Methamphetamine robs the brain of gray matter that controls memory and emotion. It acts like a warp-speed metronome on the heart and can cause the body temperature to rise so fast cerebellum protein sizzles like bacon.
A stimulant made out of ingredients that can include fertilizer and brake fluid, meth rots teeth and causes users to claw at their skin. It blocks impulse control, triggering the kind of behavior that made a Fillmore construction worker jump onto a spinning drill bit and hug it with his arms as if it were a carnival ride. He lost his grip and was thrown headfirst into steel rebar.
Medical examiner reports show the drug caused or contributed to at least 38 deaths in Ventura County over the past three years, from a 35-year-old man who was found dead in the filled bathtub of a Ventura motel to an Oxnard man who was smashing cars with a construction barricade. He suffered a fatal heart attack after police shot him with beanbags.
The drug haunts communities everywhere, flooding jails and treatment centers with users who have lost their jobs, families and ability to care.
Some experts say meth is as addictive as heroin because it seduces the brain with increased dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes people feel pleasure. Withdrawal from methamphetamine starves the brain of dopamine and is marked by months of severe depression, a reason virtually all recovery includes periods of relapse.
‘Why aren’t we doing more?’
In Ventura County, about 36 percent of the nearly 3,000 patient admissions into government-funded rehabilitation programs last year involved methamphetamine, more than any other drug.
Even more alarming, 71 percent of the 4,845 people arrested in Ventura County last year for being under the influence of a narcotic had meth in their system, according to Sheriff’s Department lab records.

venturacountystar.com

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