Motel Meth Labs

[Uncle Wiggly]

No big news as-far-as Meth lab quantity is concerned but I never realized using motel/hotel rooms is so common. Something to think about especially if you have small children. :o
Maybe they should start putting signs on the doors.

:cool: NO METH COOKED IN THIS ROOM :cool:


CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Methamphetamine "cooks" are secretly converting hundreds of motel and hotel rooms into covert drug labs — leaving behind a toxic mess for unsuspecting customers and housekeeping crews.

They are places where drug-makers can go unnoticed, mixing the chemicals needed for the highly addictive stimulant in a matter of hours before slipping out the next morning. The dangerous contaminants can lurk on countertops, carpets and bathtubs, and chemical odors that might be a warning clue to those who follow can be masked by tobacco smoke and other scents. Motels can be an attractive alternative for drug makers seeking to avoid a police raid on their own homes.

"They can seize the trailer or seize your house but they can't seize a motel room," said Dr. Sullivan Smith, director of emergency services at Cookeville Regional Medical Center in north-central Tennessee.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records obtained by The Associated Press show that states reported finding evidence of drug-making in 1,789 motel and hotel rooms in the past five years — and that's just those the authorities found.
Some cleanup professionals hired to make the travelers' havens livable again say most of their work is done on properties where a meth lab was discovered long after the fact.

The number of clandestine labs that are never found is difficult to pin down. There was a slight uptick in hotel and motel lab busts reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008 from the previous year, with 149 in 2006, 87 in 2007 and 127 in 2008. The tally was 461 in 2005 and 965 in 2004, before there were restrictions on purchasing over-the-counter decongestants often used as ingredients. The DEA count is based on states that reported labs.
The toxins can linger for days if meth lab hygienists wearing hazmat suits don't clean living areas.

The cleanups cost anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000. Even short-term exposure to vapors and residue where the drug is smoked or cooked can cause eye and skin irritation, vomiting, rashes, asthma problems and other respiratory issues.
"It probably happens all the time," said John Martyny, a National Jewish Medical and Research Center associate professor who is also an industrial hygienist and meth researcher. "The difficulty is, how do you make that attribution? You might think it is from cigarette smoking."

Martyny said health effects from long-term exposure to the drug making are not known because the clandestine labs did not become widespread until the 1990s.
The volatile labs can be set up in less than four hours inside a hotel or motel room, according to The American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Methods vary for making the drug, but the equipment can be simple enough to fit in a single backpack: A large soft drink bottle with some rubber tubing, duct tape, batteries, refrigerant packs and a decongestant that contains ephedrine or pseudoephedrine.

Regardless of the complexity, "You are going to leave behind meth and caustic or potentially hazardous chemicals," said Tommy Farmer, director of Tennessee's Methamphetamine Task Force.


"The smart ones come in about 10 o'clock at night and they make it all night and are out of there by 8 a.m," said Joseph McInerney, president and CEO of the association.

Environmental services specialist John Nale of Chattanooga, who is licensed to clean up meth labs, said tests he has conducted for buyers of motel properties have shown chemicals from clandestine labs that were never previously discovered and reported.
Joe Mazzuca, operations manager at Meth Lab Cleanup Co. in Post Falls, Idaho, said he has tested pricey hotel rooms in Idaho and Utah and discovered contaminants where no one previously suspected a meth lab had been.

"Seventy percent of the work the company does are properties that were never busted," Mazzuca said.

Mazzuca said meth chemicals often leave purplish stains, and cooks often leave behind products such as cat litter used to absorb foul odors. Maids at one Utah hotel found absorbent material left hidden between mattresses and box springs.
"It is very toxic stuff and they don't want to carry it around," Mazzuca said.

Nale said motel and hotel customers may be reluctant to speak up if something is suspicious. He's also careful not to use coffee pots and other items provided in guest rooms.
"It could be chemicals or you just don't know what has been done with those," he said.

McInerney, the hotel and lodging association president, said few meth labs are set up in hotels compared with the industry renting about 3 million rooms a day. He said operators typically are vigilant about monitoring for any meth problems.
In East Ridge, on Interstate 75 a few miles from Chattanooga, police last month uncovered one lab in the Cascade Motel. They posted a quarantine sign on the door of the room until the owner pays for a cleanup and the affected area is cleared for use.

