What is the best way to respond to your son's drug addiction?
Write a book? No!
Write two books? Yes?

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines [more inside]
posted by andoatnp on May 11, 2009 - 35 comments

In May 1995, the American government's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made an attempt to disrupt the supply chain of methamphetamine precursors, such as pseudoephedrine, by shutting down two major suppliers of the precursors under authority granted by the Domestic Chemical Diversion Control Act. Was it successful? Only temporarily, according to new research by Carlos Dobkin and Nancy Nicosia. (via)
posted by Pants! on Apr 8, 2009 - 47 comments

Getting Off The Mat - After losing 15 years of his life to drug addiction and prison, Richard Jensen was reborn as a 36-year-old college wrestler.
posted by thisisdrew on Aug 4, 2008 - 15 comments

Sandra Bergen sued her dealer after she suffered a heart attack and spent 11 days in a coma because of crystal meth. Her full website. What people think.
posted by gman on Jan 14, 2008 - 223 comments

"This is the shit JFK was getting jacked in his ass during the Cuban missile crisis. I shouldn't even be calling this shit 'shit,' because it's disrespectful." Following 72 hours in the lives of some high-roller meth addicts.
posted by chunking express on Apr 9, 2007 - 106 comments

Meth Candy! The media are reporting that meth is being mixed with candy to "make it more appealing to younger users". But drug candy is not new, although it's more likely accidentally given to kids, or maybe it's mostly speculation , hysteria and urban legends? Of course, there's always candy flipping, or chocolate pills. Just remember that chocolate is not an antidepressant.
posted by Joakim Ziegler on Mar 27, 2007 - 70 comments

Montana Meth Project commercials. "The Meth Project is the largest advertiser in Montana, reaching 70-90 percent of teens three times a week. This is saturation-level advertising...The Montana Meth Project is a Montana-based anti-drug organization founded by billionaire Thomas Siebel." But are these ads effective in preventing teens from using meth, or are they just a symptom of the wider moral panic surrounding meth use? Pretty excellent commercials, though. More Metafilter meth missives here.
posted by KokuRyu on Mar 8, 2007 - 99 comments

On May 17, 1995, Shawn Nelson stole a tank and took it for a little drive (Google Video, YouTube).
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 15, 2006 - 36 comments

Ted Haggard, one of the most prominent evangelical pastors in the nation, resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid allegations that he carried on a three-year sexual relationship with a male prostitute. He also steps down as pastor of of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations."
posted by ericb on Nov 2, 2006 - 1829 comments

Tweakers with nuclear weapons technology Exactly what the world needs in these uncertain times.
posted by empath on Oct 25, 2006 - 25 comments

Feeling sick and thinking of buying over-the-counter cold medicine like Sudafed or Claritin-D? Be prepared to wait in line at the pharmacy counter, show a photo ID, and sign a log book. The nationwide restriction of medication containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine begins this weekend. Why? Those 2 ingredients are used to make meth.. (NPR audio piece).
posted by jaimev on Sep 27, 2006 - 136 comments

Small town girl killed by meth dealer. It was a story that we talked about before. A Meth dealer admitted to tying up a little girl in order to 'scare' her into silence about his lab. The girl died. There's only one problem though, it didn't happen, the confession was false, and DNA evidence linked another man to the crime, who has since been charged. According to Al Roker, though, Meth is still to blame, for causing 'hallucinations' and 'dementia' rather then police pressure to confess regardless of actual guilt.
posted by delmoi on Apr 17, 2006 - 44 comments

Sine-Off is the first brand of cold, flu and sinus congestion medicine to completely reformulate and remove pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient needed to make Crystal Meth.
posted by ijoshua on Feb 16, 2006 - 100 comments

Man kills jealous boyfriend with coffee mug. This is from my local paper (see also stoner busts self). Just to show you the kind of interesting stuff that goes on here in Utah...(more inside)
posted by punkbitch on Feb 9, 2006 - 44 comments

