How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
independent.co.ukI'm going to plug this Iraqi-founded and run organization:
<a href="https://www.ideasbeyondborders.org">Ideas Beyond Borders.</a> They're paying Iraqis to translate things to Arabic and expand the Arabic Wikipedia. The idea is to expand the range of aspirations Arabs can cultivate and pursue.
Also, (and I say this as an Israeli): it needs to become easier for Iraqis to land student and work visas elsewhere. The worldwide clampdown in travel and migration, even before Covid it was particularly difficult for Iraqis, and so was keeping them in this pressure cooker.
Lots of problems with modern Iraq can be blamed on the US invasion, and English-language media is inclined to connect issues with the war because that framing is accessible to their readership. But is there really so much of a connection here? Crystal meth epidemics have arisen among a number of peoples – white South Africans, Thais, in the US both poor Rust Belt inhabitants and some rather affluent gay subcultures, etc. – whose countries have not been invaded recently.
All of those places have something in common. They all fell from relative affluence or comfort. In South Africa, white people no longer had job guarantees. Iraq had a total collapse of it's society. And the USA has also had a decline or stagnation in middle class incomes.
Easy to make so it is very cheap and less risky to deal in than crack, coke, heroin which never caught on locally.
There has always been cannabis users but druggies would then juice it up by mixing it with Methaqualone.
One reason for Hamas' rise to popularity was the drug epidemic in Gaza in the late 1980s. The Israeli occupation looked the other way as gangs sold illicit drugs to the Palestinians. People dependent on drugs makes for good collaborators and informants. Hamas made short work of anyone suspected of being a collaborator and of people in "immoral industries", i.e drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, and sellers of pornography, often via public and brutal executions. It wasn't pretty but it curbed the drug epidemic.
Drug abuse is a good breeding ground for religious extremism. It's not that hard to convince people that "Western influences" are bad if it means that more people become drug addicts. It's not that hard to convince someone that they should fight for God if they spent the last ten years as drug addicts.
I encourage anyone to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at least once. They're all online now because of COVID, and you'll find ones specific to each city or state.
You don't have to be an addict to attend one and it'll help you greatly understand what people are going through.
I offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.
"evidence based" is more appropriate term for a rehab center. NA/AA aren't meant to treat any one individual case, they're meant for people to vent and better themselves.
Addiction is both physical and mental, unlike cancer which is purely physical, and if faith could be weaponized properly to fight it, so be it.
And anyhow, I attended a few meetings and all the discussions were all about personal life troubles due to addiction or otherwise, and people asking and offering help.
In big cities it's very hard because of the variety of religions of people attending, it becomes very awkward to even try and push any one religious talk.
Can you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.
I mean, like half of the twelve steps are all 'stop thinking and give yourself over to God because you're broken and can't save yourself, only adherence to the program and god can'. At least in the south I've seen them push the cult aspect of it hard.
1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2) Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10) Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11) Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Like, there's a few good things in there, but you can say that about most cults.
It varies a lot from meeting to meeting. Regional cultures may push the religious aspects more strongly, but other cultures take the "as we understood Him" part very seriously. That's a loophole that enables atheist approaches to AA.
It's still "culty" in the sense that they're explicitly seeking out desperate people. If you have an evidence-based way to manage your consumption of alcohol, by all means do it. Such routes help a ton of people, and they have no need of AA.
AA is for people who "hit rock bottom" after having tried everything else. It's that mechanism that appeals to nonbelievers: you realize that you can't trust yourself and are so desperate you'll try anything because the alternatives are worse (dying, or living in agony).
That won't work for everybody, either. It probably works no better than placebo. But if that's the placebo that works for you, then you've found something.
Not everyone in AA sees it as I've just described it. AA brings out the worst in some people. Going there is a choice you should take only when you're willing to risk that. But you do at least have some control over what meeting you find. Large cities especially will have lots of different meetings, and you keep looking around until you fine one that works for you.
I do need to put in a caveat: I'm not an alcoholic and I know AA only through people who are close to me. My description is secondhand at best. But it's a view that makes sense to me: it helps who it helps, and for those for whom it doesn't, find something else. Unlike other cults, it's not demanding your money or your recruitment efforts. (That's something they're very clear on regardless of the meeting; anybody evangelizing AA to any except the absolute most desperate is doing it wrong.)
