Methamphetamine: Health Impacts and Hazards

Clinically Reviewed by Matt Hawk ICAADC, CACII, Written by Karen Hadley

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Few drugs are as quickly addictive and physically damaging as methamphetamine. For some people, one use can set up cravings that drive them back to the drug again and again, until they finally lose everything to addiction. At the same time, it takes a terrible toll on their health, stressing the heart, arteries, veins, kidneys, brain and the nervous system.

It's vital that parents and young people alike learn how destructive this drug can be to one's mind, character and future. This extremely strong stimulant is manufactured from toxic, caustic chemicals that each have their own damaging effects on the body and mind of the user.

Methamphetamine is renowned for changing the drug user's personality and behavior. It can also create severe health problems. A person experiencing the effects of methamphetamine addiction should receive effective help at the first moment possible.

Methamphetamine's Toxic Ingredients are Part of the Problem

It is dangerous but not particularly difficult to make methamphetamine. When cooking up batches of this drug, a long list of toxic or corrosive chemicals is used, including the following:

• Lye: corrosive household or industrial substance
• Anhydrous ammonia: a chemical fertilizer that is often stolen from farms; damages skin, lungs, throat and eyes
• Iodine: healthy in very small quantities, toxic in higher quantities
• Red phosphorus: found in match heads or fireworks; when combined with iodine, forms hydriodic acid, a strong acid
• Ether: surgical anesthetic
• Lithium: obtained from camera batteries
• Brake fluid: highly toxic and combustible; it can eat the paint right off your car
• Butane: otherwise known as lighter fluid; highly combustible and toxic
• Hydrochloric acid: Industrial acid; will literally eat away one’s flesh
• Muriatic acid: driveway cleaner

Every person who uses the drug is exposed not only to the harsh stimulant itself but also traces and residues of all these corrosive and toxic chemicals that were used to make it. The toxic effects of methamphetamine on the body and the mind are brutal..

How Methamphetamine Threatens One's Health and Life

There are such severe changes to the brain after meth use that many meth users are unable to feel pleasure when they are not using meth. This is one of the ways the drug locks the addict into the habit.

Meth users very often engage in risky sex or drug use practices and therefore may contract sexually transmitted diseases, HIV or Hepatitis C. Intravenous meth users may develop abscesses or blood poisoning.

Over time, meth use can result in Parkinson's disease-like symptoms. Mentally, a meth user may develop symptoms similar to schizophrenia. An overdose of meth can cause extremely high blood pressure, convulsions, stroke, cardiovascular collapse and even death.

Driving under the influence of methamphetamine presents other threats, as the driver may exceed safe speeds, be inattentive, impatient and take extreme risks.

An Organ-by-Organ Summary of Meth's Harms

Methamphetamine is such a strong stimulant that it places damaging stresses on every part of the body. Some organs may suffer damage that can never be repaired. The mind also suffers intense stress and damage from the drug itself and the toxins it contains. Aside from the likelihood of addiction, methamphetamine abuse can be a nightmare that a person will never wake up from, as the drug’s harmful effects may be present for the rest of their life.

Heart and blood vessels: The heart may absorb the greatest stress caused by methamphetamine. This strong stimulant speeds up the heart while it constricts blood vessels. The heart is trying to pump blood rapidly through the body, but the constriction of arteries and veins produces an intolerable pressure on the heart and blood vessels. This incredible stress can result in heart attacks, strokes and destruction of arteries. The aorta, the major artery leaving the heart, can disintegrate from the stress, leading to fatal bleeding into the pericardium, the sac enclosing the heart. Meth use can also cause tears in the carotid artery and strokes. Fatal aneurysms—ruptures in arteries—have caused sudden death in meth users.

Muscular system: Increased body temperature and persistent muscle twitching that can result with high doses of meth may trigger a chain reaction of muscle tissue breakdown that floods the body with toxins. This cascade of tissue breakdown is called rhabdomyolysis. These toxins overload the kidneys, which, if they fail, can cause death if dialysis is not instantly provided.

Skin and extremities: The constriction of the blood vessels can cut off circulation to the extremities and the skin. Meth can also increase the likelihood of developing blood clots. These two effects together can result in gangrene and amputations.

