Dr. Jack Wheeler
March 22, 2006
If it hasn't already arrived in your community, it will be there soon: the nightmare of addiction to methamphetamine. Supplanting cocaine in drug use, it's much easier and cheaper to make than coke. A "meth lab" requires only simple equipment like bottles and tubing, easily acquired ingredients, and can be set up in a small space in most any building.
Not only is it cheaper than coke, the high the addict gets from meth is far more intense - and thus far more addictive. Meth users get a sudden rush of pleasure lasting several minutes, followed by a euphoric high that continues for up to 12 hours. It leaves cocaine in the dust.
Both cocaine and meth cause the excessive release of the brain chemical or neurotransmitter that controls pleasure called dopamine. Having sex raises dopamine levels in the brain to about 200 units. Cocaine spikes dopamine levels to 350 units. Methamphetamine spikes at 1,250 - more than 12 times the base level of 100.
As Dr. Richard Rawson, associate director of Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the UCLA Medical School, notes, "Methamphetamine produces the mother of all dopamine releases."
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