Curious, which one of the 12 steps you've listed have a "cult aspect" to them? FYI Characteristics of a cult http://cultresearch.org/help/characteristics-associated-with...
There is no requirement to follow the 12 steps. You can pick and choose or follow none at all and just do your own thing. No one ever gets "punished" because they didn't follow step whatever.
It depends on the specific meeting, but yes, some of them are religious cults. Both my parents converted to evangelical extremism while attending AA. This has had a profound and negative impact on my life, as they forced me to go to an abusive mennonite school, among other problems too private to share.
I know some people have great experiences with these orgs, but I'd also caution people about how there are sometimes people with agendas exploiting the trust and vulnerability within these groups.
When he said "evidence-based," he's referring to statistically recorded rates of recidivism.
You are correct, NA and AA are primarily social clubs, and there's no harm in that. But if the point is to recover from addiction, keep looking.
recidivism rates are applicable to rehab centers which offer multi-week in-patient programs. they're all legally required to provide them, and most are pretty sad (50%+ is typical).
no one claims attending a meeting with a few random people and talking is a "recovery program" by any stretch of imagination. they're completely different things.
> no one claims attending a meeting with a few random people and talking is a "recovery program" by any stretch of imagination. they're completely different things.
In my experience that is a false claim: AA/NA proponents frequently assert that they can help you recover from addiction.
Their religion-based system has about the same probability of helping you recover from addiction as not going to AA/NA.
>Their religion-based system has about the same probability of helping you recover from addiction as not going to AA/NA.
Not this again. We know for a fact that treatments which encourage people to be a part of AA fellowships result in a significantly higher rate of abstinence from alcohol. [1]
See Ycombinator discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22545557
This doesn’t mean AA is for everyone, but it does show that Alcoholics Anonymous is quite helpful for a significant subset of alcoholics.
[1] John Kelly, et. al. “Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12‐step programs for alcohol use disorder” Cochrane 2020 PMC7065341 (open access, no paywall: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7065341/ )
Parent doesn't mention anything about the recovery rate, simply understanding what they're going through.
recovery rate is more applicable to rehab centers, and those publish their recovery rates as required by law. Most are pretty sad (50% or more relapse is typical).
NA/AA meetings aren't meant to offer help to any one individual, rather group support to help those who want to better themselves make the right decisions, or to simply vent in-person out to others who won't judge them.
This bothered me too (need to believe in a Higher Power), but they do have a statistically significant success rate versus no group therapy, which is a net benefit to society I think
Stimulants -- amphetamines, cocaine, etc -- have physiological effects sort-of similar to Mono Amine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOI). MAOIs were sold as the first generation of anti-depressant drugs. These substances have mood-elevating benefits sort-of similar to cocaine and amphetamine, but without the euphoria and crash.
Later generations of anti-depressants are less effective that the MAOIs, but MAOIs fell out use because doctors of that era tended to think newer==better, some MAOIs caused side effects when combined with fermented foods (fine cheese, etc), and patents allowed for a marketing budget for the pharmaceutical companies to promote their latest FDA-approved prescriptions to physicians.
Stimulants do their harm by shredding the mitochondria [0]. My observations are that Cocaine is a much safer stimulant than meth amphetamine.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18211048
Emotional stress is a very important driver of substance abuse. Anything that restores the mitochondria/metabolism helps with stimulant abuse. Most important is helping the person find meaning.
How’s does ADHD medication compare to Meth? Is it the higher dosage with Meth? When I took Aderall it said methamphetamine salt.
As prescribed, it's at a much lower dosage. Adderall is tuned in 10mg increments, and meth is sold by the gram. Moreover, you absolutely can get addicted to and have serious health problems from prescribed medication -- it's a balance of risk versus reward. A handful of people prescribed stimulants have suffered sudden cardiac death.
The main difference here is modality of use -- taking something, once per day, in controlled doses, is very very different from taking something until you feel good. With a prescription, you also have a steady supply and no need to commit crimes to keep up your supply. So the societal problems from drug abuse, like overdose, increased criminality, and breakdown of relations don't happen with prescription drugs to the same extent, even if it's the same substance. Look at when the opoid crisis became a crisis -- it was when cheap, easy opioids stopped being available.
