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- [00:01]
Wendy Zuckerman
Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science versus Today on the show methamphetamine. More and more people in the US Are trying it, and it's got this reputation as being one of the scariest and most addictive drugs out there. Is that true? I feel like basically every message that we get about meth is that it's this uniquely dangerous drug almost in a category of its own. Like in this government psa, you see a normal teenager whose life is ruined by it. I wish my tire had blown out that night. I wish my car had skidded off the road. I wish I'd broken my neck. But I didn't crash. I drove to that party and I did meth for the first time, I did meth. And now this is my life. And that's the idea Riot, that meth is so addictive that if you try it just once at a party, you won't be able to stop. And in the meantime, it'll destroy your life. We hear that meth will rot your gums, make your teeth fall out. I mean, ever heard of meth mouth? And even worse, apparently after using meth, your brain will never be the same again. Some people, they just lose it.
- [01:27]
Listener 1
Stop looking at me.
- [01:30]
Wendy Zuckerman
Research shows that taking methamphetamine even just.
- [01:34]
Listener 2
A few times can impair your brain.
- [01:37]
Wendy Zuckerman
And movement for life. Life.
- [01:40]
Listener 2
Life.
- [01:40]
Listener 1
Life.
- [01:40]
Wendy Zuckerman
Life. Life. Life. Life. Life. Life, Life. And I should say that not all Meth PSAs went for the scare the hell out of you approach. I do have to play this bonkers ad that my editor remembers hearing a lot when she grew up in the Midwest. Look at me, busy as a bee. Where'd I get all this energy? Oh, man. But even this busy bee who's frantically cleaning her house with a toothbrush ends up in bad shape. And if all that wasn't bad enough, watching the news, it seems like we're in a meth epidemic. With this super addictive drug only getting more powerful. This month, the New York Times wrote that meth is more dangerous than ever.
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Listener 2
We are in the midst of a crisis when it comes to methamphetamine.
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Martin Paulus
It's more destructive than any other drug. Law enforcers are starting to see the emergence of super powered versions of meth.
- [02:43]
Listener 2
Experts say it's more lethal and it causes extreme psychosis.
- [02:48]
Wendy Zuckerman
But something here doesn't quite add up, because as scientists kept telling me, meth is an FDA approved drug. Did you know this? In the US it's used to treat adhd and it can be given to people six years and older. Children. We're giving meth to children. So today on the show, is meth really this horrendously bad drug where one hit will get you so addicted it'll ruin your life? What exactly does meth do to our brain and our body? When it comes to meth, there's a lot of, oh, meth.
- [03:25]
Listener 2
M. Meth.
- [03:27]
Wendy Zuckerman
And then there's science. Science versus meth is coming up just after the break. This episode is brought to you by Brooks. So Brooks just released the new Glycerin 22 running shoes. And let me tell you why. I think you're going to love them. So I have weird shaped feet. I know lots of people don't love their feet, but seriously, I have bunions on one side of my foot. On the other side, there's this bone that may as well be a bunion. The pinky toe is weird. The second toe, it's all just a mess. And it means that buying shoes is a real mess. Every single time I buy shoes, and particularly running shoes, I have to coat my feet with band aids so I don't get blisters. Except for when I wear Brooks. Seriously, I just put on my new glycerin 22 running shoes just then and went for a run. No band aids and my feet feel great. It was a great run. They were bouncy, it was fun. They're also so bright. They're so clean. I guess that's just because they're new shoes. But seriously, I'm really excited about these shoes. If you want to know more about the glycerin 22 shoe, head to BrooksRunning.com.
- [05:04]
Listener 2
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. Not everyone is careful with your personal information, which might explain why there's a victim of identity theft every five seconds in the U.S. fortunately, there's LifeLock. LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year by visiting lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [05:37]
Wendy Zuckerman
Welcome back. Today on the show, meth. So right off the bat here, there's this idea that the new meth on the street is like meth on steroids. It's sometimes called super meth and headlines are screaming that it's a monster. It's actually not a new drug. Meth is still meth, but for a while now, it's been produced in a different way. And a big Thing is that it's cut with less crap. An analysis of meth samples in the US Done by the Drug Enforcement Administration found that in the late 90s, the purity of meth that you'd buy on the street was about 20%. Fast forward more than 20 years. On average, it's almost 97% pure. That is Walter White level pure. So now let's find out what meth, just meth, is doing to our brain. And I really wanted to understand just what it felt like to take meth. So I reached out to our listeners who had tried it and had these awesome conversations about the highs and the lows of using methods. So here's how they described what meth can feel like.