Police investigator Josh Creel said he and other officers located the chemicals, tubing and glassware that were being used when they made the arrests at the Cascade Motel. He advised the manager to leave the door and window open for several days in preparation for the cleanup, which involved replacing many of the furnishings.
The motel manager, Pradip Patel, declined comment other than, "Our bad luck."

[oxy kid]

Meth is rampant in the south. Its everywhere....There are news of Meth busts almost everyday on the news.

[KiloByte]

Nice way to put innocent people at serious risk.

[losangeleslifer]

TWEAK SUCKS.

[jacky]

I knew an older guy, a chemist, and a basic genius that got around making meth on a boat, in a bay, in California.

he would have people take the drugs off the boat, and bring him food and money...
he said he didnt step off that boat for a few years.
I hate to think where the toxic crap was going.

he would have a 5 gallon bucket for the junkies to piss in.
and then he would reclaim about 1-2 ounces of good crystal from the bucket full of junky piss.

he also told me about ephedrine hydrosulphate solution that is used as a conductor of electricity in transformers.
a mid size transformer could yeild enough liquid for around 10,000$ worth of wholesale meth.

this guy even rigged a small concert going meth cooker.
it was a bottle with a condom, ephedrine, and the right chems.
he could make up a clean batch in a toilet, and throw the whole thing in the trash on his way out.

this guy also used to claim that mixing menthol into a prostitutes IV tweak shot made their pussy taste better within a few seconds.

oh man...this guys storys were too much.

he was a brilliant person when he wasnt tweaking.

when I met him, in a half way house we were living at...he just got out of san quentin.
something tells me he got busted for more than meth......I think he was a perv as well. and maybe there was some sexual assualt.
but because I dont really know...I cant say.

he worked on the particle accelerator when he was going to stanford.
he was pretty much a physicist, chemist, junky.
he was into astral travel, paradoxical and paranormal experiences.

was the one who pointed me to the books by Shroedinger.

when I first met him he was working at a subwhich shop. minimum wage type of job.
within two months of listening to his outrageous stories I started to doubt some of his claims.
I had more respect for him when he took an interview one week, and the next week walked into a 50,000$ a year job as a chemist/physicist for a technical research facility.

I didnt remain sober long enough...and left the halfway house early. but he was one of the good guys there.
probably a rare personality compared to many tweakers....but when he was using...from what I can tell, he was one of the more dangerous and twisted types.
made us bliss baby heroin addicts look like social workers. ha ha.

I have some other freinds that had a hard time with meth.
one guys ears were so bad from his teeth rotting, that his girlfreind could smell the decay when he took a shower......not from his open mouth...but just from him "cleaning" his ears.
things got so bad, that his father in law, a DEA agent who didnt much care for his son in law, or any of us really, basically had to set the guy up illegally. the local cops took pity, and helped the agent get this guy into jail so then they could coax him into treatment.
I thought for the most part that this guy was a dead man. half rotting zombie ass.
but he eventually got cleaned up.
now we keep in contact online...and he has kids, and a job, and a life.
he turned it around fairly quickly.

sadly, the people I know that were most devestated by meth use were people like a dad that fucked and whored his own daughter/s, and got his self thrown in prison twice for sexual molestation.
both his daughters became meth and heroin addicts. I thought they were both going to die as well....but they didnt...and now they are both clean.
another girl I knew started as a Ballerina...and ended up a dead junkie floating in a bathtub at her parents house because she relapsed on heroin. she left a child behind...who will never know his mother, or father.
yeah....most of the people that I knew tweaked real bad, made it to quit.
the people I know that died of heroin are another story. compared to alcohol or car accidents, suicide, or other types of drug overdoses....most of my freinds have died relapsing on heroin. alcohol was a factor in almost all cases.
and one was a "succesful" suicide overdose.....this gentleman junky taught me alot about junk and addiction. he had a prison sentence coming, and as a gay/bisexual...he thought it better to check out.
he was with a freind...and gave that guy a non lethal shot. called the paramedics...had them take his freind to the ER,...and then he drank and shot up dope till he died and slumped forward on the toilet with his head in a trash can. a book called premonition of a dead man on the bed.
he craftily avoided anyone being able to stop him.
when my freind woke up in the hospital, sick from overdose...he realized that he had been duped. our freind had managed to kill himself despite anyone.

you know, I tried to use meth a few times.
and I was so adversely effected by it, that I literally couldnt muster doing it for more than 2-3 days.
and even sleeping a bit.
it would be a hard thing for me to get addicted to.

