Montana Drug Abuse

All across the nation, there has and will always be a problem with drug abuse. Drug abuse is a very serious and ongoing difficulty that society is faced with daily. However, since drug abuse across the nation is such a broad subject with all the different drugs available, I would like to narrow it down to a more personal topic. In my home state of Montana, methamphetamines is constantly being distributed and abused. My stance is that we must work harder to put an end to this abuse in order to save Montana families and our businesses. Just last week, on one day alone, the Billings Gazette newspaper reported in three articles on women getting penalized for dealing meth. Statistics show that the numbers of crime rates going up are because
of methamphetamines. Documentaries prove that when a user is hooked on this drug, it is all they think about, and that they have no aspirations in life other than to be a user. How is this helping our society? What does this mean for the economy within Montana? The Montana Meth Project is going to be one of my main sources, and I know that a lot of their visual and audio ads are great representations of how meth is affecting the community. I have seen how meth can effect families, and I see how it is affecting my home state. This is why I am arguing that we work to put an end to the distribution of methamphetamines, or at least slow down the process. By one state doing something about this problem, I believe that it can cause a chain reaction throughout the nation in the fight against methamphetamine abuse.
"Methamphetamine is a very strong psychomotor stimulant that mimics the actions of certain neurotransmitters that affect mood and movement" (Cesar, 2013). The use of meth can cause a release of dopamine and serotonin, which is what makes the high so pleasurable. Meth is usually in the form of powder with a white tint. Meth can be commonly referred to as Ice, Glass, Tweak, Yellow Bam, or Poor Man's Cocaine (Meth Project Foundation, 2005). Meth can be a mixture of many different ingredients that users usually snort, smoke, or inject to get a high or rush from this unbelievably dangerous drug. Methamphetamines can cause very serious long-term and short-term effects on the human body, some of them even being psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, mood changes, and paranoia. Many people begin the use of meth for a number of different reasons; weight loss, ADHD, peer pressure, economic difficulty (unemployment), or to just find an escape route from their life. Ultimately, no matter the reason, each user ends up in the same situation; poor, addicted, and willing to do anything to get the drug. In Montana, one of the main reasons for the huge outburst of meth is because of the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. Meth is a common drug used within the oil fields; therefore to get it there, the runners have to take it right through Montana, causing problems within the community. On October 15th, the Billings Gazette published three separate stories on women caught for the distribution of methamphetamines. One common factor that I noticed in all three of these articles is the reason behind their dealing and distribution of meth was because of economic hard times. Many people who have been charged with meth distribution, sale or possession have said that, because of economic hard times, they were forced into the profession of drug dealing (Haake, 2013). Meth is such an easy drug to make a profit off of because most of the ingredients can be bought at a local store. Meth is such a threat to America because the drug is cheap and can be easily made with inexpensive over-the-counter ingredients such as pseudoephedrine, a common ingredient in cold medications (Chang, 2013). Furthermore, because each distributor makes their meth differently, each kind of meth product can include a number of various other components to make their drug even more unique than the next one. Some of the other ingredients that are found in different forms of meth are nail polish remover, countertop cleaner, brake fluid, or even fertilizer. All these different mixtures together can be fatal, making this man-made substance very dangerous. In today’s recent pop cultures, they portray numerous complications that are associated with methamphetamines. In Grey’s Anatomy, there is an episode including an explosion of a meth lab. Meth labs can be inconspicuously concealed in places like warehouses, hotel rooms, homes, car trunks, and even in the middle of the woods (Meth Project Foundation, 2005). In this episode, the meth lab was in a smaller house. The family in the episode claimed to be cooking meth because of their low income, they said they needed the money and so they turned the distribution of meth in hope of helping their financial situation. All of the people in the house were then rushed to the hospital where doctors were trying to assess all of the injuries. The outcome of the injuries were that the people and their children living within the house were addicted to the meth even though they had never truly ingested the product. Because the meth was cooking in their house, it was releasing chemicals into the air that were then inhaled by the family, even causing their baby to become addicted to meth. When meth is cooked inside of a household, it tends to leave an impression on the house itself, this includes everything in it. Children can’t control the amount of exposure they get when it comes to living in a meth house. Because the meth leaves so many chemicals in the air, it contaminates the places the children live and breathe in and the items they touch, making it very easy to get inside of their systems and cause dangerous problems. Children growing up in places like this can become addicted without even trying it because of all the fumes and particles left in the air. If a child is exposed to such dangerous drugs it can cause possible future problems throughout their lives that they have no control over because of a decision that they had no control over. Meth is commonly used by people seeking to stay awake for long periods of time, which is why there is such a high demand for it in the oil field. Meth has the ability to cause sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and bursts of energy. In Montana’s economy, the amount of unemployed and part-time workers is almost equal to the number of workers with full time jobs. Because of the employment problem, people need to pick up longer shifts to help pay for all of their expenses. But due to all the longer shifts these people pick up, they turn to meth to help stay awake during their work hours. On the other hand, if an abuser used meth for too long they can stay awake for around 3-15 days, this phase is known as tweaking. Tweaking can cause irritability from extreme lack of sleep, which can impair psychomotor function. Often what happens is that the lack of sleep becomes too much for the person to handle, and their body starts to shut down. When this happens the user starts a downward spiral into feelings of depression, and lack of confidence, so in turn there is a huge risk of being terminated from employment. Methamphetamines can take over people’s lives because of what sounds like such a simple addiction.