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Listener 2
Meth makes your whole body kind of.
- [06:53]
Wendy Zuckerman
Tingly instantly in, like, a nice way, almost like glistening, almost like Edward in Twilight. You know, he's in the sun and he's just like, kind of glistening. That's kind of how you feel on meth.
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Listener 3
And I felt very on alert. I, you know, everything was sort of heightened. I was wide awake, probably not blinking as much as a regular person.
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Listener 1
I remember just being, like, really horny, really horny. You know, wanting to be, like, touched and, like, kissed and, like, you know, all of this, like, really intense kind of, like, feeling of, like, me wanting to be with this guy in every and any way possible. Oh, wow. Like, it just felt like it unlocked everything, every pathway in my head. I remember feeling socially perfect. No anxiety. It just makes, like, all of your best parts better. It feels like it's just turning on.
- [07:45]
Wendy Zuckerman
The happy in your head. So how can meth make you feel this way? Turn on the happy in your head? I talked about this with Professor Martin Paulus, scientific director at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research. And he loves studying meth. He loves watching TV shows about method.
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Martin Paulus
Breaking Bad is my favorite show.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Oh, really?
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Martin Paulus
Oh, yeah. I love the show. We actually have a paper that has the subtitle I'm the Danger.
- [08:19]
Wendy Zuckerman
So Mun told me that meth releases a bunch of chemicals into our brain, like adrenaline and serotonin. But a biggie is dopamine, which is kind of like the feel good chemical. And meth does this pretty cool stuff to get dopamine really working in your brain.
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Martin Paulus
It essentially makes a drop of dopamine seem like it's an ocean of dopamine.
- [08:47]
Wendy Zuckerman
Normally, what happens when you do nice things that bump up your dopamine? Not meth, but let's say you have a little sex, you eat a little chocolate, you get a little Dopamine hit.
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Martin Paulus
And so the dopamine system turns up the knob a little bit, and you say, oh, wow. You know, this is really. This is really something.
- [09:03]
Wendy Zuckerman
Time passes, and then the dopamine is.
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Martin Paulus
Sucked back up into the nerve cell and it's basically gone.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Right.
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Martin Paulus
And so that you get the little blip and it's gone. What methamphetamine does is it floods parts.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Of your brain with dopamine, but then.
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Martin Paulus
It stops that sucking up, and the.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Fact that then it stops it getting sucked back so the dopamine will hang around for longer as well.
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Martin Paulus
That's right. That's right. Yeah. And so literally, you get this flood of dopamine that comes out of nowhere, and everything seems like great. People who, even the first time they do meth, they say it's like 100 times an orgasm.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Studies in rats have found that meth increases dopamine in a part of their brain by more than 1000%. Compare that to cocaine, which bumped up dopamine by a measly 350%. Meth also crosses the blood brain barrier really quickly. So if you're snorting, injecting, or smoking it, it means you can get high super fast. Plus, that high can last for hours, some eight times longer than coke. So that is part of the reason that meth can give you this incredible high, because it's flooding your brain with dopamine. Dopamine also helps you focus and pay attention to things, which is why a little bit of meth can work as a medication for adhd. But feeling that huge happy in your head, it doesn't last forever, because like other drugs, your brain builds up a tolerance. Dopamine works by binding to all these little receptors on your brain cells. But as you keep using meth, your brain takes some of those receptors away. So here's Martin, our neuroscientist, again.
- [10:53]
Martin Paulus
So you get the dopamine, but there's nobody listening on the other side, or fewer receptors listening. So you don't get the same effect after a while. Right. It's no longer like this incredible hit, but now it's like a little poof.
