So it's not exactly harmless, but not all that bad, either?
Why don't you explain to me what you think that article means and we can go from there. Based on that article, should I use meth or not? Is it going to hurt me in any way or is it just harmless recreation, like drinking a beer or something?
I think when sentences say things like:
“The data show that many of the immediate and long-term harmful effects caused by methamphetamine use have been greatly exaggerated,
“At the height of methamphetamine’s popularity,” Hart et al. write, “there were never more than a million current users of the drug in the United States. This number is considerably lower than the 2.5 million cocaine users, the 4.4 million illegal prescription opioid users, or the 15 million marijuana smokers during the same period.” Furthermore, illicit methamphetamine use had been waning for years at the point when Newsweek identified “The Meth Epidemic” as “America’s New Drug Crisis.”
Although methamphetamine is commonly portrayed as irresistible and inescapable, it does not look that way when you examine data on patterns of use. Of the 12.3 million or so Americans who have tried it, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), about 1.2 million (9.4 percent) have consumed it in the last year, while less than half a million (3.6 percent) have consumed it in the last month (the standard definition of “current” use). In other words, more than 96 percent of the people who have tried “the most addictive drug known to mankind” are not currently using it even as often as once a month.
, they speak for themselves....
What the article is saying, is that we've had people telling us that Meth is “the most malignant, addictive drug known to mankind.”, and it “makes crack look like child’s play, both in terms of what it does to the body and how hard it is to get off.”, but the data doesn't support that claim.
The article shows that "druggies" would take money over Meth. How is that if it's this crazy addictive drug?
This article also points out that similar chemicals found in Meth, are also found in ADHD, narcolepsy, and obesity medication. If this is so dangerous, as we've been told, why do million of americans, including children, safely use this drug every day?
this article points out that Meth itself doesn't rot teeth, it's the dry mouth indiced by it that does. But wait, Adderall does the same thing, and “there are no published reports of unattractiveness or dental problems associated with their use.” As pointed out, it's moer likely contributed to "...poor sleep habits, poor dental hygiene, poor nutrition and dietary practices.”
Even more so, he argues that exaggerating hazards does everyone a disservice (like the crack cocaine panic in the 80's) by:
encouraging harsh criminal penalties (such as a five-year mandatory minimum for five grams), fostering distrust of accurate warnings about drugs, suppressing useful information that could reduce drug-related harm, driving users toward more dangerous routes of administration (as efforts to reduce meth purity, if successful, predictably would do), and justifying ineffective policies that impose substantial costs on large numbers of people for little or no benefit (such as restrictions on the methamphetamine precursor pseudoephedrine, a cheap, safe, and effective decongestant that is now absurdly difficult to obtain).
No one is saying it's not dangerous, and it's ridiculous to make that claim. This article simply says that Meth may harm you, but probably won't, as claims by slogans and campaigns against it suggest. If you want to try and argue that this article will make you, or anyone want to try Meth, go for it, but I'm not buying it.
But hey, choose not to believe it. He's only a neuropsychopharmacologist. What does he know. Along with those silly NIH studies on passive Marijuana smoke.
“incredible anecdotes are usually disseminated uncritically by the popular press and accepted as sound evidence by an undiscerning public.”
There was a 30% crime rate rise in CO?
I did not know that.
Dude, the world already IS mad. Druggies are ALREADY out robbing and pillaging. Legalizing will simply make more of them. 30+% more, if CO is any benchmark.
