Foo - Faces of Meth

Crazy Azz website this one is!

http://www.mappsd.org/Faces%20of%20Meth.htm

Hover over pics to see before and after pics.

none of them were works of art to begin with....

none of them were works of art to begin with....
True

Wow! And it's not like they were in good shape before the meth!! Funny and scary at the same time!

its a pretty sh%tty drug that out there..

Drug addicts kind of amuse me. Especially the real far gone ones. A teary eyed crack head chick who looked like she was in Auchwitz for a couple months came up to me in detroit begging me for "money for food" a couple days ago. Her eyes were bouncing all over the place and her jaw was too. I guess it was sort of sad, but why not laugh? May as well.

You know the drug is a problem when people are totally disregarding everything in their lives just to get a fix. Its an aweful situation. Most of us have probably known someone in our lifetime who totally ruined their life on drugs. ... what a tragedy.

Discovery channel did a special on Meth Addicts a few weeks back. It was truly amazing. They even had a cop make meth on tv, leavig out a couple steps, but the ingredients blew my mind. Sudafed, acetone, bleach... etc... and then people put it in their bodies. sick.

The best before/after is the woman in the 2nd row, center. Scroll over her picture and play "scare the meth-head".

Page 2, bottom left hand corner....after pic almost looks like Adam Corolla.

The other problem is that after they make the meth, the place they did is a hazardous waste dump! Thuis is not to mention the fact that meth labs occasionally explode.....in an apartment building!

Yep, we had quite a few hotels get condemned here from people turning their rooms into meth labs.

That's one nasty drug.

Thing is, people will often do anything to forget about their pains in life, only to find out their way out is their new pain. Drugs are lucrative to people like that. Marilyn Manson made a song about that a good long while back (Coma White, album Mechanical Animals).

I still say that one dude looks a bit ttoo much like Adam Corolla though in that after pic, it's freaking me out some.

That's wierd....those two guys in the middle turned into Sean Penn from using Meth. :D

http://www.mappsd.org/Face16.jpghttp://www.mappsd.org/Face18.jpg

Before and after both look pretty bad.

Now we know where merton went.

http://www.mappsd.org/Face15.jpg

I have seen what drugs do first hand *shudders* it can be ugly sometimes. I lost many a friend to that crap! :(
with my friends it wasnt meth though, they were freebasing coke.....morons....I watched it shrivel up there souls until they were hollow.
I actually wrote something about it but I dont have time to post it now
maybe after work.

The other problem is that after they make the meth, the place they did is a hazardous waste dump! Thuis is not to mention the fact that meth labs occasionally explode.....in an apartment building!
Yeah, the combination of ether and open flames will do that somethimes. The problem, of course, is that any idiot can cook up a batch of meth - and they all too often do, hence the impromptu fireworks. But hey, meth has financed the Hell's Angels fun-filled activities for years.

But let's not forget that, with all the crime and death associated with meth, heroin, cocaine, crack, whatever, the two biggest drug problems in this country in terms of lives lost or ruined, in terms of families ripped apart, in terms of lost productivity, in terms of health care costs, in terms of almost any human or economic measure you can name, remain alcohol and tobacco. The number of people killed or hospitalized due to tobacco-caused diseases or alcohol-related traffic accidents and other health issues dwarfs the number due to any illegal drug out there. It takes longer, but some of the before-and-after pix of alcoholics and smokers look every bit as scary as the one posted here.

I think those pics were probably "after meth" and "after a lot more meth"

Why do they all end up with sores on their face?

Crazy Azz website this one is!

http://www.mappsd.org/Faces%20of%20Meth.htm

Hover over pics to see before and after pics.


Well if you take enough of anything you will in the end become that drug, it will take over you. Too many people cannot fight off the temptation of drugs, sad:( .

:D I can't ever get away from the job with threads like this!

Nobody in those pics loves themselves. What a shame.

I think those pics were probably "after meth" and "after a lot more meth"

Heh, I was thinking the same thing.

