Methamphetamine is a powerfully addictive and illegal stimulant known on the street as "Meth," "Speed," "Crank," "Chalk," "Fire," "Glass," "Ice," "Tweak," "Uppers," "Yaba" and other names. Whatever it's called, none of the names tell you what it really does.

Meth is different. People who use it can get hooked after just their first try, and once a person is addicted it's extremely difficult to get off the drug. The ingredients used to make meth include toxic chemicals that do permanent injury to the body. Meth doesn't just affect the user, it also impacts the user's family and society as a whole.

This is one drug capable of destroying lives, families and communities.

Would you walk through a store, pick up a bottle of drain cleaner and guzzle it? No way! Well that's just one of the many ingredients used to make meth. Others include:

• Rubbing alcohol
• Cold pills
• Acetone
• Red phosphorous
• Gasoline antifreeze
• Cleaning products
• Battery acid
• Anhydrous ammonia (farm fertilizer)
• Lye
• Engine starter fluid

Try meth just once and you've just put a number of these chemicals in your body.

Most of the ingredients are easy to get a hold of. Fortunately, Governor Bredesen and the Tennessee General Assembly took the initiative in 2005 to limit the availability of the main ingredient in meth - ephedrine and/or pseudoephedrine. This is helping, but the problem has not gone away.

Meth recipes are also easy to find, and "labs" can be located just about anywhere - inside homes, barns, garages, motel rooms, and even vehicles.

Making meth can be as dangerous as taking it. Meth lab explosions shatter buildings, burning and incinerating everything in sight. Why? Meth's ingredients contain a hazardous combination of poisonous and flammable chemicals, which are heated on a stove or hot plate. A slight miscalculation with ingredients or cooking temperature, and meth becomes a deadly bomb.

Meth use is a real problem in Tennessee, & N.C. Law enforcement, doctors, child protection providers and others get a daily reality check of what this deadly drug is doing to users, their families and the communities where they live. So why is this drug so popular?

For starters, meth has an addictive hook that is almost unequalled. It's an addiction that can take over from the first hit.

The problem of meth addiction goes beyond the person actually using the drug. A habitual meth user becomes irritable, paranoid and often violent. Usually, the first to pay the price is the addict's family, especially the kids.

In recent years, hundreds of children in Tennessee have seen meth's destruction up close.

Abuse and unimaginable neglect are common, and the physical health of children who live in homes where meth is made is especially at risk. They breathe in toxic fumes just by playing on the floor or in a yard where poisonous wastes are dumped. Their homes have been destroyed. Their paSafety Tips for Approaching Someone High on Meth

The most dangerous stage of methamphetamine abuse is when the drug use has produced psychosis ("tweaking"). A user who is tweaking has probably not slept in 3-15 days, and consequently will be extremely irritable and paranoid. A tweaker does not need provocation to behave or react violently, but confrontation increases the chances of violent reaction. If the tweaker is using alcohol, his negative feelings and associated dangers intensify.

Signs of Use:

• Stimulated movement and speech (hyperactive)
• Dilated pupils
• Feelings of intense excitement and euphoria
• Lack of sleep
• Increased energy
• Mood swings, irritability, nervousness
• Increased heart rate and blood pressure
• Chest pain, heart palpitations, hot flashes, dry mouth, sweating
  
  Signs of Long Term Use:
  
• Mental Confusion
• Deteriorating school grades or work performance
• Aggressiveness, violence, emotional ability
• Central Pallor: the center of the face becomes very pale
• Weight loss (women & young women sometimes start the drug for this)
• Diarrhea, vomiting
• Body Odor: Meth’s chemicals are present in the user’s perspiration and emit a putrid smell resembling glue and mayonnaise
• Bad Teeth: The abuser’s teeth first turn gray and then black.
• Hallucinations, paranoia
• Tremors or shaking, convulsions
• Hypertension
• Palpitations, cardiac arrhythmia
• Scars/Open Sores on Exposed Skin
  
  Safety Tips for Approaching Someone High on Meth:
  
• Keep a social distance. Preferably a seven to ten foot radius. Once a tweaker has been identified, contact law enforcement.
• Do not shine bright lights at him or her. The tweaker is already paranoid and if he/she is blinded by a bright light, he/she could run or become violent.
• Slow your speech and lower the pitch of your voice. A tweaker hears sounds at a fast pace and in a high pitch, and a side effect of the drug is a constant electrical buzzing sound in the background.
• Slow your movements. This will decrease the odds that the meth user will misinterpret your physical actions.
• Keep your hands visible. Because the meth user is already paranoid, if you place your hands where she or he cannot see them, she/he may feel threatened and become violent.
• Keep the person talking. A person who is high on meth who falls silent can be extremely dangerous. Silence often means that paranoid thoughts have taken over reality and anyone on the scene can become part of the tweaker’s paranoid delusions.
  (Taken from the National Drug Intelligence Center)

rents have been arrested. Their lives literally turned upside down.

The impact of meth goes far beyond just the people who use and make it. Communities suffer. Money that could be better used for education and other needs goes to dealing with problems caused by meth.

Hospitals are often forced to cover very expensive treatments for meth lab explosion burn victims. The serious health damage that users do to their bodies is often very costly and falls back on community hospitals.

Law enforcement agencies are forced to spend more on officers and equipment to combat the meth problem. Jails in certain parts of the Tennessee are crowded with people arrested for meth-related crimes.

Not surprisingly, meth use increases a community's overall crime rate. Meth users suffer from paranoia and typically carry guns for protection. They are often habitual thieves and shoplifters. Hardware stores, department stores and drug stores are their main targets.

Communities Bear the Cost of Meth

• Medical expenses to handle the influx of meth patients and abused children.
• The cost of more inmates jailed on meth-related charges.
• The cost of meth rehab programs.
• Expenses related to increased calls to fight meth lab fires.
• Lost worker productivity.
• Increased spread of infectious diseases (such as HIV) due to meth use by injection.

Making meth can produce pounds of toxic waste. Meth cooks often pour leftover chemicals and byproduct sludge down drains or directly onto the ground. The toxic byproducts used to make meth pose long-term hazards because they can be present in soil and groundwater for years.

The houses, trailers, barns, and other buildings where meth is made must be cleaned up before any human being can safely be there again. The removal and handling of evidence and hazardous waste is very expensive and can cost thousands of dollars. In some instances, a meth lab can cause such serious contamination that the structure where the lab was must be incinerated.