Don't smoke urine if you're looking for a methamphetamine high, because you might burn yourself, or worse, have the world find out about your mishap. The best is the quote from his lawyer: "I suspect that, more than anything, Steve was doing this as an intellectual proposition." Lawyers will say the darnedest things.
posted by dbiedny on Dec 3, 2005 - 28 comments

Remember "saintly" Atlanta hostage Ashley Smith? Well, it turns out that it was a lot more than her "faith" and a copy of a Christian self-help book that got her through that particular ordeal...
posted by dersins on Sep 27, 2005 - 52 comments

The meth myth? New blog takes critical look at media coverage of meth; other skeptical observers also ask whether meth babies and meth mouth really exist.
posted by footnote on Aug 21, 2005 - 102 comments

Newsweek delivers a chilling tale of non-rural, non-gays -- affluent suburbia (the horrors!) doing methamphetamine. Not as sexy, or yuppie, as its cocaine counterpart, it leads to poor oral hygiene and super-AIDS myths. Some surprisingly good Wikipedia articles appeared (Crystal and Sex and Meth). Even the more drug liberal Viceland sums up the sentiment about meth, "Speed is the bastard child of the drug family, cocaine’s ugly retarded stepbrother."
posted by geoff. on Aug 2, 2005 - 122 comments

Every now and again, a story or scandal falls off the newswire that reminds you good guys and bad guys don't happen in real life. The fantastic original expose and ongoing coverage of the Dick Dasen case in Montana is one of them. The testimony of dozens or hundreds of women Dick Dasen, a wealthy Christian pillar-of-the-community businessman type, has paid for sex (or sometimes nothing at all) over several years are bringing the Flathead Valley meth scene to light, and thanks to what I personally think is some excellent local reporting by the New West, you can read along as it happens.
posted by saysthis on May 9, 2005 - 38 comments

Updatefilter: Remember all the uproar over the new AIDS superbug? Well, think again. NY Magazine tells all about the "medical panic attack": ... After the frenzy died down, however, the new epidemic began to look a lot less fearsome. In fact, on closer examination, almost everything about this case seems murky. An investigation by the Department of Health turned up no evidence that the New York man passed the virus to anybody. And on March 29, the department put out a press release saying that the patient was responding well to his medications. ... “I thought this sounded familiar, so I Googled ‘superbug’ and ‘AIDS,’” said GMHC’s Gregg Gonsalves. He found two cases reported in 2001 by a noted Vancouver AIDS specialist, Dr. Julio Montaner. The Vancouver Sun quoted Montaner about the cases, but he could have been describing the newest Patient Zero ... March post on it here
posted by amberglow on Apr 24, 2005 - 14 comments

Twenty-year sentence for selling two Oxycontin pills "I want to be a good person." said Johnson. "I wish I could have the chance to better myself and repay my debt to society. I want to go to college. ... It was just two little pills. ... This one time, please give me a chance. Please." A small town in Indiana doles out tough sentences and offers classes on the community's out of control drug problem.
posted by billysumday on Feb 8, 2005 - 268 comments

Methamphetamine is now a WMD. Well, I guess we should've seen it coming. According to this Salon article, prosecutors across the country are now using the Patriot act to prosecute drug crimes, fraud, and anything involving a bomb. This means any of these people may be detained indefinitely without an attorney. I don't like trailing questions, but I would like to see some constructive and creative posts about what can be done to protest this. It's so blatantly unconstitutional, it's not funny anymore, and I for one am not willing to welcome our new overlords.
posted by condour75 on Sep 14, 2003 - 100 comments

Drug offenders to be evicted. While this law is meant to target methamphetamine labs, it is worded to allow for the eviction of anyone who smokes pot in his home twice in one year, for example.
posted by spazzm on Aug 14, 2003 - 6 comments

Yet another threat to free speech under the guise of the War On Drugs. Not to mention wholesale Internet censorship. And I quote "It says Internet providers and hosting services must remove any website within 48 hours after the government objects to it -- and no court order is necessary. What's next, filtering software for all data entering the United States?
posted by ambereden on May 10, 2000 - 1 comment