The major problem with meth is that people don't know how to use it right (e.g. you are to take much much more vitamins (A and E in particular), minerals and antioxidants, piracetam and drink much much much more water (even though this will make you pee really often) if you use meth and you should never inject it but prefer taking it orally and in as small amounts as possible while still getting the effect (magnesium and piracetam can help fighting tolerance development) and you should avoid supplementing extra tyrosine/dopa). Another serious problem for those who want to use meth to improve their productivity and relief ADHD is that legal desoxyn costs enormous amounts of money and can be rather hard to get a prescription for (and is not available outside of the USA at all - if a qualified American doctor confirms you need it you will still have to use the black market to follow his advice if you travel abroad).
I disagree, the major problem with meth is cheapness, availability, and that it is highly addictive. I live in Australia where we've been suffering under a massive meth epidemic for over a decade.
I'm chuckling about the thought of me wandering up to one of the many "walking dead" around town and informing them that they're using meth wrong. Because your definition of "wrong", whilst possibly technically correct, is completely irrelevant on the street. People want to get high, very high, as fast as possible. They're not looking to leverage meth as some sort of productivity life hack, they're using to get as high as they can for as long as possible, That's why injecting occurs, it's apparently the best bang for buck when compared to oral ingestion or smoking.
I get you point, but... IMHO a huge portion of addictivity are the withdrawal symptoms that can be made much much easier (and last just a couple of days instead of weeks) if the measures I've described above were taken in advance (another huge part is about public stigmatization, lack of understanding and support - AFAIK happy people with loving families are by orders of magnitude less prone to become addicts). And turning into the "walking dead" is all about lack of the healthcare measures I've described above (e.g. my skin went bad once I've tried using meth for about a week many ears ago to manage with a project deadline but a strong E+A vitamin supplement has turned it back healthy overnight).
From how I understand it meth floods the dopamine receptors in the brain and prolonged use effectively fries them, or at least they become dependent on the artificial dopamine rush that meth provides.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but are you advocating using meth to curb the withdrawal symptoms from meth? That seems, well, strange.
As for the walking dead, here in Australia we have free socialised healthcare which meth addicts can access whenever they want. And yet they're still undernourished, missing most teeth, and engaging in what could easily be described as risky behaviour. I don't think you worry too much about all of your damaged or missing teeth when your primary concern is finding enough money to buy your next fix.
> And correct me if I'm wrong, but are you advocating using meth to curb the withdrawal symptoms from meth?
I am absolutely absolutely not, this is ridiculous. But I believe this is what many people do: they feel bad after the meth wears off so the take more of it. What I am saying is they should take big amounts of vitamins, piracetam and water instead (before, under and after meth) so they won't need more meth to go back to what feels normal. But I think at least 80% of meth users don't know about this (I had to educate some of them personally and this, together with support from people they loved helped them quit) and this is a huge portion of the problem.
> From how I understand it meth floods the dopamine receptors in the brain and prolonged use effectively fries them, or at least they become dependent on the artificial dopamine rush that meth provides.
This is true but slightly exaggerated. This problem is not really hard to resist and mitigate if you want (sad thing many people don't want as they have no other feel-good things in their lives, there also are some people that are dopamine-addicts by nature genetically - e.g. these are also prone to gambling).
> As for the walking dead, here in Australia we have free socialised healthcare which meth addicts can access whenever they want. And yet they're still undernourished, missing most teeth, and engaging in what could easily be described as risky behaviour. I don't think you worry too much about all of your damaged or missing teeth when your primary concern is finding enough money to buy your next fix.
Indeed deeply addicted people usually have no will, let alone knowledge to cure. By the way what things do you give away there at the centres? I would say piracetam is the most important thing but this is not confirmed scientifically by any accredited institutions so it would hardly appear in government-sponsored cnentres. It is also important to educate people about all the substances that tey should take together with the meth so it won't feel this bad after it wears off.