I just couldnt see not sleeping.....and what to do with all that ill gotten time?

[Papa Verine]

Wow Jacky...

I was addicted to amphetamines in high school for a couple years. I had a source for dextroamphetamine and I'd use Ritalin when I couldn't get amphetamines. I was always amazed at how similar the 2 drugs were in effect. Anyway, I can see how Meth becomes so addictive. I hated doing speed every day. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about those years and how much it sucked. Yet... I kept on doing it, every day, and I craved it real bad. Meth would've been significantly worse. We didn't have A lot of meth in Chicago in the 90's. It was very rare here. I did it once when I was young but the strange dudes I got it from were calling it "P2P". I wonder if that makes any sense to the chemically knowledged here. I have no idea what that stood for.

[Natas666]

Tweak motels were/are? big in Orygun, you can tell a room has been infected by the cat piss smell.Nasty drug with no redeeming value.

[rockbottom]

Wow Jacky...

I was addicted to amphetamines in high school for a couple years. I had a source for dextroamphetamine and I'd use Ritalin when I couldn't get amphetamines. I was always amazed at how similar the 2 drugs were in effect. Anyway, I can see how Meth becomes so addictive. I hated doing speed every day. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about those years and how much it sucked. Yet... I kept on doing it, every day, and I craved it real bad. Meth would've been significantly worse. We didn't have A lot of meth in Chicago in the 90's. It was very rare here. I did it once when I was young but the strange dudes I got it from were calling it "P2P". I wonder if that makes any sense to the chemically knowledged here. I have no idea what that stood for.


the bikers used p2p to make meth up here in the desert it became rare and worth alot of money then they switched to red phospherous---im not a hater of meth i did it for 20 years and i thought it was great for sex and during my tweaking yrs iwas a good artist spending hours and hours carving stone and making jewelery not to mentin i made a fortune selling the shit i quit naturally just got older and the shit didnt feel good anymore---i can watch people smoke it and it doesnt affect me at all except to say i dont want any---i wonder if thats why now i love downers? i gotta make up for all the sleep i lost:cool:



dont wanna forget herion we used to make up speedballs with speed and herion during the p2p days the glass would give u a hella rush almost as good as coke plus the herion would be a hella rush and the H would level u out my ears r ringing as i write---whooooosh

[Papa Verine]

I DID do A lot of artwork myself during the time RB. Thanks for the info on P2P, at least that makes some sense as to why they were calling it P2P. It was certainly meth though, and certainly came from bikers too.

[rockbottom]

at least the bikers had some sense--the biggest lab i personally knew of the "chemists" would wear scuba gear while cooking they knew the shit was toxic and the other bikers would scout out natural caves we have up here or used abandoned gold mines--the shit is toxic and highly explosive and one of the bigger chemists was named Critter so of course when he got burned in a lab explosion his name became Krispy Critter---bikers have a sense of humor too;)

[Chipper]

... made us bliss baby heroin addicts look like social workers ...

Thanks for the :D's!

[Narkotikon]

In late 2000 to early 2001 I was at my first inpatient rehab. It was in a shithole of a town called Norton, Kansas. I was sent there because my sisters flipped out when I had admitted to doing a few lines of coke here and there, and of course they told my mother, who in turn said I had to go to this rehab that my middle sister found. So, I was flown from Cincinnati out to Norton, Kansas.

EVERYONE there was there for meth. I was the only one who was there actively for coke. Most of the meth heads admitted to doing coke, but they preferred meth. I hadn't tried it yet, and knew very little about meth, but I just kept thinking to myself "how can you not like coke?" Then, when I finally tried smoking cyrstal a few years later, I still felt like that. I mean, for me personally, I don't see how anyone can like meth over coke. I just don't like meth.

Anyway, while I was there, one of the meth heads was talking about how he had made an actual mobile meth lab in the trunk of his car. Talk about dangerous. I have no idea what that would entail, because I don't know how you make meth. I know it entails pseudophedrine or ephedrine and then chemicals and is fairly easy to make in comparrison to other things, but that's all I know. I just couldn't get the image of his car randomly blowing up someday. That's just fucking stupid in my opinion.

[halfalien_s4]

No big news as-far-as Meth lab quantity is concerned but I never realized using motel/hotel rooms is so common. Something to think about especially if you have small children. :o
Maybe they should start putting signs on the doors.

