Meth Effects: Makes you feel more alert / confident or aggressive, increases your heart rate and enlarges pupils, lessens desire to eat and sleep, can make you feel nervous and anxious. Will lead to increased energy and make you very talkative and effects are increased by alcohol. Injecting carries risk of HIV, viral Hepatitis and other infections transmitted from sharing needles and syringes. Even at low doses, speed can cause mood swings, temper tantrums, irritability and restlessness.
Meth Risks: What goes up must come down! speed gives you extra energy in the short term, but there is a payback the next day, known as a downer, similar to a very bad hangover. After using, people often feel tired, depressed and hungry and can become physically run down because of lack of sleep and food.
Using can make people feel very anxious, messes up sleep patterns, can cause paranoia and violent mood changes. Long term users can suffer from severe depression and other mental disorders, can produce aggressive behavior, heart failure and damage blood vessels. Resistance to disease is lowered leading to uncomfortable itching. HIV and AIDS, and Hepatitis are risks of sharing needles. Amphetamines are usually class b drugs but if injected, can become a class a drug. Possessing, supplying or selling is illegal and carries penalties of prison or fines unless you have them on prescription.
Methamphetamine is an increasingly popular at raves (all night dance parties), and as part of a number of drugs used by college-aged students. Marijuana and alcohol are commonly listed as additional drugs of abuse among methamphetamine treatment admissions.
Most of the methamphetamine-related deaths (92%) reported in 1994 involved methamphetamine in combination with at least one other drug, most often alcohol (30%), heroin (23%), or cocaine (21%). Researchers continue to study the long-term effects of methamphetamine use.
The Effects of Crystal Meth: The effects of meth are highly volatile because there can be potentially so many different toxic substances involved in a mix. After coming down last decade, rates of meth abuse have disturbingly been on the rise in recent years.
Meth use really exploded in the 1980’s especially amongst certain demographics like the United States gay community, motorcycle gangs, and some long-haul truckers in order to drive long journeys with little or no sleep.
Methamphetamine can be snorted, injected or smoked in a pipe to produce very strong feelings of euphoria, energy, and a perceived (but false) sense of focus. Smoking it provides the most intense sensation as the drug directly enters the bloodstream with results that can last from 2-16 hours.