It is always the same, "our drug is better/safer/more natural/more powerful than yours". And then, a group of people who survived 90 years of propaganda about pot are willing to perpetuate it about another substance. This of course, followed quickly by the same sort of mythology that even today hovers around pot. None of you believe that pot is a gateway drug, you don't believe that it will make you lazy, you don't think it will make male breasts larger, but those are some of the myths surrounding it. Why then are you all willing to accept another set of myths about another substance?
Knowlege, accurate and truthful should be the only weapon one needs to combat not only drug deaths but propaganda.
First, just because something is made using a certain chemical does not mean that chemical is in the new molecule. Second, even if it is, it may not have any effect. Those of you who eat black olives should be aware that black olives are made with . . . DRAIN CLEANER. Does that make the olive dangerous? Hardly.
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I admit that it is possible for basement meth makers to leave bad things in their product however. Most often I have discovered only that they really didn't make their intended product but were left with ephedrine, thinking this was what meth is all about.
Meth does not destroy your mouth, as someone said, it is lack of saliva and a penchant for meth users to ignore oral hygene.
Meth is not classically addicting in that the user does not go through withdrawals upon cessation. This may be better than what the user actually goes through, a depression, a feeling that nothing can ever again be done without the use of the chemical.
Meth or it's relatives is prescribed for weight loss, where it rarely works, for sleep disorders and for certain sorts of attention deficit disorders. It is or was also dispensed to our military when it was deemed necessary to keep soldiers or airmen alert for protracted periods of time. Few of them ever got addicted, meth mouths, permanent disorders of cognition or the like. Most of them managed to keep their jobs and careers, their wives and their homes.
That is the good news. The bad news is that it is a very alluring substance. It can be used to stay high for long periods, in fact in most cases it will burn off any other drug one may take. You can drink all night while using meth and never get stumbling drunk. Sex is....... different, but you will look like a champ to your woman, at least as long as you limit your use.
It is so alluring that many people want to stay on it all the time. Tolerance is slow to build - surprisingly, so you can go on very long binges or cycles of crash and binge. If you like being superman for a day, this drug is for you, but it doesn't take all that long to where your ability to be productive turns to psychotic style minutia.
I took meth for about two years. I used it to stay awake, alert and productive when I commuted almost two hours to work, in the evening and got home mid morning the following day. It worked. Until I began using it during holidays and my time off, just to get things done around the house. It is said you can always tell a meth head by how clean the cupboard under the sink is. That may be true for the short haul. I found myself wrapping all of my tools with rubber grips, making wall panels for them with outlines for the tools. I have found myself sitting with a 5 lb bag of peanuts in order to shuck each one - two piles, peanuts and shells. I wasn't hungry so I gave the nuts away. How many times does on need to wd-40 every hinge in the house? I did it every few weeks. Mindless and ultimately unproductive activity. One Christmas I decided to dump my stash into the toilet as I figured I no longer needed it, I couldn't. So I wound up in rehab, chasing handfuls of skittles with quarts of coke. I could not get enough sugar, and the caffeine didn't hurt. But I didn't look any different after my stint, I still had the same amount of teeth, my house, my cars, my wife (for a little longer) and the rest.
Ultimately, meth is like any other drug, it has benefits and it has drawbacks. The scale goes either way, some drugs have more good than bad, some have more bad than good. Meth has very little on the good side, it is hard on your body, tough on your mind and the more lasting effects are less than desireable. It burns though you like a fire, consuming your health by keeping you amped all the time. It is said that a man's life is measured by the number of heart beats, that each person is allocated a specific number of them and no more. If this is so, then you are shortening your life by taking meth.
But:
It makes you feel really really great for a long time, it lets you stay awake, stay alert and for the short time be actually more productive than had you not taken it, in the short haul, it helps you direct your concentration and maybe you will lose a few pounds in the process.
Your call.