's medical school. "As crazy 
as this sounds, the parent won't necessarily see this as a bad thing."

Many recovering meth-amphetamine addicts say they were hooked after using 
the drug just once. They say meth took over their lives, destroying their 
ability to work and to function as parents

Bonnie Roller, 42, of Sparta, said that when she began using and making 
meth at home, she was determined to keep her teenage son away from it. But 
her addiction quickly destroyed any control she had over her own life and 
his. Her son also ended up hooked.

Both were arrested in 2001, Roller said, as they tried to buy ingredients 
to manufacture more meth.

"Meth will eat up your mind," said Roller, now recovering from her 
addiction. "I wanted to be a good mother. It breaks my heart that I wasn't."

Such stories have become increasingly common as the meth epidemic continues 
to sweep from west to east across the country.

"The threat associated with methamphetamine trafficking and abuse has 
increased sharply since 2002 and now exceeds that of any other drug," 
according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

"If you want to lose everything in your life, just try meth," said Paula 
Cook of Muskogee, Okla., whose addiction cost her a job as a police 
dispatcher and custody of three of her six children.

It takes meth addicts between 12 and 24 months to fight back from their 
habit, longer than it takes cocaine or heroin addicts to recover.

And recent studies show meth does more damage to the brain than other 
drugs. A 2004 study by UCLA researchers, for example, showed meth causes 
"severe gray-matter deficits" in the brain — comparable to the damage 
apparent in the early stages of dementia.

"It erases all your feelings and rational judgments because it is so 
addictive," said Cook, 41. "It is not a recreational drug but a progressive 
disease."

Meth addiction is facilitated by a misconception — that it's safe to use 
because amphetamines have legitimate medical uses as weight-loss aids or to 
treat sleep disorders or attention deficit disorder in children.

"People claim that it helps them work better," Haning said. "It's sometimes 
easier for the family to legitimize usage."

But he and other experts warn that there's nothing safe about meth. The 
drug causes large increases in the brain's production of mood-enhancing 
dopamine, in some cases permanently damaging dopamine cells.

"It is one of the most toxic drugs to the brain, ranking high with gasoline 
inhalants," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on 
Drug Abuse in Washington. "It lasts in your brain much longer than cocaine."

Jody Gentry, 36, of Reeds Spring, became so dependent on meth in 2000 that 
he abandoned his wife and moved into her car. That allowed him to spend all 
his time looking for remote places in the woods to set up his portable lab, 
cook meth and get high.

"All I cared about was me and my habit," said Gentry, now recovering from 
his addiction. "Once I tried it, I was hooked and thought about it every day."
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