:cool: NO METH COOKED IN THIS ROOM :cool:


CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Methamphetamine "cooks" are secretly converting hundreds of motel and hotel rooms into covert drug labs — leaving behind a toxic mess for unsuspecting customers and housekeeping crews.

They are places where drug-makers can go unnoticed, mixing the chemicals needed for the highly addictive stimulant in a matter of hours before slipping out the next morning. The dangerous contaminants can lurk on countertops, carpets and bathtubs, and chemical odors that might be a warning clue to those who follow can be masked by tobacco smoke and other scents. Motels can be an attractive alternative for drug makers seeking to avoid a police raid on their own homes.

"They can seize the trailer or seize your house but they can't seize a motel room," said Dr. Sullivan Smith, director of emergency services at Cookeville Regional Medical Center in north-central Tennessee.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records obtained by The Associated Press show that states reported finding evidence of drug-making in 1,789 motel and hotel rooms in the past five years — and that's just those the authorities found.
Some cleanup professionals hired to make the travelers' havens livable again say most of their work is done on properties where a meth lab was discovered long after the fact.

The number of clandestine labs that are never found is difficult to pin down. There was a slight uptick in hotel and motel lab busts reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2008 from the previous year, with 149 in 2006, 87 in 2007 and 127 in 2008. The tally was 461 in 2005 and 965 in 2004, before there were restrictions on purchasing over-the-counter decongestants often used as ingredients. The DEA count is based on states that reported labs.
The toxins can linger for days if meth lab hygienists wearing hazmat suits don't clean living areas.

The cleanups cost anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000. Even short-term exposure to vapors and residue where the drug is smoked or cooked can cause eye and skin irritation, vomiting, rashes, asthma problems and other respiratory issues.
"It probably happens all the time," said John Martyny, a National Jewish Medical and Research Center associate professor who is also an industrial hygienist and meth researcher. "The difficulty is, how do you make that attribution? You might think it is from cigarette smoking."

Martyny said health effects from long-term exposure to the drug making are not known because the clandestine labs did not become widespread until the 1990s.
The volatile labs can be set up in less than four hours inside a hotel or motel room, according to The American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Methods vary for making the drug, but the equipment can be simple enough to fit in a single backpack: A large soft drink bottle with some rubber tubing, duct tape, batteries, refrigerant packs and a decongestant that contains ephedrine or pseudoephedrine.

Regardless of the complexity, "You are going to leave behind meth and caustic or potentially hazardous chemicals," said Tommy Farmer, director of Tennessee's Methamphetamine Task Force.


"The smart ones come in about 10 o'clock at night and they make it all night and are out of there by 8 a.m," said Joseph McInerney, president and CEO of the association.

Environmental services specialist John Nale of Chattanooga, who is licensed to clean up meth labs, said tests he has conducted for buyers of motel properties have shown chemicals from clandestine labs that were never previously discovered and reported.
Joe Mazzuca, operations manager at Meth Lab Cleanup Co. in Post Falls, Idaho, said he has tested pricey hotel rooms in Idaho and Utah and discovered contaminants where no one previously suspected a meth lab had been.

"Seventy percent of the work the company does are properties that were never busted," Mazzuca said.

Mazzuca said meth chemicals often leave purplish stains, and cooks often leave behind products such as cat litter used to absorb foul odors. Maids at one Utah hotel found absorbent material left hidden between mattresses and box springs.
"It is very toxic stuff and they don't want to carry it around," Mazzuca said.

Nale said motel and hotel customers may be reluctant to speak up if something is suspicious. He's also careful not to use coffee pots and other items provided in guest rooms.
"It could be chemicals or you just don't know what has been done with those," he said.

McInerney, the hotel and lodging association president, said few meth labs are set up in hotels compared with the industry renting about 3 million rooms a day. He said operators typically are vigilant about monitoring for any meth problems.
In East Ridge, on Interstate 75 a few miles from Chattanooga, police last month uncovered one lab in the Cascade Motel. They posted a quarantine sign on the door of the room until the owner pays for a cleanup and the affected area is cleared for use.

Police investigator Josh Creel said he and other officers located the chemicals, tubing and glassware that were being used when they made the arrests at the Cascade Motel. He advised the manager to leave the door and window open for several days in preparation for the cleanup, which involved replacing many of the furnishings.
The motel manager, Pradip Patel, declined comment other than, "Our bad luck."









dude...the first thing that sprang to mind when i saw this threas was the movie "Spun"....

