Adelaide revealed as the meth capital of the world in wastewater study

The Kansas City Star moved the capital closer to the geographic center of the nation when it described Jackson County, Mo., as the meth capital in a story. Alt-newspaper New Times Los Angeles yanked it back to Riverside County in 1997. Contesting the designation that year was Florida’s Lakeland Ledger, which put it in Polk County, Fla. Submit the search terms “methamphetamine capital of the world” or “meth capital of the world” into Nexis, and it spits back almost 70 citations between 1983 and 2005, with many writers and sources disputing the capital’s precise GPS coordinates. Although the nation’s attention continues to be on opioids, methamphetamine is still a large threat in states all over the country.

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According to the United Nations 2022 World Drug Report, cannabis is cultivated in 154 of the world’s countries and territories, with opium, the next-most-prolifically cultivated drug, in 57 countries. The coca plant, which is processed to produce cocaine, is grown in eight countries. Perhaps as a result of some trade-deficit confusion, the Los Angeles Times called both Japan and California the meth capital in 1995 stories. The Press Enterprise widened its definition to all of Riverside and neighboring San Bernardino counties in 1996.

Central and South America

He went to therapy, earned three degrees, started writing, painting and learned computer coding through The Last Mile, a program that prepares inmates for successful reentry into society through business and technology training. The purer the meth, the more dangerous it becomes and that has led to a record number of deaths. Inside a nondescript commercial building in the City of Vista, a DEA chemist uses a boxcutter to open a package wrapped in duct tape. Inside the package are meth crystals, some the size of a quarter, others as large as five-inches in diameter. With a pestle and mortar, he grinds the crystal into a fine powder for a purity test.

1. Bryce Pardo, researcher at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told Newsweek that meth is “cheaper and purer” and easily available.
2. Restricting access to these drugs is an effective way of limiting the production and use of methamphetamine.
3. A recent article in Time reported that more than 7 percent of adults in Australia (more than 1.3 million Australians) have reported they have tried meth, with about 400,000 adults reporting using meth within the month before the survey.
4. Methamphetamine has become more available to drug users in Australia, and the country may have one of the highest rates of meth abuse in the entire world.
5. Incorporating group therapy, individual sessions with psychologists and trained substance abuse counsellors, and 12-step programs, PsychMed calls the Matrix Program “the gold standard therapeutic approach for methamphetamine dependence”.

Methamphetamine was also present in the wastewater of several other countries, including Cyprus, Finland, East Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland. The label amphetamine-type stimulants include methamphetamine and several other stimulants. Figures specifically for methamphetamine use and abuse are not available for every country but may be included under this heading. Street methamphetamine goes by a variety of names, including crystal meth, ice, and glass.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 36,251 people died from overdosing on psychostimulants in 2023. This is a slight increase compared to the previous year, which saw 35,550 deaths in 2022. Methamphetamine is one of the primary culprits contributing to overdose deaths in the U.S. involving stimulants other than cocaine. It’s a problem, yes, but it’s not about meth — it’s about something greater. As Reding writes in Methland, “In truth, all drug epidemics are only in part about the drugs. Meth is indeed uniquely suited to Middle America, though this is only tangentially related to the idea that it can be made in the sink.

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In many countries, there is not a clear designation between methamphetamine use/abuse and the use/abuse of other amphetamines like cocaine. Methamphetamine is a Schedule II stimulant, making it legally available but only through a non-refillable prescription. Though meth can be used to help manage attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), it is more often used recreationally. Crystal meth creates a euphoric high by activating the release of a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which plays a role in reward and mood.

Top 10 Cities with the Least Overall Drug Use in the United States

The rise of the meth epidemic was built largely on economic policies, political decisions, and the recent development of American cultural history.” Next up on the graph is Jefferson, Missouri, where there were 472 sites. Outside of labs, the Missouri State Highway Patrol seized 37,295 ounces of methamphetamine in 2011. In Tulsa County, Oklahoma, police identified 979 contaminated meth lab sites — the most of any county in the nation. In a 26-month period, The Tulsa Police Dept. cleaned up 690 labs at a cost of $118,560,000. Since exploding onto the American drug scene in the 1980s, meth has spread rapidly across the U.S, but we haven’t nailed down a how to get someone fired for drug use single stronghold for it.