> This is true but slightly exaggerated. This problem is not really hard to resist and mitigate if you want (sad thing many people don't want as they have no other feel-good things in their lives. there also are some people that are dopamine-addicts by nature genetically - e.g. these are also prone to gambling).
How it was described to me is that the dopamine receptors in the brain become "re-calibrated" for lack of a better term to the high levels of dopamine that are dumped when they reup on their high. And IF they try and quit the dopamine receptors never come back to normal. So for heavy addicts the only way their brain registers a dopamine dump (for lack of a better term) is if it's artificially triggered by meth.
> By the way what things do you give away there at the centres?
I live in Western Australia and I'm pretty sure we don't operate any meth focused centres or clean needle exchanges. IIRC those services are in Sydney (Kings Cross).
All that said I find there are some people who can be "weekend warriors" and smoke meth for pleasure without being swallowed up by it. That said I've also seen good people hollowed out by meth. I suspect it's gene based but that's suspicion alone.
> How it was described to me is that the dopamine receptors in the brain become "re-calibrated"
This is true, but...
> never come back to normal
Never say never. They get back to normal rather quickly if you actually stop taking meth and start taking magnesium, piracetam and St. John's Wort and sleep well regularly. But I can't really tell for heavy addicts that inject meth instead of just snorting it and do it for years. I worry speaking this openly as it can happen to inspire some to try meth but I feel the knowledge must be shared to help those who are in the trouble already. If you know a meth addict that shows at least a minor sign of will to quit - don't blame him or tell him "just stop!", invite him to spend a meth-free weekend at your house, promise it won't hurt as bad as he thinks and feed him reasonably big amounts of the supplements I've mentioned. Another very helpful supplement is phenibut but it causes real physical addiction+tolerance itself so no more than 7 pills a month. Emoxypine and carphedon can also help a lot (safe, not addictive).
> All that said I find there are some people who can be "weekend warriors" and smoke meth for pleasure without being swallowed up by it. That said I've also seen good people hollowed out by meth. I suspect it's gene based but that's suspicion alone.
This is a very important thing to mention. People are different and should not be treated as perfectly equal. People that have the capacity for using substances consciously for good should not be denied the right to and stigmatized for doing this while people who can't should not be given the drug (e.g. I am pro 100% legalization of marijuana but against legalization of meth as only a minor portion of the people can manage with it constructively) and left alone without active participation of people actually understanding them.
Thank you. This has been a great interaction from my perspective, I really appreciate your comments about the issue. Obviously there's much more I need to learn but your comments have given me some excellent info to pull apart further.
Seriously, thanks again. It's great having a Internet based conversation that doesn't end up a shouting match!
I just really hope the information I share can help somebody to save their health and set them free. And I am very grateful to you for the kind words of appreciation - that's a kind of dopamine and serotonin boost those poor people we are talking about don't receive often if ever!
Let me also give credits: portions of this information (e.g about need in big doses of vitamins A&E, about supplementing dopa/tyrosine while on meth being a bad idea (though good during the abstinence, together with tryptophan) and that you really must drink a huge lot of water on meth, e.g. 1-2 full glasses every time you pee - this will actually save your kidneys, not overload them) come from Quora and Reddit, others from Adam at PsychedSubstance on YouTube (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlMxTpONKT0 - every advice from this video on MDMA applies to meth too), others from Wikipedia (e.g. about magnesium and emoxypine), some from my own reasoning and experimentation and the whole journey to understanding addictions has began with this extremely true video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg I have also tried everything on myself (many years ago, I have only met the person who given me the substance once while dead drunk at a club, can't remember his face, I don't have his number and I don't know where to get meth at all, believe it or not this is true) as well as just meth without the supplements so I could compare and confirm everything (that's not nearly as credible as a good double-blind placebo-controlled test could be but I personally have no doubts, especially in piracetam which is not FDA-approved unfortunately yet extremely effective and safe in big doses as my experience suggests). I am not a doctor, however, and can be wrong in some parts yet I believe no of my advises can harm more than just taking meth without following them (unless the patient happens to be allergic to a particular supplement or something like that).