[Papa Verine]

^^^ me too.

I love that movie. That's the movie that made me a Micky Rourke fan. That and Sin City. Now everybody's jumping on the MR bandwagon.

[tch2296]

I began using amphetamines (Adderall, Dexedrine) in high school. I absolutely loved them, I used them at least twice a week but it never got to the point where it was unhealthy, and all my friends were using it too. I'd just get them for free from my best friend who got 60 x 20 mg Adderalls.

Once I left for college on the west coast, I knew I was going to encounter methamphetamine (it is really hard to find in Boston, I never tried it before college), and I was excited to try it. I met a hardcore tweaker who did nothing except steal shit and smoke tweak, and I got the opportunity to try it.

I loved it. I definitely prefer it over cocaine, but since meth was kind of stigmatized in my group of friends (thank god), we all just did coke. However, I think meth is far and away more pleasurable, and also much cheaper. You smoke a bowl of meth, you are high for like 8-12 hours (sucks if you wanna sleep though lol), and I loved the meth rush - an adrenaline rush, you could feel the adrenaline surging into your bloodstream, making my body tingle with pleasure.

The act of smoking it became a ritual almost as pleasurable as the high. For some reason I just love everything about smoking it - the taste of the vapor, the huge hits (meth smoke literally billowing out of my mouth), the tingling rush, and the incredible value and efficiency compared to coke.

One of my favorite things about tweak is the sexual aspect. You fuck like a god, it is easy to fuck for hours without even having an orgasm. It's like you can control your orgasm, and it makes fucking SO AMAZING. I stayed up many nights just fucking like an animal.

I used it probably like twice a month, I never really felt an urge to do a lot of meth. The comedown sucks, 10x worse than coke, I had to use lots of Xanax to put me to bed and hope that I just sleep through the crash.

I guess I can understand why some people get really addicted to it, but I just can't relate. I can't spend days at a time not sleeping or eating, jaw grinding, smoking 50 cigarettes a day. IMO, meth is immensely more pleasurable than cocaine (keep in mind I was getting top-notch crystal, huge transparent chunks designed for smoking), but since cocaine is accepted and used regularly by my friends, I started selling it and became addicted to coke, just because i had so much around. I used coke almost every day for like a year and a half.

Still, I will always be an opiophile; opiates will always be my drug of choice. Nothing makes me feel so at peace. Lou Reed phrased it well:

But Im gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
cause it makes me feel like Im a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And Ill tell ya, things arent quite the same
When Im rushing on my run
And I feel just like jesus son

[InfectedMushroom]

Yeah I just can't stand uppers in general. They make some of the sketchiest people around. I understand the rush and high of course is great, but my idea of getting high is floating on that cloud and not giving a fuck. I don't really want to go outside and paint my house overnight just because I can. The physical effects on peoples body can be devastating as well. I'd much rather a few track marks than have the huge number of probs meth folks can have.

I can certainly see the meth over coke argument, because cokes so short acting and it makes more sense financially. Meth is huge in this state, esp the northeast counties. Tioga county is becoming the meth capital of the US it seems. The fact that it is easy to make, and can be made on the go, does really make it a big problem.

I'm all for people being able to put what they want into their bodies, but god damn meth is pretty nasty shit.

[tch2296]

Yeah I just can't stand uppers in general. They make some of the sketchiest people around. I understand the rush and high of course is great, but my idea of getting high is floating on that cloud and not giving a fuck. I don't really want to go outside and paint my house overnight just because I can. The physical effects on peoples body can be devastating as well. I'd much rather a few track marks than have the huge number of probs meth folks can have.

I can certainly see the meth over coke argument, because cokes so short acting and it makes more sense financially. Meth is huge in this state, esp the northeast counties. Tioga county is becoming the meth capital of the US it seems. The fact that it is easy to make, and can be made on the go, does really make it a big problem.

I'm all for people being able to put what they want into their bodies, but god damn meth is pretty nasty shit.

Yeah, people who get addicted to uppers tend to disregard hygiene, diet, and basic health issues. Because of this it takes a heavy toll on their body and eventually their mind.

Even though I prefer downers because I like to escape, it is nice every once in a while to be so excited about life - it makes life exciting and not stressful.

