Overshadowed by opioids, meth is back with a vengeance

[Elderberry]

NBC News By Anna Gorman, Kaiser Health News 11/27/2018

A surge in hospitalizations and deaths “is just totally off the radar,” said one addiction researcher. “Nobody is paying attention.”

The number of people hospitalized because of amphetamine use is skyrocketing in the United States, but the resurgence of the drug has largely been overshadowed by the nation’s intense focus on opioids.

Amphetamine-related hospitalizations jumped by about 245 percent from 2008 to 2015, according to a study published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That dwarfs the rise in hospitalizations from other drugs, such as opioids, which were up by about 46 percent. The most significant increases were in Western states.

The surge in hospitalizations and deaths due to amphetamines “is just totally off the radar,” said Jane Maxwell, an addiction researcher. “Nobody is paying attention.”

Doctors see evidence of the drug’s comeback in emergency departments, where patients arrive agitated, paranoid and aggressive. Paramedics and police officers see it on the streets, where suspects’ heart rates are so high that they need to be taken to the hospital for medical clearance before being booked into jail. And medical examiners see it in the morgue, where in a few states, such as Texas and Colorado, overdoses from meth have surpassed those from the opioid heroin.

Amphetamines are stimulant drugs, which are both legally prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and produced illegally into methamphetamine. Most of the hospitalizations in the study are believed to be due to methamphetamine use.

Commonly known as crystal meth, methamphetamine was popular in the 1990s before laws made it more difficult to access the pseudoephedrine, a common cold medicine, needed to produce it. In recent years, law enforcement officials said, there are fewer domestic meth labs and more meth is smuggled in from south of the border.

As opioids become harder to get, police said, more people have turned to meth, which is inexpensive and readily available.

More: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/overshadowed-opioids-meth-back-vengeance-n940701