Data compiled by the Wisconsin State Crime Lab highlights the staggering rise in the use of methamphetamine across the state. Over a 10 year period the agency recorded over a 450 percent increase in meth related cases, from 314 in 2008 to 1,452 in 2018. This follows an earlier report that revealed that 3,800 people died in Wisconsin from 2014-2018 due to meth related overdoses.
The introduction of methamphetamine into the general population began in World War II with the War Department issuing amphetamine and methamphetamine to US bomber pilots on long flight missions to keep them alert before they dropped their deadly payload. Meanwhile, US infantrymen were issued the drugs, less for any actual combat effectiveness, but instead to boost “morale” while also increasing “confidence and aggression.”
While marketed as treatment for obesity, the drug was used most notably by artist Andy Warhol, but also extensively by long-haul truck drivers, forced to stay awake an unhealthy amount of hours in order to meet their delivery schedules. After widespread abuse throughout the 1960s the drug was eventually pulled from the market in 1973.
While recent media attention has shone a much needed spotlight on the opioid crisis, meth use among Americans has become more prevalent in recent years as opioids have become harder to obtain and more expensive. As more people turn to meth, possibly as they are experiencing heroin or opioid withdrawals or just to stay awake while working multiple jobs to survive, a corresponding increase in the amount of meth related deaths has also occurred.
According to national government statistics compiled by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, among all ages, 10,333 people died in 2017 due to methamphetamine overdose. This is out of 70,237 total drug overdose deaths in 2017, accounting for nearly 14 percent of all overdose deaths that occured in the United States.
In states such as Wisconsin, where $63 million was made available to combat opiod addiction, very little of it will actually get spent on those who need it the most. According to the latest survey by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, of the 397,000 people in the state with addictions related to substance abuse, less than 10 percent actually received any medical treatment.
After decades of the drug war, which has torn apart millions of homes, and incarcerated millions of people, the solution to the continued epidemic of drug abuse and death is not in more policing, jailing or profit-driven “addiction centers.” The root cause of drug abuse lies in the capitalist system. The continued existence of the profit motive has incentivized global corporations to continue to manufacture and profit off of deadly drugs, overseen by a bought and paid for government of the oligarchy willing to turn a blind eye as entire communities are destroyed by their “medicine.”
— source wsws.org | 24 Oct 2019