Methamphetamine: The Most Misunderstood Drug?

Methamphetamine has a scary reputation as one of the most addictive and dangerous drugs out there. But at the same time, it's an FDA-approved drug — and can even be used to treat ADHD in children. So just how dangerous and addictive is meth? And what’s going on in your brain when you use it? We hear from Science Vs listeners who’ve used it — and the scientists who study it, including neuroscientists Professor Martin Paulus and Dr. Jennifer Hsieh, as well as Dr. Kate O'Malley and Dr. Krista Siefried. Find drug use resources here: spotify.com/resources Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsMeth In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Methamphetamine: The Scariest Drug (03:44) Super Meth? (04:35) What it feels like to take Meth (05:57) What meth does in the brain (09:20) Can Meth break your brain? (21:51) Meth Mouth: Is it real? (25:55) How Meth Breaks your Heart (26:52) How addictive is Meth? (36:42) New research to help people with Meth Dependence (38:08) Meth: The Most Misunderstood Drug This episode was produced by me Wendy Zukerman, with help from Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re 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 Wylie, Emma Munger and Peter Leonard. Thanks to all the researchers we spoke to including, Dr Heather Barkholtz, Professor Nadine Ezard, Dr Nicole Lee, Dr Samantha Brooks, Dr Steph Kershaw, Professor Steven Shoptaw, Dr Susan Calcaterra, Professor Harriet de Wit, and Professor Edyth London. Also thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Wendy Zukerman?

  Hi, I'm Wendy Zukerman and you're listening to Science Verses.

• 0:05Wendy Zukerman?

  Today on the show, methamphetamine.

• 0:13Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I wish my tire had blown out that night.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:00Wendy Zukerman?

  And that's the idea, right? 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.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Some people, they just lose it.

• 1:29Speaker 03

  Research shows that taking methamphetamine, even just a few times, can impair your brain and movement for life.

• 1:43Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 1:58Speaker 04

  Look at me, busy as a bee. Where'd I get all this energy?

• 2:06Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 2:29Speaker 05

  We are in the midst of a crisis when it comes to methamphetamine.

• 2:36Speaker 06

  It's more destructive than any other drug. Law enforcers are starting to see the emergence of superpowered versions of meth.

• 2:43Speaker 07

  Experts say it's more lethal, and it causes extreme psychosis.

• 2:48Wendy Zukerman?

  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...

• 3:26Wendy Zukerman?

  And then, there's science.

• 3:31Wendy Zukerman?

  Science vs. Meth is coming up, just after the break.

• 3:41Wendy Zukerman?

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• 4:19Wendy Zukerman?

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• 5:22Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 6:05Wendy Zukerman?

  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 meth. So here's how they described what meth can feel like. Meth makes your whole... Body kind of tingly instantly in like a nice way. Almost like glistening, almost like Edward in Twilight. You know, he's in the sun and it's just like kind of glistening. That's kind of how you feel on meth.

• 6:48Wendy Zukerman?

  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. 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. I'm 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 the happy in your head.

• 7:36Wendy Zukerman?

  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 meth. Breaking Bad is my favorite show. Oh, really? Yeah, I love the show. We actually have a paper that has the subtitle, "I'm the Danger." So Martin 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.

• 8:17Wendy Zukerman?

  And meth does this pretty cool stuff to get dopamine really working in your brain.

• 8:23Speaker 05

  It essentially makes a drop of dopamine seem like it's an ocean of dopamine.

• 8:32Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 8:42Speaker 05

  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.

• 8:48Wendy Zukerman?

  Time passes and then?

• 8:50Speaker 05

  The dopamine is sucked back up into the nerve cell. Um, and it's basically gone, right? And so then you get the little bloop and it's gone. What methamphetamine does?

• 8:59Wendy Zukerman?

  Is it floods parts of your brain with dopamine. But then?

• 9:04Speaker 05

  It stops that sucking up.

• 9:06Wendy Zukerman?

  And the fact that then the it stops getting sucked back. So the dopamine will hang around for longer as well.

• 9:14Speaker 05

  That's right. That's right, yeah. Mm hmm. 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 that, they say it's it's like a hundred times an orgasm.

• 9:31Wendy Zukerman?

  Studies in rats have found that meth increases dopamine in a part of their brain by more than a thousand percent. Compare that to cocaine, which bumped up dopamine by a measly three hundred and fifty percent. 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.

• 10:14Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 10:38Speaker 05

  So you you you get the dopamine, but there's nobody listening on the other side. Or fewer fewer receptors listening. So you don't get the same effect after a while, right? It's no longer like this, this, this, uh, this incredible, uh, uh, hit. But now it's like, like a little poof.

• 10:58Wendy Zukerman?

  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 of heavy meth users.

• 11:41Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  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.

• 12:10Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 12:46Speaker 05

  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.

• 12:59Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 13:11Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  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.

• 13:58Wendy Zukerman?

  Did you have any other hallucinations?

• 14:00Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. There, there is a video of me somewhere that a friend took, um, trying to catch bugs. They were not there. There were no bugs there.

• 14:15Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 14:26Speaker 06

  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.

• 14:34Wendy Zukerman?

  Why?

• 14:34Speaker 06

  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 shit about me. And I'd be just 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.

• 14:58Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  I love meth. I really, really enjoy it. Have you tried it? Yes, I have. I have tried it. Like, I totally understand why, like, somebody loves that drug.

• 15:39Wendy Zukerman?

  Jen used to go to these dance parties in South Africa and she tried meth a handful of times.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  How much were you thinking about your own experience as you were writing these studies? All the time, all the time. Yeah, whenever it says, like, oh, euphoric experience, I'm like, uh huh.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Did you worry about your brain as you were writing about all this neurotoxicity? 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, oh, maybe I took too much. Like, oh, did I fuck my brain up? And so I can't finish this thesis now.

• 16:22Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 16:57Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Right, and if you're not communicating properly, the Signals get crossed.

• 17:28Wendy Zukerman?

  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. Like.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  What about these satellites that might actually be, you know, controlled by the FBI or CIA? 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, to just.

• 18:17Wendy Zukerman?

  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 meth. And they can actually end up with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

• 19:01Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 19:44Wendy Zukerman?

  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. Meth is bad. It's gonna rot your teeth out of your head. Coming up.

• 20:12Speaker 05

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• 20:56Speaker 05

  or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonalurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

• 21:42Speaker 05

  Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound Terzepatide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems, to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15-milligram injection. Zepbound contains Terzepatide, and should not be used with other Terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepbound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens, or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it,

• 22:26Speaker 05

  or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking Zepbound with asalfenolurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com.

• 23:13Speaker 06

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• 23:45Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 24:00Wendy Zukerman?

  So we are here with our little segment of Ask Me Anything with senior producer Rose Rimmler.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Hi Wendy.

• 24:07Wendy Zukerman?

  And you've come to me with some questions from our lovely, lovely listeners.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:22Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Wow. Not feminine enough, is that the idea?

• 24:41Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:07Wendy Zukerman?

  It's impossible to get it right. I tried that for one report that I did. This was not for Science Messes, it was for something else. And I just was so embarrassed and thought I sounded like such a fool. I never did it again.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:21Wendy Zukerman?

  So thank you, DMac.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, DMac, you're healing old wounds here.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Okay, another one is from ThatCrazyMrB on Insta, asking, what episode do you think about the most?

• 25:34Wendy Zukerman?

  These days, I think, I think about the microplastics episode the most because...

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Really?

• 25:41Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love ruining things for everybody.

• 26:00Wendy Zukerman?

  I don't eat my canned chickpeas anymore. What about you, Rose?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Oh, I think about Meryl's tooth brushing 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 tooth brushing. 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.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Giving me some weird and bad habits, I would say.

• 26:31Wendy Zukerman?

  I don't think that was the message of the episode. I think I was berated from my chocolate eating as part of that episode.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Somehow it's made me like loosey or goosey with my oral hygiene.

• 26:45Wendy Zukerman?

  Thanks, Rose.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Thanks, Wendy.

• 26:49Wendy Zukerman?

  Today's Ask Me Anything was brought to you by Amazon. Thanks to Amazon, healthcare just got less painful.

• 26:59Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 27:25Speaker 06

  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.

• 27:36Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow.

• 27:37Speaker 06

  Just from decay.

• 27:38Wendy Zukerman?

  Wow.

• 27:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, they were horrible.

• 27:42Wendy Zukerman?

  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? Meth is bad. It's gonna rot. Your teeth out of your head, don't do it. And this is?

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Hi, my name is Kate O'Malley. I'm a researcher at Columbia University Department of Psychology and at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

• 28:18Wendy Zukerman?

  And then just tell us how many times you've tried meth?

• 28:25Wendy Zukerman?

  So I asked Kate, does meth eat away at your gums and teeth?

• 28:30Speaker 04

  No, you know, it's very unlikely that methamphetamine itself is eating away at your teeth.

• 28:38Wendy Zukerman?

  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 meth. 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,

• 29:20Wendy Zukerman?

  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 researchers found that chronic meth users tend to drink a lot of sugary drinks and sometimes aren't so great at dental care.

• 29:43Wendy Zukerman?

  Here's Kate.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Perhaps and they're not brushing their teeth and flossing twice a day.

• 29:48Wendy Zukerman?

  Are you surprised by this?

• 29:49Speaker 04

  I mean, there's Occam's razor, sometimes the simplest answer is the most likely.

• 29:55Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  I still, first of all, I still have all my teeth. Okay.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  I still have all my teeth.

• 30:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Excellent teeth.

• 30:37Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 30:38Wendy Zukerman?

  So white, can I just say? You could be on a Colgate commercial.

• 30:43Speaker 04

  Thank you, thank you. It would be Crest White Strips because those are the ones that I use.

• 30:49Wendy Zukerman?

  What, and so were you brushing your teeth? Is that why you think you were fine?

• 30:53Speaker 04

  I was, I was, 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.

• 31:04Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 31:33Speaker 05

  With methamphetamine, you can see 20-year-olds having strokes. You can have 20-year-olds having heart attacks.

• 31:40Wendy Zukerman?

  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, 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?

• 32:25Wendy Zukerman?

  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?

• 32:44Speaker 05

  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.

• 33:07Wendy Zukerman?

  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 one 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 pot ended up with a pot use disorder.

• 33:52Wendy Zukerman?

  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,

• 34:35Wendy Zukerman?

  what you have easy access to, what society says is kind of acceptable.

• 34:41Speaker 05

  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.

• 34:52Wendy Zukerman?

  So I think based on the research, meth does not deserve its reputation as this drug that's going to get everyone hooked. But there is something about meth's reputation that's right.

• 35:05Speaker 05

  Here's the kicker. The rapidity with which you develop methamphetamine use disorder is unbelievable.

• 35:12Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 35:45Wendy Zukerman?

  So while the majority of people who try meth will actually never get addicted to it.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  For those who do, it's very, it can be very terrible. You know, you're down the cliff. I mean, it's, that's the point.

• 35:59Wendy Zukerman?

  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,

• 36:44Wendy Zukerman?

  remembers when his addiction had well and truly set in.

• 36:48Speaker 06

  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'd put stuff in the pipe and just try to get something out of it. I mean, I was so desperate.

• 37:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, the addiction was like full on. There was no stopping it.

• 37:37Wendy Zukerman?

  Theo knew the day he had to quit. He was in his room. He could hear his sister on the phone with his mom, 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.

• 37:54Speaker 06

  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, 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, the 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.

• 38:38Speaker 06

  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.

• 38:51Wendy Zukerman?

  So what did you do next?

• 38:56Speaker 06

  I, I actually texted my sister and I said, hey, I, I wanna 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.

• 39:26Speaker 06

  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, I don't know. I just thought like there was a chance that they just wouldn't respond the way that they had.

• 39:42Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 40:26Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 40:45Speaker 06

  And now here I am, and now I'm like super happy and proud.

• 40:48Wendy Zukerman?

  I'm really excited to see what you do next.

• 40:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I'm excited.

• 40:54Wendy Zukerman?

  For Tina, 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 mom, I'm leaving, they had this big fight.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  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 shit around.

• 41:42Wendy Zukerman?

  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.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:20Wendy Zukerman?

  How do you surf the urge? What's one tip?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  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.

• 42:37Wendy Zukerman?

  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 lidoxamphetamine. 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

• 43:22Wendy Zukerman?

  as one of the scariest drugs out there?

• 43:24Speaker 01

  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 its offer of 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.

• 43:41Wendy Zukerman?

  Do you know, current working title for this episode is meth, the most misunderstood drug, question mark?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Ah, well done.

• 43:51Wendy Zukerman?

  Love getting an A plus from a scientist.

• 43:57Wendy Zukerman?

  So when it comes to science versus meth, is it the most misunderstood drug? Well, I had thought that meth was this uniquely hyper addictive drug.

• 44:10Wendy Zukerman?

  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 wanna 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.

• 44:55Wendy Zukerman?

  That's Science Versus. This episode has 114 citations in it. So if you wanna 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 wanna let me know what you thought of the episode, I would love to hear from you. I'm on TikTok at Wendy Zukerman is how you can find me. Science versus is on Instagram, science underscore V S. So come and say hello. And for all of you folks who saw that call out on Instagram saying that

• 45:37Wendy Zukerman?

  I was looking for people to talk to about their Matthews and you were up for a chat. I just wanna 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 wanna change your relationship with the drugs that you're using, we're gonna put some resources in our show notes.

• 46:11Wendy Zukerman?

  This episode was produced by me, Wendy Zukerman, with help from Merrill Horn, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Aketi Foster-Kees. We're 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 Munga, and Peter Leonard. Thanks to all of the researchers that I spoke to for this episode, including Dr. Heather Barkold, Professor Nadine Ezard, Dr. Nicole Lee, Dr. Samantha Brooks, Dr. Steph Kershaw, Professor Steven Shoptaw, Dr. Susan Calcaterra, Professor Harriet DeWitt, and Professor Edith London. A special thanks to the Zukerman 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.

• 46:56Wendy Zukerman?

  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 Zukerman. Back to you next time.

• 47:24Speaker 02

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