JESUS CHRIST! --Faces of Meth--

sweet tea wrote: hey doc -- what's up with the facial lesions? burns?

and what's the appeal of this stuff again?

Who knows? There's a lot that's not understood about methamphetamine. It could be burns, infections from poor hygiene (one of them in particular looked infected- the woman with the lesion above her nose between the eyes), trauma from a rough lifestyle. A lot of them look like cold sores. You may notice that none of them is smiling. I bet a lot of them have meth mouth- a common problem of very advanced dental decay in these people that happens for unclear reasons (although it may be due to a decrease in saliva production). If you have a strong stomach, do a google image search for meth mouth.

What's the appeal? It's a cheap stimulant that lasts a long time. If you're interested in first hand accounts, check out www.erowid.org and hit the "experience vaults" section for methamphetamine. It's interesting, because most of the experiences in that section are pretty bleak, whereas the vast majority of experiences describes for a lot of the other drugs are positive. People tend to write particularly vivid accounts of their experiences with hallucinogens. Probably it's because meth users are a different demographic, but still, it's interesting.

Livetotravel wrote: I don't know about the East Coast in general, but these types of drugs were available anywhere in NYC and NJ.

It's still mostly a west-coast and mid-west phenomenon.
It may be because its popularity started with diverted Japanese military stockpiles after WWII. From there it spread to the Pacific rim and the west coast USA. It's been steadily marching east over the past two decades though.