> With a prescription, you also have a steady supply and no need to commit crimes to keep up your supply.
It's almost like addicts are self-medicating and we should give them a legal, prescribed supply of medication.
> Look at when the opoid crisis became a crisis -- it was when cheap, easy opioids stopped being available.
What? In high school (20 years ago, Central PA) I knew zero people who used opiates. A few years later I knew people who made trips to Philadelphia. Now they're available everywhere. Perhaps the flow of pill scripts slowed, but fentanyl filled that gap.
When was drug abuse present, versus, when was drug abuse a societal problem?
Ok but when did “cheap, east opioids” go away?
Adderall is amphetamine salts not methamphetamine. While methamphetamine can be prescribed for ADHD/occasionally weight loss, it's pretty rare in the US. That said, the mechanism of action is very similar
Thanks for the clarification it was a long time ago.
Methamphetamine is an effective ADHD medication (brand name Desoxyn). Adderall contains amphetamine (not methamphetamine). Although as far as how it compares to amphetamine, I would say they are nearly identical on a dose equivalent basis.
Here is an interesting look at the differences between ADHD medications: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines
They're basically the same thing. Difference is ADHD meds are 5-10mg Meth, or similar drug at a lowish dose, and orally. But you can take meth a low dose and achieve the same effect.
Taking more doesn't help your performance, it makes it worse, and you get way more side effects, especially mental side effects. These build up with time.
I don’t know where this myth comes from or why it’s so prevalent but it’s completely false. Methamphetamine and amphetamine salts (e.g. Adderall) are not at all the same drug. One clear distinction is that methamphetamine is serotonergic while amphetamines are not.
ADHD meds are definitely not methamphetamines. They are amphetamine salts. Methamphetamine can be prescribed in rare cases but that isn’t the typical treatment at all.
Or in layman’s terms, some people prefer uppers as opposed to downers.
Be it Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Central America. Wherever British/US army goes to bring culture and democracy, drug epidemic follows along.
To be fair, Afghanistan was a huge drug producer before the US/NATO invaded. Have they become a giant consumer as well?
As far as I know, under the Taliban in the 90s there was by far the lowest amount of drug export from Afghanistan. Now its basically a pure narco/military state, far more then Columbia ever was.
What this article totally fails to mention is the new widespread reduction techniques from the Ephedra plant (also called Mormon Tea) which grows widely around the world and even in the south western USA!
The Iraq route goes Afghanistan -> Iran -> Iraq -> ...
https://cen.acs.org/policy/global-health/Afghanistans-crysta...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedrine#Recreational_use
https://twitter.com/mansfieldintinc/status/13726706500291092...
This is good too, there's a lot of history to take in.
I know we have a few advocates for legalization.
How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground?
I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
Well, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear!
So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather:
1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs?
2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs legal and repurpose those rents for education, health, and harm reduction purposes?
Legalization doesn't mean you can buy crystal meth at the local 7-11, it just means you don't buy it from a drug lord cum human trafficker.
It also means when you do have problems you can seek help and talk openly about them instead of diving further down the hole, afraid of getting caught.
With illegality there's no hope. With legalisation there's at least a shimmer of it.
1) safer for those stuck in consumption patterns, yes. And safer on a whole by reducing the number of new consumers. An endorsement and social acceptance via legality is the wrong way I think. Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side.
2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices, do things that ethics otherwise hinder, etc. They will do this by, as today, move drugs outside of the system to avoid taxes, cut the stuff with other substances, etc.
I think the 2) is such a strange argument. Following the 2) argument, are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans?
Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc.
> Legality would likely push people on the "I think it's bad for me, but I'm tempted to try, and since it's legal it should be ok safe" to the wrong side.
I don't believe that's a thing. Look up Research Chemicals when you have a minute. They're variations of existing drugs with pretty much the same properties, but not necessarily illegal, e.g. 1P-LSD. Governments react by making them illegal at some point, but you have quite a while until they actually are. Still, we're not seeing things like 1P-LSD in every household, because, most people don't avoid LSD for legal reasons.