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Wendy Zuckerman
So that is why you might not keep twinkling as bright as a teen heartthrob when you keep using meth. But then our next question is, what are the risks here? Because people say that meth can break your brain in all kinds of ways. And one thing that a lot of our listeners were worried about who had used meth, was how the drug had affected their memory. And it is true. That when you're using a lot of meth or soon after you stop, it can screw with your cognition and memory. One paper said it was similar to what you might see in folks with alcohol use disorder. You can even see abnormalities popping up in brain scans. Heavy meth uses now, it's not that noticeable or bad for everyone, but one guy I spoke to who asked us to call him Enough. He's used meth pretty much every day for the last four years. He told me that these days his memory is shot.
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Listener 1
Everything in the past is not really there. It's just fog and haze and like, even like one of my work best friends, I can't even remember how we met. And I had to tell her that the other day. Like, I really don't remember how we met.
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Wendy Zuckerman
But what a lot of the scary meth news articles out there don't tell you is that if you stop using meth, your brain can at least partly recover. Studies show that even after long term heavy use, once users stay off meth for, let's say, six months, a year, their scores on cognitive tests improve, including their memory. Over time, some areas of the brain itself even start to look more normal. Martin told me that this is good news here.
- [13:01]
Martin Paulus
The point being is there's enormous regenerative capacity in the brain. I mean, there are limitations, but there's tremendous amount of regeneration that can happen.
- [13:14]
Wendy Zuckerman
In the longer term. There are some other things to worry about, though. Like meth might put you at an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, which is a disease related to dopamine. But the big thing that you hear a lot about when it comes to meth is that it'll make you go basically psycho, where you start seeing things and hearing things. One of our listeners, she asked me to call her Tina. Started off just taking meth with friends to go dancing on the weekend. She'd party all weekend on this big binge, and on her way home, sometimes she'd start to see things.
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Listener 3
What would happen is when I was driving home, out of my peripheral vision, I would swear that I saw someone walking up out of the woods and, like, walking towards the road. And then as soon as you shift your vision over and you look directly at them, they're gone because they were never there in the first place. But, yeah, I saw many shadow people.
- [14:13]
Wendy Zuckerman
Did you have any other hallucinations?
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Listener 3
Oh, yeah, there. There is a video of me somewhere that a friend took trying to catch bugs. They were not there. There were no bugs there.
- [14:29]
Wendy Zuckerman
For another listener, we'll call him Theo, after he was using meth for a couple of years when he was high, he would get into this really creepy headspace.
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Listener 1
You know, I couldn't leave the house or drive because I was so paranoid. You know, I had, like, blankets covering all of my windows, and I would just, like, stand there.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Why?
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Listener 1
Because in my mind, I, like, knew somebody was out there watching me. You know, I don't know who it is. Maybe it's the cops or I don't know. And I would hear voices, I would hear my neighbors talking about me, and I'd be like, oh, my God. And, you know, I would turn my phone off and, like, turn electronics off because I knew there was, like, trackers and everything. And it was so intense and it was just so dark.
- [15:13]
Wendy Zuckerman
Collectively, all of these symptoms, hallucinating, getting paranoid. This is all called meth associated psychosis. And researchers say that it can look indistinguishable from schizophrenia. And I called up Jennifer Shear, a neuroscientist who did her PhD on this at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, to find out why it happens. And she told me something that most scientists studying meth didn't tell me.
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Jennifer Shear
I love meth. Like, I really, really enjoy it.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Have you tried it? Yes, I have.
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Jennifer Shear
I have tried it. Like, I totally understand why, like, somebody loves that drug.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Jen used to go to these dance parties in South Africa, and she tried meth a handful of times. How much were you thinking about your own experience as you were writing these studies? All the time. All the time. Yeah.
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Jennifer Shear
Whenever that says, like, oh, euphoric experience, I'm like, uh huh.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Did you worry about your brain as you were writing about all this neurotoxicity?
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Jennifer Shear
I mean, yeah, there were times where, like, you know, when you get really stuck and you can't think yourself out of a hole, like, ugh, maybe I took too much. Did I F my brain up so I can't finish this thesis now.
- [16:36]
Wendy Zuckerman
Jen's joking here. She was actually never that worried that taking a bit of meth the handful of times would stop her from finishing her thesis, largely because of that research that shows the brain can recover. Anyway, we got to talking about why meth can cause psychosis, and she told me that some of what's going on here is probably from sleep deprivation. Meth can keep you up for days if you take enough of it. And that can make you go loopy in all kinds of ways. But something else is happening here too. So right now you are probably not on meth, and your brain cells are Communicating, sending signals to each other in this orchestrated dance that allows you to listen to this podcast and not to think about other stuff swirling around your brain. But because meth has these powerful effects on different chemicals in our brain, Jen says that it can scramble that dance, right?
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Jennifer Shear
And if you're not communicating properly, the signals get crossed.
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Wendy Zuckerman
For example, a really important thing that your brain does is that it inhibits or shushes certain signals. But meth stops some of that from happening. So all of a sudden you're seeing things and thinking things that you wouldn't normally be.
- [17:58]
Jennifer Shear
Like, what about these satellites that might actually be, you know, controlled by the FBI or CIA, and thoughts of like, I'm a pretty cool person. Like, you go from I'm a very cool person to, oh, I'm God, and why, why wouldn't I be God? And you start creating those stories, and their brains just can't inhibit them and stop them. At a point, everything is allowed to just.
- [18:32]
Wendy Zuckerman
And so studies find that quite a lot of people who use meth, we're talking maybe one in three, one in two will get meth associated psychosis. But this is an experience they'll have while they're high. Those thoughts should go away pretty soon after meth is out of their system. So Tina, she only saw shadow people while she was taking meth. And Theo only got paranoid like that when he was using heavily. It is worth pointing out, though, that there are some unlucky folks who still get psychotic episodes even after they've stopped using methods, and they can actually end up with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. What's frustrating is that we don't know the chance that this will happen to you. Researchers told me that it's rare, but your risk goes up the more meth that you use. Now, if you are worried about getting schizophrenia, some research suggests that cannabis might be even riskier than meth. So where does this leave us? Will meth break your brain? Well, while you're using it, it can give you psychosis and make you go a little bonkers. But for a lot of users, if they can stay off meth, then their brain should actually get better. But that is if you stop using meth. So what's the chance that if you start, you can stop? That is how addictive is meth really? That's after the break. Plus a short pit stop at meth mouth.
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Listener 2
Meth is bad. It's gonna rot your teeth out of your head.
- [20:18]
Wendy Zuckerman
Coming up.
- [20:28]
Listener 2
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- [21:59]
Martin Paulus
Season one of Andor had critics calling it the best Star wars series yet. Season two of the Emmy nominated series.
- [22:07]
Listener 2
Is now streaming on Disney.
- [22:10]
Martin Paulus
Follow Cassian Andor as he embarks on a path from a rebel to a hero. Starring Diego Luna and from creator Tony Gilroy, writer of Michael Clayton and the Bourne Identity. Season two of Andor is now streaming only on Disney.
- [22:30]
Wendy Zuckerman
Today's Ask Me Anything is brought to you by Amazon. Whether it's delivering medication to your door with Amazon Pharmacy or 24. 7 virtual care with Amazon One Medical. Thanks to Amazon, Healthcare just got less painful. So we are here with our little segment of Ask Me Anything with senior producer Rose Rimblatt. Hi Wendy and you've come to me with some questions from our lovely, lovely listeners.
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Rose Rimler
DMAC on Insta wants to know if you have had previous experience casting your voice for podcasts, radio, tv, what have you in the past and they say that it is perfect.
- [23:08]
Wendy Zuckerman
Well thank you. No, I have not done any casting for my voice and in fact early in My career. I was told that my voice is too low for radio. Wow.
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Rose Rimler
Not feminine enough. Is that the idea?
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Wendy Zuckerman
That is the idea. I think it was explicitly told to me. Not feminine enough. And I was, in fact, given tips to speak. I'll do it now, higher up here in my voice up here. And that that would be better for my career if I would speak like this.
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Rose Rimler
I'm so confused. You're either speaking too low or too high or like you just can't get it right. Like you can't do anything right.
- [23:52]
Wendy Zuckerman
It's impossible to get it right. I tried that for one report that I did. This was not for science vests. It was for something else. And I just was so embarrassed and thought I sounded like such a fool. I never did it again.
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Rose Rimler
Wow.
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Wendy Zuckerman
So thank you, D Mac.
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Rose Rimler
Yeah, D. Mac, you're healing old wounds here. Okay. Another one is from thatcrazymrb on Insta asking, what episode do you think about.
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Wendy Zuckerman
The most these days? I think I think about the microplastics episode the most because. Really? Yeah, Rose, this was your episode because it really has changed what I do day to day. It's annoying to not put plastics in the dishwasher now. You have to set them aside and I see them there.
- [24:41]
Rose Rimler
Yeah, I love ruining things for everybody.
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Wendy Zuckerman
I don't eat my canned chickpeas anymore. What about you, Rose?
- [24:49]
Rose Rimler
Oh, I think about Meryl's toothbrushing episode a lot because sometimes I'm like, do I really need to brush my teeth? I guess it's just made me aware of, like, there's no magic to toothbrushing. It's just like exposing your teeth to fluoride. Therefore, like, I feel like I can let myself have chocolate on my teeth for longer. Giving me some weird and bad habits, I would say.
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Wendy Zuckerman
I think. I don't think that was the message of the episode. I think I was berated for my chocolate eating as part of that episode.
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Rose Rimler
Somehow it's made me, like, looser gooseier with my oral hygiene.
- [25:30]
Wendy Zuckerman
Thanks, Rose.
- [25:31]
Rose Rimler
Thanks, Wendy.
- [25:34]
Wendy Zuckerman
Today's ask me anything was brought to you by Amazon. Thanks to Amazon Healthcare just got less painful. Welcome back. Today on the show, methamphetamine. Next up, meth mouth. There's this idea that meth is so bad for your teeth that it'll make them fall out and your gums will turn black. And for one of our listeners, we'll call them Fallon, they said that after smoking meth for just a couple of years, a few of their back teeth were pretty messed up.
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Listener 1
They were so bad. It was horrendous. I was like, this is. This can't be real. It was like. Like the back ones. There was no white on it. And it was gum.
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Listener 2
Wow.
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Listener 1
Just from decay.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Wow.
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Listener 1
Yeah, they were horrible.
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Wendy Zuckerman
And a study of more than 500 heavy meth users found that just under a third of them had six or more missing teeth, which is quite a bit higher than the general population. Meth users also have higher rates of holes in their teeth and gum disease. And this all makes sense based on everything we've heard about meth, right?
- [26:49]
Listener 2
Meth is bad. It's gonna rot your teeth out of your head. Don't do it.
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Wendy Zuckerman
And this is.
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Listener 2
Hi, my name is Kate O'Melley. I'm a researcher at Columbia University, Department of Psychology and at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
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Wendy Zuckerman
And then just tell us how many times you've tried meth. So I asked Kate, does meth eat away at your gums and teeth?
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Listener 3
No.
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Listener 2
You know, it's very unlikely that methamphetamine itself is eating away at your teeth.
- [27:23]
Wendy Zuckerman
There's this idea that the smoke from smoking meth is acidic and eats away at your teeth, which is why you lose them. But A study of 300 folks who were dependent on meth found that IV users were actually way more likely to be missing teeth than those who smoked meth, which the researchers said belies the common notions about the corrosive effects of methods. So what is going on here? Well, Kate told me that meth can make you grind your teeth. And also, some people get a really dry mouth from using meth, which could be bad because saliva helps protect your teeth from tooth decay. But Kate, as well as some other researchers, have suggested that there could be a much simpler explanation for what's happening here, which is that when you get high a lot, you just might not take good care of your teeth. And research has found that chronic meth users tend to drink a lot of sugary drinks and sometimes aren't so great at dental care. Here's Kate.
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Listener 2
Perhaps they're not brushing their teeth and flossing twice a day.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Are you surprised by this?
- [28:35]
Listener 2
I mean, as an occam's racer, sometimes the simplest answer is the most likely.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Looking at the research, it just doesn't seem like meth is uniquely bad for your teeth. Like, a study of almost 60 drug users found that the teeth of heroin users was just as bad as the teeth of meth users. And researchers found that when meth users do brush their teeth, they're less likely to have Crappy teeth. Quite a few of the folks that I spoke to who had used meth were actually so paranoid about getting so called meth mouth that they made sure that they took care of their teeth. Like Tina.
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Listener 3
I still, first of all, I still have all my teeth. Okay. I still have all my teeth.
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Wendy Zuckerman
Excellent teeth.
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Listener 3
Thank you.
- [29:23]
Wendy Zuckerman
So why. Can I just say, you could be on a Colgate commercial.
- [29:28]
Listener 3
Thank you. Thank you. It would be Crest white strips, because those are the ones that I use.
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Wendy Zuckerman
And so were you brushing your teeth? Is that why you think you were fine?
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Listener 3
I was still brushing my teeth. It may not have been at the exact cadence that a normal person would be brushing their teeth, but I was still brushing my teeth.
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Wendy Zuckerman
So that's meth mouth. A little more alliteration than science. But as I was researching about meth and its effects on the body, I realized that there are some other less well known things that I really wanted people to know about. And one of them is the toll that meth can take on your heart. Meth can increase inflammation in your blood vessels, increasing your risk of getting a serious heart disease. Here's Martin again with methamphetamine.
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Martin Paulus
You can see 20 year olds having strokes. You can have 20 year olds having heart attacks.
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Wendy Zuckerman
And in fact, in the US More and more people are dying from meth overdoses. It's actually the second most common kind of drug to die from after opioids. People who die with meth in their system aren't just dying from heart attacks, but also things like suicide and car accidents. Okay, our next question. Is meth the most addictive drug in the world? You know, remember those ads from the start of the show? Oh, meth. Oh, not that one. The other ones that were like, I went to a party, I tried it once, and now my life is ruined. Well, is that true? Is that how addictive meth really is? And you know, because meth has those powerful effects on our brain, it does make sense that it would be super, super addictive. And so I talked to our Breaking Bad fan and neuroscientist Martin Paulus about this. Can you just try meth once and walk away?
- [31:29]
Martin Paulus
The answer to that is certainly yes. Only a minority of people who are exposed to the drug will actually become dependent or develop use disorder. So it's not. It's like inevitable. It's not like it wipes out your entire brain. And you're kind of a slave to the drug the moment you take it. It's just not like that.
- [31:52]
Wendy Zuckerman
This huge survey on the drug Use of millions of folks in the US found that in 2023, over 16 million people said that they had used meth at least once in their lifetime. And around 11% of those were classified as having a meth use disorder. So based on that metric, roughly 1 in 10 people who tried meth are currently classified as having a meth addiction or meth use disorder. And when you compare meth to other drugs, it actually doesn't stand out. So based on that huge survey, slightly more people who'd ever used potential ended up with a pot use disorder. More people who had tried alcohol ended up with an alcohol use disorder. Another study from the 90s found basically the same thing. I mean, in that study they included tobacco, and you were three times more likely to become dependent on tobacco versus stimulants like meth. And I don't know if you're surprised about this. I definitely was when I first read about it, but the researchers I spoke to were not because they told me, well, yeah, you know, the reason that you get addicted to a substance, it's driven by the chemicals in the drug, but also a whole bunch of other things, like what your friends are doing, what you have easy access to, what society says is kinda acceptable.
- [33:26]
Martin Paulus
The use disorder is more than just, you know, the kick of dopamine. Yes, that explains some element of it, no question, but it's not the only thing.
- [33:37]
Wendy Zuckerman
So I think based on the research, meth does not deserve its reputation as this drug. That's gonna get everyone hooked. But there is something about meth's reputation. That's right.
- [33:50]
Martin Paulus
Here's the kicker. The rapidity with which you develop methamphetamine uses aura is unbelievable.
- [33:57]
Wendy Zuckerman
Martin means that the speed that you can go from feeling in control of your drug use to being addicted to meth can be pretty fast. There was this one survey of almost 300 meth dependent users, and it found that on average, the time it took them to go from trying it once to then having a meth use disorder was around three months, which is quite a bit faster, according to other research, than for alcohol, cocaine or cannabis. So while the majority of people who try meth will actually never get addicted.
- [34:36]
Martin Paulus
To it, for those who do, it can be very terrible. You know, you're down the cliff. I mean, that's the point.
- [34:44]
Wendy Zuckerman
And this is where that stereotype, or even the people that you see using meth in the news, this is where it really comes from. It's the minority of users who fall far. And for most of the people that I spoke to about their meth use, the ones that you're hearing from their meth use, it actually did get pretty bad. So that listener from the start of the show who at first felt really twinkly like she was from Twilight when she started using meth, she ended up getting arrested twice. Others lost jobs, got kicked out of their home, found themselves in really dangerous situations. Theo, who started using meth in his late teens, remembers when his addiction had well and truly set in.
- [35:33]
Listener 1
I couldn't stop using. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I mean, I was, like, stealing it from people that I was hooking up with, using everything that I had really fast. And it got to a point where right around 21, I was, like, in my carpet, like, looking through the carpet for, like, little shards of meth to put in a pipe and try to smoke. I remember, like, vacuuming and, like, emptying the vacuum on my desk and, like, trying to, like, dig out little shards. And we had a cat in this house that we lived at. And I mean, that, you know, kitty litter looks a lot. There's, like, these crystals in kitty litter that looks a lot like it. And I remember kind of just tasting gross stuff. You know, I put stuff in the pipe and just try to get something out of it. I mean, I was so desperate. Yeah. The addiction was, like, full on. There was no stopping it.
- [36:22]
Wendy Zuckerman
Theo knew the day he had to quit. He was in his room. He could hear his sister on the phone with his mum, who lives in Mexico. He's got a really good relationship with them both, loves them a lot. And Theo could hear them talking about him and how bad he was doing.
- [36:39]
Listener 1
I remember being. Getting really angry and opening the door to, like, confront them and, like, nobody was there. I felt it rock my core, and I'm like, oh, my God. I may have imagined that, but I think that's, like, my subconscious trying to fight for me. Like, there's this part of me that wants to live. There's this part of me that wants to not do this anymore. Like, there's a part of me that's just, like, so tired of, like, the really dark life, the situations, the hearing the voices. So, like, the financial insecurity, the, like, feeling so alone. Like, it just got to a point where I just. I was tired. And if. And if I didn't do anything, like, I felt like I was gonna die if I didn't do it myself. Like, something was gonna kill me. So I just felt like it was like, I don't know. I'm not a Religious person, but it felt like very spiritual to me. It was like something wanted me to live. Yeah.
- [37:36]
Wendy Zuckerman
So what did you do next?
- [37:41]
Listener 1
I. I actually text my sister and I said, hey, I. I want to be honest. I have a problem. I've been using meth for so long and I needed help, and I remember just immediately hear her calling me and, like, just bawling and being like, you know, you're. I will. We will help you. You are fine. We love you and we just want you to be better. And I don't know why. I just was so scared because I thought they were gonna reject me and just be like, you know, that's disgusting. You're on your own. I don't know, I just thought, like, there was a chance that they just wouldn't respond the way that they had.
- [38:27]
Wendy Zuckerman
And once you are addicted like this, it can be hard to quit. The stats are a little all over the place, depending on stuff like how long the studies follow people for. But as an example, there was this one US study of more than 300 meth users who went to an LA treatment center. And they found that around 40% stayed off meth for the first year. Five years later, only 13% were abstinent. Another survey, slightly better results, 25% were abstinent. So one in four, five years later, Theo ended up going to AA and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He's relapsed a few times, which, according to one study, happens to about half of those who try na. But he told me that it's never gotten as bad as it was that first time. And he's doing much better now. Theo has gone back to college. He's almost finished a math degree.
- [39:30]
Listener 1
And now here I am. And now I'm, like, super happy and proud.
- [39:33]
Wendy Zuckerman
I'm really excited to see what you do next.
- [39:36]
Listener 1
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm excited for Tina.
- [39:39]
Wendy Zuckerman
When her boyfriend at the time got a job overseas, she saw it as this opportunity to stop using. And actually, when Tina told her, mum, I'm leaving, they had this big fight.
- [39:52]
Listener 3
And she was like, you're moving to Europe so you can do drugs. And I screamed back at her. I was like, you don't understand. The drugs are here. I need to leave here. And we left, we moved. I was ready to walk away, but I couldn't stop myself when it was in front of me. So if it wasn't in front of me, I was thrilled. I was so good to just keep going. So now I graduated back in May, I have a great job that I love and I have totally turned my around.
