|
|
Article: Drug war: an American epidemic: with the meth epidemic raging, states try limiting access to the ingredients.
- Article from:
- The Saturday Evening Post
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Saturday Evening Post Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Lt. Ron D. Smith of the Nevada County Sheriffs Department has seen plenty of drug users in his time, but nothing quite like the ones tweaked on meth. In his "sleepy little county" in central California, 40 percent of all arrests are meth-related. The crimes, he says, are getting wackier and wackier.
"Meth actually makes you crazy," Smith says.
That's the scariest thing about methamphetamine, an illegal drug that has reached epidemic status across much of the United States. After it invades the central nervous system to achieve its high, meth turns perfectly normal people into psychotics, often violent ones.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan ...