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by Danielle Gillespie
Nearly 1,000 adults, teens attend event educating community about meth’s destructive power abuse.
It was 1991 and Richard Brown, then 21, had just scored some methamphetamine.
Excited, he invited his buddy, Jason Bailey, over to his one-bedroom apartment in Eureka, Calif., so they could shoot up together.
Discussion leader: Dr. Jack Stump talks about methamphetamine abuse at Roseburg High School Tuesday night. MICHELLE ALAIMO / N-R staff photo
“He shot up more than I did and his heart couldn’t take it. I was holding him in my arms watching him take that last breath,” said Brown of Roseburg.
As Brown, now 36, watched his friend die of an overdose, he decided he didn’t want to head down that same path. He had started using methamphetamine at age 14.
After Bailey’s funeral, he moved to Douglas County, where his sister lived, and entered a drug rehabilitation program. Ever since, he has stayed clean.
“I don’t want anyone to go down my road,” Brown said.
That’s why Brown attended a presentation about methamphetamine abuse on Tuesday night at Roseburg High School. He figured if he had the chance to tell at least one youth in the audience about his experience, he might be able to help.
The Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians entertained similar hopes in hosting Tuesday’s event, which featured a speaker, Dr. Jack Stump, who has worked with patients addicted to methamphetamine.
The tribe wants the community to learn more about the methamphetamine problem that some are calling an epidemic, and begin to work together to solve this issue, said Cow Creek Chairwoman Sue Shaffer to a crowd of about 1,000 adults and teenagers in the high school’s Student Center.
County meth facts:
• The largest methamphetamine seizure in Oregon history occurred in Douglas County.
• About 70 percent of child abuse and child welfare cases are directly related to parental methamphetamine use. Such cases have increased by 50 percent in the past 20 months.
• Eighty-one percent of heavy local meth users say they started using the drug to alleviate feelings of sadness, anger and boredom.
• Of 230 county probationers surveyed in 2003, 192 admitted meth use and 154 noted they use the drug a lot.Source: Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, ADAPT and Douglas County Health Department
Stump, a consulting physician for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Wash., talked about the biological and physical effects of the drug. He discussed the history of methamphetamine abuse and how the drug affects users and everyone around them.
He first discovered the methamphetamine problem in the 1990s, when he worked in the emergency room at Rogue Valley Medical Center in Medford and saw a number of patients come in with health issues related to using the drug.
To draw attention to the issue, he videotaped his meth-addicted patients going through hallucinations and seizure-like episodes. His videos have aired on several national programs including “60 Minutes” and “Inside Edition.” He has shown his videos in more than 500 presentations.
On Tuesday, he showed a video of a man who had used methamphetamine a few days before and couldn’t stop moving. The man’s entire body twitched as he rolled his eyes around in his head, stuck out his tongue and constantly wiggled his feet and waved his hands.
The man had taken a bad batch of methamphetamine and no sedative helped, Stump said. He was burning 5,000 calories a day and couldn’t use the bathroom or eat.
Methamphetamine is a dangerous drug because it’s made in a lab and is not plant-derived such as nicotine, caffeine or alcohol.
Reaction: Marlee Hollamon of Glide reacts as she watches a video of a methamphetamine addict in a psychotic episode during a presentation about meth abuse at Roseburg High. MICHELLE ALAIMO / N-R staff photo
“You’re at the mercy of the cook,” Stump said, adding that these manufacturers aren’t chemists and many don’t even have a high school education.
Methamphetamine is highly addictive and causes people to stay awake for days without eating or drinking, and they feel excited or paranoid. The drug raises their blood pressure and heart rate.
People also have an extreme tolerance for pain. Stump knows of a 17-year-old who took methamphetamine and stared at the sun for eight hours, which caused the teenager to go blind. People may experience depression from taking the drug, while others have psychotic tendencies.
Some users are left with permanent brain damage. They have a horrible memory, and it’s hard for them to learn, Stump said. It takes at least two years to recover from using, and relapse is always a possibility.
Stump believes there are ways to handle the methamphetamine epidemic. The first step is coming together as a community to talk about it. Law enforcement has to keep the drug off the streets. There must be drug treatment programs, and parents need to communicate with their children.
“If you don’t talk to your kids, someone else will,” Stump said.
Brown has experienced the physical effects of methamphetamine. He now has a bad memory because of his usage.
“I wish someday this epidemic will come to a stop,” he said.
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