The Montana Meth project portrayed a documentary to the public which shows the general public how meth can trap a user in a never ending cycle of addiction. In the documentary one woman stated, "It's all you can think about, you don't have any other priorities in life. If you're doing this stuff, you don't have aspirations to be anything but a user. That's all you end up to be," (Montana Meth). In that same documentary a different user states, "People don't understand how we can get addicted to this but I feel so good right now, better than any sober person has ever felt in their entire life" (Montana
Meth).
With every high there is always a point when the user has to come back down. When the rush starts to wear off, the user's body is still on edge because the brain is still alert during this process. When this process begins, the levels of dopamine begin to decrease, causing the user to feel a pain similar to severe depression. When a user starts to feel this side effect, they just want to be back on their high, which then drives them to using more and more. This is what makes methamphetamines such an addictive drug. Users will go on what is called the "binge and crash" pattern to continue the rush of the high and to avoid the awful depression that follows (Cesar, 2013). From the initial use of meth, leading to the binge and crash cycle, a user is already on the way to having a higher tolerance for the drug. The higher the tolerance, the more of the drug the user needs to get to their original pleasurable high feeling. Chronic use may cause an abuser to only feel pleasure when using the drug, therefore deepening their addiction (Chang, 2013). Due to the oil boom in the Bakken there was a large explosion of growth and wealth within surrounding communities. With the huge stream of people arriving to find jobs in the oil fields, soon drug runners were lured in because of the big money being made. The Bakken is known for having younger men working long hours, and in turn having longer hours off with plenty of time and money to spend. Mike Cotter, U.S attorney stated about local drug dealers, "They market it well. They move it well and it's a battle that we have to continue to fight" (Cohen). Local drug dealers are smart and as Missoula Montana Detective Sgt. Ed Mclean stated, "As long as you have a demand for it, somebody somewhere is going to make it," (Haake).
Also, because Montana has such a large reservation population, it makes it very easy for drug runners to move their product from one place to another without getting caught. On the reservations, there is a lesser amount of Federal authority because the tribal government has an overall say on what happens on their land, and that’s why meth is a big problem in these parts of Montana. Many elders are worried that this powerful drug is going to tear their tribe apart. They are worried that their tribe has no future because many teens are becoming addicts at such young ages. Methamphetamine is a very powerful, addictive, and devilish drug.
The Montana Meth Project was introduced a few years back to show real life cases of what happens when a person becomes hooked on this drug. From billboards on interstates, to ads on the radio, and even commercials on TV, this organization is trying to fight for a extremely important cause. Their advertisements are very powerful. While driving along an interstate you may not only see a billboard depicted like the one to the left, but also listen on the radio to an addicted teen talk about the horrible experiences that he or she have lived through. Drug abuse is a terrible addiction to get into, but meth is the worst of the worst. I have seen firsthand how meth can affect families and the Montana economy. This is why I have stated all of the information above to help prove my point that the meth usage and distribution in Montana needs to stop. If one state can make a difference then maybe it can start a chain reaction for the nation to turn this devastating trend
around.