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Fentanyl overdoses have finally begun to decline over the past year, but that good news has obscured a troubling shift in illicit drug use: a nationwide surge in methamphetamine, a powerful, highly addictive stimulant.
This isn’t the ’90s club drug or even the blue-white tinged crystals cooked up in “Breaking Bad.” As cartels keep revising lab formulas to make their product more addictive and potent, often using hazardous chemicals, many experts on addiction think that today’s meth is more dangerous than older versions. Here is what to know.
What is meth?
Meth, short for methemphetamine, is a stimulant, a category of drugs that includes cocaine. Meth is far stronger than coke, with effects that last many hours longer. It comes in pill, powder or paste form and is smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected.
Meth jolts the central nervous system and prompts the brain to release exorbitant amounts of reinforcing, feel-good neurotransmitters such as dopamine, which help people experience euphoria and drive them to keep seeking it.
Meth is an amphetamine, a category of stimulant drugs perhaps best known to the public as the A.D.H.D. prescription medications Adderall and Vyvanse. Those stimulants are milder and shorter-lasting than meth but, if misused, they too can be addictive.