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Meth or methamphetamine is a psychostimulant and sympathomimetic substance. In layman's terms, it's a drug that gets a person high, specifically causing euphoria and excitement, and is thus prone to abuse and addiction.
 
Unlike marijuana, cocaine and heroine, meth - also called 'crank,' 'ice,' 'snappy,' 'crystal,' 'tina,' 'glass' and 'P' in the United States; 'shabu' in the Philippines; 'tik' in South Africa; 'yaa baa' in Thailand - is a purely synthetic stimulant. So how bad is this synthetic drug?

'(Meth) is the most malignant, addictive drug known to mankind,' says Dr. Michael Abrams of Broadlawn Medical Center (Des Moines, Iowa), where more patients were admitted during the past year for abuse of methamphetamine than for alcoholism. 'The body has enzymes that break down cocaine,' he said, 'but not with methamphetamine.'

Meth is derived from amphetamine, which was first synthesized in 1887 in Germany. It was, for a long time, 'a drug in search of a disease,' until it found its use as treatment for depression and nasal congestion in the late 1920s.

Then in 1919, meth was synthesized in Japan, taking the form a crystalline powder soluble in water. Today, it is produced legally and sold under the trade name Desoxyn in the US.

Amphetamines were used in World War II to keep soldiers fired up and ready, but they were most widely used during the Vietnam War by US soldiers, exceeding the amphetamine consumption by the rest of the world during WWII. Intravenous methamphetamine abuse reached epidemic proportions in Japan immediately after the war, when supplies intended for military use became available to the public.

In the 1950s in the US, college students, truck drivers, and athletes were using legally manufactured tablets of both dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine) and methamphetamine (Methedrine), which became readily available even for non-medical use. This opened the floodgates to abuse that even the 1970 Controlled Substances Act wasn't enough to reverse the trend.

Meth is a tricky life-wrecker in that it hides its disastrous long-term effects with its short-term effects that can be used by an individual to his advantage, like increased attention, decreased fatigue, increased activity, decreased appetite, euphoria and rush, increased respiration and hyperthermia. Of course, drug dealers won't tell crank heads that meth could, in the long run, cause addiction psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations, mood disturbances, repetitive motor activity, and stroke.

Meth addicts are categorized as (1) those who use the drug for medicinal purposes and eventually become hooked, (2) those who use the drug to get that 'rush' euphoric feeling, and (3) babies who are born to a parent with meth addiction. Babies born to meth-addicted parent or parents usually suffer from low birth rate, tremors, attention deficit disorder and other birth defects.

Recovery from meth addiction is possible, but the withdrawal period is intense and there are possibilities for relapse. Worse, meth addiction not only causes dysfunctions in a user's everyday life but also affects the addict's family and loved ones who bear the brunt of this substance-induced social illness.

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