BTW, regarding the "invite him to spend a meth-free weekend at your house" part - be really careful doing this with people you don't know well, some real junkies (I haven't met any but have heard scary rumors, these were more about crack an heroine addicts, not meth, but people are different and some can be more madness-prone than others) can happen to be really dangerous, especially when they go crazy on the drug/withdrawal-induced paranoia. Make sure to keep your wife and children away, knives, guns, jewelry and windows well-locked and have a beefy buddy by your side for just a case - "better safe than sorry".
And an addition about magnesium: don't use mg lactate with meth, I don't know the details but I've heard they don't fit together, prefer a chelate, oxide or citrate.
Another might-be-important thing I've forgotten to mention is supplementing pro&pre-biotics: meth-induced diarrhea can harm intestinal ecology seriously and a recent study I've read about in New Scientist says the major portion of all body serotonin (which is crucial for emotional well-being and also affected by meth) is produced in the intestines, not in the brain.
PS: I'm not on meth writing this much :-) Just too much coffee, "the stairs effect", urge to procrastinate and enthusiasm to help people by sharing understanding :-)
> My understanding was that Addrall and the like, while kinda similar chemically to meth
Adderall is similar to amphetamine, not metamphetamine. If adderall/amphetamine doesn't help you sufficiently you need desoxyn/metamphetamine.
> I've also heard that ADHD meds end up being counterproductive for people without ADHD too, though.
This is true... approximately. In fact small amounts of amphetamine/adderall can boost concentration/memory/productivity in healthy people (not all of them though) too.
There certainly are right ways to use drugs and doctors are generally supposed to know them. And some people without a medical degree/license happen to know too though they're quite rare to meet. I don't advocate mindless illegal abuse of any substances but I don't advocate mindless falsely-moralist medical purism and all the nonsensical "war on drugs" policy either.
By the way I am about 99% sure that the main reason behind drug abuse epidemics, drug-induced degradation and deaths is lack of relevant education (the real kind, not just the scary "don't use drugs" stuff), lack of understanding and support. NO SUBJECT EVER should be made unspeakable. The more serious a problem is - the harder we are to try to actually understand it and everything relevant to it thoroughly and educate everybody to understand that. Imagine we would just teach kids not to use electricity / not to friend with those who use it and scare them about electrical shocks instead of telling them they should use it with their hands dry.
I don't take any though I have given it a try many ears ago. I personally prefer alprazolam (aka xanax) now - it helps great with my ADHD too (especially in combination with piracetam and sunifiram) and is much safer as long a you don't abuse it (by taking high doses or mixing it with alcohol). Anyway, it is important to mention that FDA-approved meth from a licensed pharmacist costs are insane, street meth of the same or better purity is more affordable by orders of magnitude. There is also no such thing as "approved meth from a licensed pharmacist" outside the USA unfortunately so if you need it and go abroad that's a problem (I wouldn't even risk having it in my luggage).
Even if there are, you should not publicly talk about them. Otherwise, what's to stop me from thinking you're a meth dealer who's advertising its product?
(This is an ignorant comment but it doesn't deserve to be flagkilled, I think.)
In regards to ignorance, if your view of drug use comes from the popular media then it looks irredeemable. If you have no personal experience of people you know who have tried or recreationally used different drugs you will be seduced by the notion that "there's no right way to do drugs". Indeed, not long ago it might have even be easy to hold the same opinion about marijuana.
The reality is that while some drugs hold the potential to wreck lives, few drugs are worse than those we already grapple with and accept into mainstream culture: tobacco and alcohol. Just as with alcohol it is possible for other drugs to ruin lives, but just as with alcohol many drugs can be used without doing so.
