Prescriptions Required To Fight Meth Use Starting today, sinus and allergy sufferer Joan Blanks of Pearl won't be able to buy her favorite antidotes without a doctor's blessing. "But, praise the Lord, I've been able to get prescriptions written, and they're good for a year," said Blanks, 79. This day marks the arrival of new restrictions on buying drugs containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, an essential ingredient for making crystal methamphetamine, an illegal, addictive drug experts say destroys families. [continues 763 words]
If not for methamphetamine, the lives of Gayla Chalmers and Nickie Langford probably would have never intersected in Mississippi. Chalmers, 44, is from Rogers, Ark.; Langford, 24, is from Tuscaloosa, Ala. Recently, both discovered the Friendship Connection in Jackson, a residential drug-treatment facility for women. They began their lives separated by hundreds of miles and an entire generation. But meth brought them to the same place. Langford For Nickie Langford, it started with a guy. Until then, she was never interested in any "harder drugs," she said, never mind meth. [continues 1141 words]
Cleaning up meth labs in the state last year cost millions of dollars, the head of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics said. In Mississippi, it costs from $2,500 to $7,000 to clean up a meth lab, said director Marshall Fisher. In 2009, more than 620 meth labs were seized in the state, which translates to a cost of between $1.5 million and $4.3 million. But the overall cost of cleaning up everything about meth use is virtually immeasurable, experts say. [continues 462 words]
Meth Surpasses Cocaine In Arrests Unnecessary evil. Cycle of madness. Modern-day plague. That's how law enforcement officials describe methamphetamine, an illegal stimulant and appetite suppressant known as "the poor man's cocaine." This relatively cheap, illegal drug is a physical and spiritual corrosive eating into Mississippi's resources, social fabric, and even its soul, law enforcement says. In 2009 alone, the epidemic spawned at least 620 seizures of meth laboratories by law enforcement agencies. That's more than double the number from the previous year. [continues 814 words]