Is there research on how the legalization of weed has affected the existing criminal sales & distribution networks?
> 2) Those worst humans would still exist, still try to make money out of the drug business. They would undercut prices
That's why we have all those traffickers and the mafia running super markets and bakeries, they are so good at running business that they can beat any capitalist enterprise.
And if you are simply referring to normal business, that do tax fraud, its the same problem as literally every other business. Are you against all business because people try to avoid taxes?
> are "the worst humans" expected to just stop being the worst humans
No, rather not give them a trade where being the worst nets big profits where there is opportunity for a lot of extra crime because the job is already criminal, so why does it matter.
> Look at cigarettes. It's legal today, but there are still scum exploiting the situation by black market selling probably dangerous tobacco that doesn't go through QA and regulatory checks etc.
What % of the cigarette market is that? Likely less then 0.1%. How many super rich successful black market cigarette millionaires are there?
How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction?
Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction.
Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?
Legalization is one key part; destigmatization is the other.
Those who understand addiction, either first-hand or through research, understand that the root problem is not the drug/habit; the drug/habit tends to be the addict's best known way to sooth immense psychological pain. Shame drives addiction in deeper. So to actually help addicts, one needs to destigmatize the conversation, allow people to say "Hey, I'm in a bad place and I need help" with minimal fear of being judged (the addict tends to already hate their self pretty profoundly). And given how human nature works, destigmatization depends on legality.
Stopping addiction isn't about judging addicts; it's about understanding the root cause of their problem (which tends to be intense emotional trauma) and giving them empathic help to start building healthy relationships.
I’m not saying we punish the user, but rather find a way to minimize availability.
Also, trauma is not always a cause for addiction. Lots of people suffer trauma and don’t get addicted, conversely we also have people with little trauma who get addicted.
> I’m not saying we punish the user, but rather find a way to minimize availability.
In 200 years history of drug suppression literally everything has been tried.
And yet, even in a high security prison, drugs are highly available.
If it can't be done in a max-security prison, how do you think it can work for a whole society?
What method of restricting supply has not been tried. The US has literally invaded other country to try to destroy supply bases. The military as whole division, billions spent on intercepting submarines.
Absurd high cost have been put on a dealer that is captured.
What is your solution to actually restrict supply in a meaningful way?
Webcams reduced regular crime a lot. Artificial nose can do same for drug addicts.
https://silvermistrecovery.com/blog/2018/09/2019-guide-the-l...
It isn't a 1:1 causal link--virtually nothing is. But there's very strong evidence that unprocessed trauma is one of the core drivers of addiction.
It's constructive to think of drugs and addictive behaviors as emotional crutches. You don't help people with problems walking by making crutches illegal; you do so by focusing on treating the root cause, which may include taking the crutch away in a properly supportive therapeutic environment.
I'd also point you to the experiments dubbed "Rat Park" (https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-tea...). Addiction is ultimately a social/emotional disease; the drug/habit is the symptom.
I’m sympathetic to your POV.
However, sometimes there is no root cause other than “Hyacinth had me try sniffing some glue and I got hooked”.
Sure, some kids can say “no”, but many give in to peer pressure and after a few times there is no going back.
I do agree with a good therapeutic environment, but relapses are common, so it takes vigilance and follow up and so on.
Again, drugs exist and are available now. So you shouldn't think of the options as "drugs are legal and available vs drugs are illegal and unavailable". They are available in either case!
Making drugs legal means that one can control the points and conditions of distribution. So one could require licensing, education, or even controlled application. Sure, you can take good, cheap, heroin, but you have to take it here.
Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal drugs, the more appealing illegal drugs become, so there's a safety -maximizing point somewhere along that integral.
To draw a parallel with filesharing:
"Of course, the more onerous the path the get legal movies, the more appealing illegal downloads become, so there's a profit-maximizing point somewhere along that integral."
We've all witnessed the war-on-piracy that the powers-that-be have been pursuing a few decades ago, and we've all seen it fail spectacularly. Similar to the drugs story, by going after the Napster-type filesharing systems, they created a much more lucrative black market where criminals made millions by being the first to crack protection schemes.