Kidneys: There is another way that meth abuse kills the kidneys and that is through hyperthermia, abnormally increased body temperature. The use of any stimulant drug tends to increase one’s body temperature—not just methamphetamine but also cocaine, ecstasy and the group of drugs referred to as “bath salts.” If more meth is abused than the body can handle, the overheating can cause the kidneys to shut down. The damage can be irreparable, resulting in death.

Lungs: There is a tendency for methamphetamine users to accumulate fluid in their lungs because of the constriction of the blood vessels. Meth use also causes high blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries. Those suffering from this problem can experience shortness of breath, chest pain, tiredness and fainting. If not treated early, it becomes incurable with a poor survival rate.

Brain: Because of the stress on blood vessels, there is an increased risk of stroke for a methamphetamine abuser. A stroke can result in permanent brain damage or death. Prolonged meth use can cause the user to develop symptoms like Parkinson’s disease. Meth also appears to have a toxic effect directly on the tissues of the brain. Even after a year of abstinence, methamphetamine abusers can show impairments in memory, judgment and motor coordination. These changes are thought to result from lasting damage to parts of the brain.

The Mind May Take the Worst Beating from Methamphetamine

The heavy abuse of methamphetamine can cause lasting changes in personality and intelligence. A current meth user can become so disorganized that he is unable to cope with daily life. His risk of becoming aggressive, nervous, irritable, violent, suicidal, delusional or psychotic is very high. Some long-term users suffer from schizophrenia. These mental effects may improve but not disappear after a person stops abusing the drug.

The heavy user may suffer from hallucinations, delusions and paranoia. A meth user is likely to think that people are following or spying on him. They may get homicidal or suicidal. They are likely to stop taking care of grooming, personal appearance and possessions. The home of a meth user is likely to be very dirty and littered with trash and debris, possibly even drug remnants and paraphernalia that can harm children.

After quitting the drug, a former user can still suffer from an inability to experience any pleasure. This effect alone is enough to send some people back to meth.

Users often experience delusions that they have insects crawling under their skin, causing them to pick at their skin for hours on end, resulting in deep sores. This effect results from changes in the brain that trigger compulsive, repetitive actions like twitching or picking at things.

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Pregnant Women Who Use Meth May Impose Serious Injuries on their Babies

Meth use during pregnancy has been found to affect the development of the fetus and is associated with bleeding, prematurity, separation of the placenta from the wall of the uterus and miscarriage.

As with other drugs, a meth-abusing mom can cause a baby to struggle due to the sudden withdrawal of the drug from the newborn. Worse than that, these children may suffer problems that far outlast the neonatal abstinence syndrome they may experience. They suffer higher than usual numbers of birth defects to their eyes and cleft palates. Heart defects and mental disabilities also occur in greater numbers.

Children born to mothers who had used meth still showed adverse mental effects when they were five years old. They tended to be smaller and handled stress poorly. They were more lethargic than babies born to non-meth-abusing mothers and reached developmental milestones later. Even in their teens, these children tended to achieve at lower levels in mathematics, language, and sports.

The Children of Meth Users

The children of a meth user may be at risk, not only because of the user’s aggression and violence but also the confusion and neglect. Meth users have been known to lock their children in a closet or the house while they seek more drugs, let small children run around unsupervised outside, or far worse. Many meth users have turned to manufacturing small batches of meth in order to have their own supplies. This very often exposes children to serious risks by bringing them in contact with toxic chemicals, the drug itself or the threat of explosion or fire.

Helping a Methamphetamine Addict

Methamphetamine addiction has a reputation for being very hard to treat. But the Narconon drug rehab program can help even those addicted to methamphetamine. The most important thing you can do is not waste any time. Don’t allow any more damage to occur if your loved one is using methamphetamine.

Because of the intensely addictive nature of this drug, it may take an intervention to get a person addicted to meth to see that they must get help. Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers often work with families to help them find professional interventionists who can generate that desire to finally break free from the drug.

Narconon programs offer the unique and innovative Narconon New Life Detoxification, one phase of the overall drug rehabilitation process. This program uses time in a low-heat sauna, daily exercise and an exact program of nutritional supplementation to bring about recovery from addiction. This action flushes out toxic residues from meth and other drug use and restores a bright outlook while relieving cravings.

Even a person who was long addicted to meth can recover the enjoyment that comes from a sober, productive life and the achievement of goals. Contact a Narconon representative to find out how to get started.