The Great White Plague

 
Heads Up To My Many Fans...All 2 Of You!
 
Tina, tweak, speed, glass, ice. Whatever you know it as it is all the same, Crystal Methamphetamine. Once a drug used by bikers & streetwalkers these little white crystals have made their way into mainstream culture in a big way. And they show no signs of leaving. Now before we go any further along lets get something outta the way. Yes, your very own Boy About Town has had a very public battle with Ms Tina though the years. And yes I have at times slipped in my long, never ending road to recovery. That is what makes this posting personal, painful & necessary.

First a science lesson. Anyone that watches the hit show “Breaking Bad” knows all about this part. Meth is a man made drug. There is nothing “all natural” about it. In other words you will not find it in your local Whole Foods. Meth is made up of many different ingredient's including but not limited to, nail polish remove, lithium, hydrochloric acid, red phoshorous & our friend sulfuric acid.  After taking the drug the user experiences a sudden "rush" of pleasure or a prolonged sense of euphoria. Think of it is as a really long orgasm. The price of this high becomes painfully expensive to ones life after awhile, but in the meantime the user keeps coming back for more of this feeling.  Lets face it people, if it didn't feel good at first some many would not become addicted.


Boy About Town In His Addiction

Now for the street level part of our journey. Crystal is sold in different amounts & done by many methods. The smallest amount you can buy is “a quarter” which retails for about $25 here in California but in places like Florida can sell for up to $60. Mostly our insidious little friend Ms Tina is made in the deserts of California, Arizona or down in Mexico. Supply & demand, so that explains that. Donald Trump would be proud! Anywho, the prices go up from there. About $200 for an eight ball in Cali ($500ish in the crystal starved places). An 8 ball (not the type you play pool with) is made up of 14 quarters. You all are smart enough to break it down from there, this is not meant to be a how to guide. The most popular ways to do crystal is snorting it like the cocaine in “Boogie Nights”. Smoking it out of a glass pipe like Whitney & Bobby. Or injecting it also called “slamming”. This last method is the most hardcore and is favored by porn stars & meth cooks the world round….And by the end it was my norm.
How you do it is up to you and the effects differ from one form to the other but what remains the same is the results. Poor decision making, wreckless behavior & a sometimes slow, sometimes fast slide into an oblivion that is hard to get out of. In all fairness my road to ruin was long & at times fun. Come on people I would not have spent years doing this if the high was not wonderful. But what dawned on me, slowly at first, then VERY quickly was that the price I was paying was becoming just to great. They say jails, institutions & death are all that await you if continue on this road. Well that may not be true for everyone it was clearly my truth. I had the first 2 down pat and the last on scared the bejesus outta me.


With the increase in meth use in America so to has come a spike in the number of crimes to fund the habits of these new addicts. There has also been a BIG increase in new HIV  & HEP C infection rate. This is seen to be true in places that for whatever their reasons refuse to see the writing on the wall. With meth use comes those piss poor choices to have sex, lots of meth driven sex, while not even thinking about any type of protection. And where needle exchanges are not allowed due to out dated laws, needle sharing is very common. I am not passing judgement on anyone, let’s face it I have no room to. But if you put all three of these things together you have my story in a nutshell. And my story is being played out over & over again all across the richest country in the world. Listen, I know we all make choices and have to live with the fallout from those choices but at a certain point there has to be a way out of the darkness. There has to be someone, somewhere that says “hello people, we are paying no attention to a growing problem”….And we are. So while meth heads continue to lock themselves away from the world & destroy their families, communities & dental plans we will look everywhere but at the situation. That is until it comes in our homes.
Stay Fabulous!
Boy About Town