- [40:27]
Wendy Zuckerman
She's been off meth for almost 10 years and in fact, a few of our listeners that you heard from stopped using by basically walking away. Researchers like Dr. Krista Seyfried at the University of New South Wales in Sydney are now looking into new ways to help folks with meth dependence. And some are pretty surprising, like there's therapy, CBT for meth, where you teach people coping strategies around cravings.
- [40:54]
Krista Seyfried
So for example, how to surf, an urge to use methamphetamine, how to urge surf, how to be able to sit with that discomfort and wait until it passes.
- [41:06]
Wendy Zuckerman
How do you, how do you surf the urge? What's one one tip?
- [41:09]
Krista Seyfried
They actually visualize the wave and the fact that the wave, you can actually watch the wave as it crests and it gets bigger and it feels like it's going to be overwhelming, but eventually it does actually crash and then recede.
- [41:22]
Wendy Zuckerman
There's also these pretty cool programs out there that will give people a bit of money when they can show that they haven't been using meth. And that has been found to help. And researchers are also looking into medications that we could use here, like, you know, how we use methadone to help people with opioid addiction or nicotine patches for nicotine addiction. Well, one of the things that Krista is currently researching is ADHD medication. Not meth, but a drug called lis, dexamphetamine. And their early research is showing that it really could help some people use less meth. As we were wrapping up, I asked Krista, do you think that meth has earned its reputation as one of the scariest drugs out there?
- [42:09]
Krista Seyfried
No, I don't think that that's. I don't think that that's true. I think what's, I think what's happened is that meth has earned itself a reputation whereby it's highly stigmatized. So I don't think it's that it's the scariest drug out there. I think that it's a highly misunderstood drug.
- [42:26]
Wendy Zuckerman
Do you know current working title for this episode is Meth the most misunderstood drug? Question mark.
- [42:32]
Krista Seyfried
Ah, well done.
- [42:36]
Wendy Zuckerman
Love getting an A plus from a scientist. So when it comes to science versus method, is it the most misunderstood drug? Well, I had thought that meth was this uniquely hyper addictive drug that was terrible for your brain and even rotted your teeth. And now that I know the evidence, it's definitely a naughty drug. It's in the naughty pile. But it's just a drug, you know, it can be fun. But also, particularly if you take a lot of it, it can have some pretty nasty consequences. You want to be careful here. I don't know if I'd try it. Probably not, but you might catch me humming a little ditty about it. Oh, meth. I don't sleep and I don't eat, but I've got the cleanest house on the street method. That's Science verses. This episode has 114 citations in it. So if you want to read more about anything that I've said on the show or you're curious, then you can find these citations by looking in the show notes and then there's a link to a transcript and you click on that transcript and then you'll see where we basically get our information from. If you want to let me know what you thought of the episode, I would love to hear from you. I'm on TikTok. Wendy Zuckerman is how you can find me. Science Versus is on Instagram sciencevs so come and say hello. And for all of you folks who saw that call out on Instagram saying that I was looking for people to talk to about their meth use and you were up for a chat, I just want to say thank you so much. It was so lovely chatting with all of you and I just, I really appreciate that you took the time to talk to me. Thank you. And if you are struggling with your drug use and maybe you want to change your relationship with the drugs that you're using, we're going to put some resources in our show notes. This episode was produced by me, Wendy Zuckerman with help from Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang and Aketty Foster. Keys were edited by Blythe Terrell Fact checking by Erica Akiko Howard Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord Music written by Bobby Lord, Bumi Hidaka so Wiley, Emma Munger and Peter Leonard. Thanks to all of the researchers that I spoke to for this episode including Dr. Heather Barkholtz, Professor Nadine Ezard, Dr. Nicole Lee, Dr. Samantha Brooks, Dr. Steph Kershaw, Professor Stephen Shoptor, Dr. Susan Calcatera, Professor Harriet DeWitt and Professor Edith London. A special thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. You can listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and wherever you are listening. If you like the show, we'd love if you gave us a five star review because it helps other people find the show. Hear more about science, which is great if you are listening on Spotify, though, you can follow us and tap the bell icon so you get notifications when new episodes come out. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.