What reduced the problem to a manageable level? Apple Music/Spotify/Netflix. By making it legal to do entertainment in the confines of their own home, the harm to society at large was much reduced. And even better, because everything is legal now, production companies have much better insights into their market, and can better produce content that their users actually want.
If we look at entertainment we see that ease of access has increased viewership (consumption). In terms of drugs we want to wean people off of addiction. Of course making drug use less dangerous is better than not, but it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances.
it does nothing to mitigate the issue of having a population addicted to harmful substances.
The experiences of Portugal and The Netherlands show otherwise:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-a...
https://drugpolicy.org/blog/america-take-note-three-lessons-...
Why we should care about drug addicts? They care about their drug only instead of our society.
or maybe the addiction is so strong that they can't not care even if they try. some of them are quite unhappy that they can't quit, because withdrawal is so strong they need to be high to not suffer greatly, or in case of alcohol, even die.
yes, addiction is bad. fix the root cause of drug use instead of pretending you can fix the world with inefficient laws.
The root cause of drug addiction is hard to find. It looks like the root cause is the DNA of our bodies and our own brain. How to fix that?
Decriminalization and legalization brings peoples addiction out of the kind of hiding that prohibition requires. This makes it easier and safer for people to seek addiction services, and easier for their loved ones to spot their problematic use earlier. Portugal is testament to this.
Also consider places like the Netherlands or various states in the US where cannabis is legally available. What you see there is that other drug use shifts to cannabis which is relatively safer than alcohol or opioids. You also see declining rates of use among teenagers as it become less mysterious and dangerous but rather common and uncool.
Do you have any evidence that using law enforcement is reducing drug use? I sure don't!
As for actively discouraging people, we are actively discouraging people from using tobacco. And it seems to be working pretty well.
I recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8yYJ_oV6xk to challenge your assumptions on this. (Retired police captain arguing against the drug war.)
Better educating the masses about dosing and risks prevents some of the worst outcomes (like overdoses). Fostering a culture where the risks are discussed openly in society might help folks make better decisions and avoid addiction in the first place. Additionally, having the option for medically supervised detox (and the drugs required to do that safely) without fear of prosecution is a complete game-changer. Really, I think this represents a shift in mindset from punishing individuals for their addictions to handling it as a societal issue that needs a comprehensive solution.
Here's a good read on how Portugal has handled things (to quite some success): https://time.com/longform/portugal-drug-use-decriminalizatio...
Cigarettes are legal yet many Western countries have been successful at driving down their use.
Do you think if we made them illegal use would go up or go down?
Did people stop drinking alcohol during prohibition?
That wasn’t the question, but rather, did consumption go down? I believe the answer was yes, it did go down but alcohol is so ingrained in society for so many millennia that prohibiting it will not shut off consumption.
> How is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction?
It's easier for a 15-yo to buy weed than to buy alcohol (where weed is illegal, I should add).
I"m a pretty strong advocate for legalization.
The most concise counterpoint would be that addiction is not really hampered by criminalization, outside of edge cases like Singapore which is an island. Criminalization doesn't create less addicts it just creates more addicts in jail. Criminalization is also not zero sum, b/c it comes with all the issues of black markets, issues with the police who need extra power to enforce these laws.
Treatment does create less addicts, but less people will be addicted if you fix problems in society in the first place. Which are the real issue. In this example Iraq doesn't have a meth problem because meth is the problem, Iraq has a meth problem because of mass poverty.
EDIT: Also look at alcohol prohibition for what happens when you create a white market out of a black market. Lower potency products, that are safer and actually productive for society.
>In this example Iraq doesn't have a meth problem because meth is the problem, Iraq has a meth problem because of mass poverty.
The article does paint a bleak picture of life in Iraq and I understand how a lot of youth can end up addicts. Taking drugs is something they can do feel better for a while and is something they actually have control over in their lives unlike the rest of the country's problems.
Morally, would it be wrong to ship in tons of anti-depressants and give them away free to make people feel better about their shitty situation?