Drug addicts kind of amuse me. Especially the real far gone ones. A teary eyed crack head chick who looked like she was in Auchwitz for a couple months came up to me in detroit begging me for "money for food" a couple days ago. Her eyes were bouncing all over the place and her jaw was too. I guess it was sort of sad, but why not laugh? May as well.

Wow... you're quite a humanitarian, aintcha.

Why do they all end up with sores on their face?

Google "Meth Mites (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-39,GGLJ:en&q=%22Meth%20Mites%22&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw)"

Why do they all end up with sores on their face?
Scratching themselves, one of the side effects is a crawling with bugs sensation.
Pop is a dentist, these images are not all that dramatic. A few of the tweakers around here look as if they have been eating charcoal briquets.

Wow... you're quite a humanitarian, aintcha.


They do it to themselves and rip off people. I hired this guy who is on the healing road from meth. He told me that all they think about is how to get more. Did not bother him the least if he stole from someone's house, beat up an old man for his few dollars, or kicked over a stroller with a baby to distract the mom while he stole her purse.

Someone like that has enough money for food. They just chose to use it on meth.

Scratching themselves, one of the side effects is a crawling with bugs sensation.
Pop is a dentist, these images are not all that dramatic. A few of the tweakers around here look as if they have been eating charcoal briquets.


Yup i watched a show about the effects of it, quite scary.

They do it to themselves and rip off people. I hired this guy who is on the healing road from meth. He told me that all they think about is how to get more. Did not bother him the least if he stole from someone's house, beat up an old man for his few dollars, or kicked over a stroller with a baby to distract the mom while he stole her purse.

Someone like that has enough money for food. They just chose to use it on meth.

Everything you said is true.
It still doesn't make it humorous - which is what my initial comment was addressing

That ****e makes me ill. I can't believe people do this to themselves. I have witnessed the nastiness of this drug, as well as others, first hand. It is truly sad and pathetic. Probably the worst thing about it are that these people see no other way of coping with life. It has come to that, they are so desperate for escape. :( :( :(

I don't know what they're doing to meth these days. I had a habit for two years and never looked like that... well maybe twichy eyes and high production levels at work. But I never let my grooming go to hell.

I'm glad you're off it Stacey. There is absolutely nothing about that crap that can be good for you. I'm assuming that the people in those pics are probably from the "worst case scenario" file.

Yeah, me too. Thanks! Funny, I still get a craving every occasionally... Then I remember when.

I guess the reason we don't............or let me say, I don't feel sorry for Meth cooks are that they cook in their homes with their kids in the house and at times store the chemicals in their children's room's. I am a full time Clandestine Lab Site Safety Agent that tracks these yahoos down and dismantle their labs. I hate these cockroaches. If you saw all the things I have over the years these knuckleheads do to their families then death for them is a escape. I have seen them force their kid's to assist them in cooking this crap! If I only had no consequences I would just put a bullet in their head and let the crows peck out their eyeballs as their flesh slowly rotted over time. Okay, my Irish mean blood is coming out and I may something bad in a moment so I am off my soap box.

My gripe is with the cooks and not the addicts. So before you bash me read my above post. I hate the cookers!

Everything you said is true.
It still doesn't make it humorous - which is what my initial comment was addressing

Oh. My bad. :o

Everything you said is true.
It still doesn't make it humorous - which is what my initial comment was addressing

There are certain things in life you may as well laugh at or it will drive you nuts. Reference Mell Brooks making the holocaust funny. Humor is typically derived from tragedy.

In other cases humor can be a coping mechanism. Firemen, police officers, soldiers and other people who witness terrible things like a family of 5 burning to death in a traffic accident will sometimes share a laugh about what happened later.

I think those pics were probably "after meth" and "after a lot more meth"


Of course, you are correct. Both the before and after photos are mug shots after being arrested for meth. I guess there are multiple photos that show the full progression as some of these people were arrested multiple times over the course of several years.

A clever person at some police department noticed what was going on and started compiling the photos which eventually became "Faces of Meth".