[losangeleslifer]

I've watched the transition to meth in many of my friends, aquaintances and others. Some of these people were able to make it through all other forms of chemical enjoyment with some degree of success only to be beat down by methamphetamine.

I can't enjoy it myself. Gawd knows I've given it a fair shake trying the shit, but I always ended up feeling like shit with the thought I wish I wouldn't have done this shit going through my head. And yes, it was good shit. No, it was *great* shit.

I know many here enjoy it and If you can enjoy it and function, with out going to hell in a handbasket, I say more power to ya!

[Uncle Wiggly]

Meth is a drug with no middle ground. People either love it or hate it. Ether survive it or get pulled under by it. I"ve never known a "functioning" Meth addict.

[jack-a-roe]

I grew up in So.Cal. and almost all my riends became addicted to meth in the late 80s early 90s. I tried it but didn't like not sleeping and this shit was the real deal crystal meth from the Mexican gangs that run The Inland Empire of So.Cal. One hit and you would be up all night, tweeking, smoking cigs, rearraging your room, drinkin hella beer cause you didn't even feel the booze man that was some crazy shit. I remember one of my friends coming back from a run to San Diego to meet up with the Mexican gang bangers he was down with and he had a tupperware container with two huge softball size boulders of pure methamphetamine. As soon as he took the lid off the whole room instanly smelled likr the strongest nastiest chemicals and i got sick and had to run to the bathroom, my buddy loaded his pipe. Meth is a nasty ass drug!

[tch2296]

Meth is a drug with no middle ground. People either love it or hate it. Ether survive it or get pulled under by it. I"ve never known a "functioning" Meth addict.


Uhh..

I neither love it, nor hate it. I have done a lot of it, but it has never caused me any problems and I've never done it more than a couple times in a month.

Opiates have given me 50 x as much trouble as amphetamines.

And there are definitely functioning meth addicts, that also depends on what you define as "functioning" and what you define as "addict". But it certainly has a middle ground. How much experience do you actually have with meth?

I have also never seen any of my friends who used meth with me get pulled under by it.

I think it has such a stigma that people assume that its impossible to stop or incredibly addictive. It's certainly no more addictive than heroin.

[Uncle Wiggly]

Uhh..

I neither love it, nor hate it. I have done a lot of it, but it has never caused me any problems and I've never done it more than a couple times in a month.

Opiates have given me 50 x as much trouble as amphetamines.

And there are definitely functioning meth addicts, that also depends on what you define as "functioning" and what you define as "addict". But it certainly has a middle ground. How much experience do you actually have with meth?

I have also never seen any of my friends who used meth with me get pulled under by it.

I think it has such a stigma that people assume that its impossible to stop or incredibly addictive. It's certainly no more addictive than heroin.

I have tried (clandestine) Meth a grand total of once. I never really got into the whole Meth thing when it started going on. I had pretty much laid off a lot of my experimentation aside from opiates by then - with a couple of exceptions.

I've had my share, quite a bit- in other words, (Desoxyn and White Cross Especially) of Pharmaceutical grade stuff while I was in high school. Hell it was all over the place. This was in the early to mid 70s and Speed, LSD, pot and Barbs were plentiful. I just posted about some of what was on the scene when I was in my mid-to-late teens. Re: Current Drug Trends/ Popularity... (http://forum.opiophile.org/showthread.php?p=353690#post353690)So I do believe I've had some experience with Methamphetamine.

I was raised in a very small town and by the time I got out of the army Meth was just starting to be a problem, especially in rural areas. I lost one of my best friends and many people who I knew. I'm only counting the ones who died. There are many others who are still in shreds to this day because of Meth. But you've got to understand when you're from a small town, you know most every one.

I also know some people who finally walked away from it. But, in my experience, the causalities far outnumber the survivors.

"I"ve never known a "functioning" Meth addict." This is a very subjective statement on my part. I can see some one taking issue were I to say, "There are no functioning Meth addicts." But that's not what I said.

I will, for clarification purposes, define some of the terminology I used in my last post. By ADDICT I mean any one that has to have a drug at regular intervals to keep them from having withdrawal symptoms. By Functioning I mean being able to keep a job, maintain a realtionship, be self- sufficient, etc...

Your experience may be much different than mine. You may be much younger or older than me. Those things make for huge factors when it comes to personal experiences. I hope this helps clear things up. Take care.