Well, the first article is long, but basically says the efforts to stop meth production from ephedrine sources like Sudafed encouraged the production of P2P, which created variants that either are inherently more damaging to the brain and less pure or that the other chemicals used to produce P2P are toxic. The result is that people are developing schizophrenia, acute psychosis, paranoia, etc at higher rates, much faster and to a greater degree. In many ways, this is true of synthetic opioids and other designer drugs versus the natural compounds; the natural compounds are far less harmful to the body, but in the case of meth, it is on a whole different level of how it destroys the brain.
The article mentions how long time users of meth could count on a progressive decline in health such as heart disease and mental problems, but the deterioration took years or decades, but now the P2P meth is causing psychosis immediately or within a far shorter period of time. This is what we are seeing in the ER. Far more users are now clinically psychotic, most likely for life.
The second article mentions programs to incentivize sobriety. It is one idea of many that will be needed to address this problem. The crazy thing is I have not only never seen so many homeless, but the homeless I am seeing are far different. It is like a zombie apocalypse out there. They are tweaking hard and talking to themselves. They are collecting all sorts of trash and building their forts like busy beavers that can't help themselves. It is very different than the homeless with a box or tent on the sidewalk or users of alcohol or heroine that pass out somewhere. The meth users leave this path of destruction wherever they go. It is sad and bad for everyone.
Dr. Carl Hart says 80% of users of drugs aren't living entirely dysfunctional lives like we think. Like a guy who chugs a twelve pack each night, many people use drugs while maintaining jobs and relationships. A smaller subset abuse them, but with meth, this is much more common, and with P2P meth, the damage is almost guaranteed.
I think it is time to legalize all drugs (pharmaceuticals and the drug policing machine won't allow it). The synthetic alternatives are worse and causing more damage. Legalize it, regulate it, and reasonably tax it and funnel the taxes back into education and prevention programs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/10/n...art-drugs.html