Why do they all end up with sores on their face?

With Meth users, the reason for the sores on their faces (and elsewhere on their bodies) is because the toxins from the drug work their way toward the skin as the body tries to rid itself of them. Once the toxins collect near the derma where there are more sensitive nerves, the addict feels itchy so he/she scratches and picks at their skin until it bleeds and scabs.

I have seen a similar thing with oxycontin addicts (who eventually became heroin addicts). For the opiate addict, scratching is one of the early withdrawl stages and first signs that they need a fix. They scratch their skin like mad. It is the wildest thing you'll ever see. Scratch scratch scratch. They look like a dog with fleas violently scratching their arms and head incessantly even until they bleed. I have heard them say they feel bugs under their skin.

If you can divorce yourself from the emotion of watching a person destroy themselves, addiction is a horribly fascinating thing to watch. The addict becomes a complete slave to the drug and will do absolutely anything to get the drug they need. You cannot use logic to convince an addict to stop. You can show them photos, explain what is happening to their bodies, point out that they have lost their families, career, all wealth. They can be arrested. They can watch their friends die from drugs. Absolutely nothing is as convincing as the drive to feed the addiction.

Ironically, if there is any time you can get an addict to listen to reason, it is when they are high. Otherwise, when they are coming down and need a fix, they become monsters with one single frantic purpose - to get more drugs. If you want to see someone panic, watch an opiate addict when they can't make their connection and get nervous that they won't get their next fix. I almost chuckle when I hear about a drug seller being arrested and think of all the users who are thrown into an immediate panic dialing and dialing his/her telephone trying to get through. A addict in a panic will dial his connection over and over every 30 seconds or so like a mother looking for her lost child. It is like seeing someone looking for their next gulp of air. The anxiety is so real and so immediate, you can't help but feel agitated yourself even though you aren't the addict.

To see a true addict in the deep throws of it is a very frightening thing. When an addict goes through withdrawls, you would swear the devil is coming right out of them. They panic and moan and roll on the floor and puke and tremble and curse and claw their arms. It is like a scene from The Exorcist. More than sad, it is frightening.

A clever person at some police department noticed what was going on and started compiling the photos which eventually became "Faces of Meth".

Yeah, the sherriff's department where I live. I've been spare-changed by some of those very people. Seeing them in person is no improvement.

The best before/after is the woman in the 2nd row, center. Scroll over her picture and play "scare the meth-head".

she looks a lot like someone i used to work with. almost wonder if that's her.

Im in the drug testing biz, and had a lady in the office recently who said she was on heroin for 15 years, and had quit 2 years ago. Her arms looked like a checkerboard of deep scars. Yuck!

Im in the drug testing biz, and had a lady in the office recently who said she was on heroin for 15 years, and had quit 2 years ago. Her arms looked like a checkerboard of deep scars. Yuck!

And that's not the worst of it. You think her arms look bad on the outside; you should see the veins of a heroin addict. They get scarred and collapse - terrible. Many heroin addicts don't live long enough to suffer the health ramifications of their addiction, but they ruin their veins, have heart and lung disease due to the solids in the heroin that deposit in the tissues which in turn causes callous and abscesses. It is God-awful. On top of this, most heroin addicts are also tobacco users so their lungs, heart, arteries, and veins are already stressed. Heroin addiction really is a death wish. It is amazing that with all we know and have seen, people are still trying it and getting hooked on it today.

With Meth users...


Wow. Learned a lot today. Thank you Mike.

Wow. Learned a lot today. Thank you Mike.

Ya, I tell you, I have had to watch the worst cases of drug addiction. The thing is that not everybody is at the desparate stage that I described above and some people can drag out a lesser degree of addiction for a long time.

However, it seems that most people who continue to use eventually get really caught up in it. The best medicine for addiction is the pain addiction causes. It is just horrible. Many people who get addicted to drugs have some deep rooted emotional pain that lures them to drugs in the first place. As if that pain isn't bad enough, addiction brings more pain.