A large part of the issues from drugs are contaminations and inconsistent dosing. Prohibition also pushes people to make/use higher concentration drugs, and forces people to use drugs they can get vs drugs that are safer (meth vs addaral). And forces them to use unchecked (and often untrustworthy) sources.
The idea is that legalization should bring addiction resources, harm reduction, education, and cleaner drugs.
This removes the infamously dangerous "drug deals", "bad batches"/lacing, removes stigma and legal barriers that prevent addicts from recovery, and should make it easier for users to recover.
I think most pro-legalization people recognize that drug addiction is largely the result of trauma, and that legalization is but one component of a holistic approach which also treats the underlying trauma (through therapy, other medications, housing and job access).
Legalize less damaging alternatives. The cost and risk of the legal alternatives will drop and people will have an incentive to do something other than street meth.
We shouldn't legalize meth. We should legalize moderate doses of time-release amphetamine (not methamphetamine, basically adderall). It would displace meth in the marketplace to a great degree if it's readily available, and while it is somewhat dangerous if heavily abused it is far less addictive and dangerous than meth. Making it time release would also somewhat reduce abuse potential. Yes you can crunch it up and snort it and some people would do that, but those are the same people who will snort meth and snorting 50mg of clean pharmaceutically pure amphetamine would do less harm.
Highly concentrated and dirty street meth is what the incentive structure of prohibition gives you. It's significantly more potent than regular amphetamine, so it's easier to transport larger quantities. It's also a lot easier to make with off the shelf materials and precursors. Amphetamine isn't really more complex to make chemically but it's harder to make it with materials you can buy from a trip to a regular hardware store. Hell there's a "one-pot" meth synthesis around that you can do in a two liter bottle in a single step if you don't mind a filthy product and a chance of blowing yourself up. There's nothing that easy for amphetamine.
Note that amphetamine is more common in Europe where prohibition is somewhat less strict. In the USA it's all meth. Regular amphetamine is rare.
It's likely the abuse potential of methampetamine is similar to amphetamine (see e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3475187/)
So, the chemical is probably not the problem. It's also likely methamphetamine performs better for medical use cases. See: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/know-your-amphetamines
EDIT: Otherwise, though, I thoroughly agree with what you are saying here in that having access to smaller, cleaner, time-release doses would do well to curb addiction.
I don't have first-hand experience, but I know people who do. Every single person I've spoken to who has had an issue with drugs has said that methamphetamine is "different."
But of course that's not scientific. I'm not sure how many reliable studies have been done. It could be a result of the potency of street meth rather than the chemical.
I've taken both and I think they are basically indistinguishable (besides strength per dose and maybe duration). So there is a counterpoint for you.
Those silly goofballs at the CIA... they just love introducing meth to sparsely populated and largely agricultural communities, don't they.
Everytime I read an article like this, 18 years out from the start of the war, I'm reminded of this Onion headline from that time:
https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entir...
"This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t"
The statistic in this article about under-25 unemployment being 36% breaks my heart. This would've been me now, at my current age, born in a different place at the same time.
> "A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism"
I used to live in a major middle eastern country when this was going on. People were outright talking about the Crusader wars and there was a terrible sentiment against anyone with a light complexion.
Another classic focusing on the 18-year aspect: Soldier Excited To Take Over Father’s Old Afghanistan Patrol Route
https://local.theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-fath...
Interestingly, the unemployment rate only began increasing in 2012: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SLUEM1524ZSIRQ Same pattern for total unemployment: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?location...
In 2012 it was as low as it ever had been in 20 years. So what began in 2012? ISIS? Syrian civil war refugees? Completion of U.S. military withdrawal? (All a consequence of the U.S. intervention, to be sure, but knowing that isn't particularly useful in this case.)
All 4? I imagine American occupation was "good" for employment while it was going on - providing a steady flow of income from soldiers and the military paying for goods and services while we were there.
US military always carries all the shit they use from US, so that effect would be rather miniscule on the "enemy soil".
Also, no longer being under international blockade after 10 years might help.
The unemployment rate was pretty constant from 1992 to 2012. "20 years" in my previous comment was ambiguous, but I had meant the 20 years prior to 2012, not 20 years prior to today. Which, now that you mention it, is also a curious thing--the constancy even after the blockade was lifted.