My prayers are with anybody who is dealing with addiction - especially those who love an addict and have to live the nightmare sober.

Mike do you mind if I ask...is this what you do? Help those in drug addiction?

Ya, I tell you, I have had to watch the worst cases of drug addiction. The thing is that not everybody is at the desparate stage that I described above and some people can drag out a lesser degree of addiction for a long time.

However, it seems that most people who continue to use eventually get really caught up in it. The best medicine for addiction is the pain addiction causes. It is just horrible. Many people who get addicted to drugs have some deep rooted emotional pain that lures them to drugs in the first place. As if that pain isn't bad enough, addiction brings more pain.

My prayers are with anybody who is dealing with addiction - especially those who love an addict and have to live the nightmare sober.


Truth!

My prayers are with anybody who is dealing with addiction - especially those who love an addict and have to live the nightmare sober.

Thank you for this. It's really easy to be all "holier than thou" towards people who face addiction if you've never known and loved someone who got caught up in it. My cousin died a few months ago of a heroin overdose. He really was an amazing person who touched the lives of everyone around him. There were more people at his funeral than any other I have ever been to, but that didn't surprise me one bit. To loose such a good person to drugs was truly tragic. It still makes me sad to think that a person loved by so many could never love himself. Amen to your prayer mike and let me just add some good thoughts for people who have lost the battle, and to those who live in the aftermath of such a loss.

Thank you for this. It's really easy to be all "holier than thou" towards people who face addiction if you've never known and loved someone who got caught up in it. My cousin died a few months ago of a heroin overdose. He really was an amazing person who touched the lives of everyone around him. There were more people at his funeral than any other I have ever been to, but that didn't surprise me one bit. To loose such a good person to drugs was truly tragic. It still makes me sad to think that a person loved by so many could never love himself. Amen to your prayer mike and let me just add some good thoughts for people who have lost the battle, and to those who live in the aftermath of such a loss.

We are all sorry for your loss, Kemmer. I am sure that you and the rest of your cousin's family have lived through a lot of hell due to your cousin's addiction. Knowing someone addicted to heroin is like watching them die over and over again until finally it is final.

Sadly, heroin is making a comeback. Part of the reason is that people are getting introduced to opiates through prescription drugs like oxycontin and vicodin or more pure heroin that can be snorted instead of jumping straight to the needle like they did in the bad old days. I read that 25% of high school students have tried oxycontin recreationally. What a terrible drug to party with. That is for sure going to snare some of them and lead them to heroin. You can't play with opiates like heroin. That is a drug that wants your soul and it gets it fast. I have seen people recover from alchoholism, cocain, and other drugs, but heroin is like an ex-lover the addict can never forget.

It is very sad indeed. Very painful for all. I don't understand why the tragedy continues generation after generation after all we know and all we have seen and all the education. I suppose that every person who snorts that line for the first time is convinced that they will never end up an addict. Whatever the reason, the beat goes on.

Mike, have you worked with anyone who has used buprenorphine to detox from heroin? I'm curious about this. It seems to have the potential to get people off of it without sentencing them to a lifetime of methadone. We don't do detox where I work, just outpatient CBT-based A&D treatment.

I have seen people recover from alchoholism, cocain, and other drugs, but heroin is like an ex-lover the addict can never forget.


My cousin was clean for several months and he relapsed. Apparently his regular dose was too much and it killed him. That was the worst part for everyone around him. He seemed to be doing so good, better than he had in years. ****in heroin is a monster. I too have had friends get mixed up with everything up too and including meth and manage to recover. I have never seen anyone get free
of heroin

?My cousin was clean for several months and he relapsed. Apparently his regular dose was too much and it killed him. That was the worst part for everyone around him. He seemed to be doing so good, better than he had in years.

Oh, kemmer, I'm so sorry to hear that. Too many of the clients where I work have died this way. Relapse is a normal part of the recovery process, but with heroin it's deadly so much of the time. We even had a A&D counselor die from this - after 15+ years clean. What heartache for you and your family.