National Price of Meth

The cost of meth is something that is very hard to measure and especially hard to measure at the national level. The use of meth is spreading and because of this spread, more and more federal money is needed to help combat and take care of the addicts of this drug. A somewhat recent study from 2005 states that, “the national price of methamphetamine abuse imposed costs of $23.4 billion in 2005.” That alone is an enormous number and essentially comes from tax dollars. This toll is almost as high as heroin and could be actually higher. It is very hard to find an exact number, but this amount seems to be as close as we can get. It is impossible to look at and find all of the factors that must be accounted for which include the burdens imposed on families and friends and the burden that takes place on the children of the addict.

Meth has also been the drug that has killed many people in 2005 and was close to being the primary cause of close to 900 deaths. Meth is also a drug that has spread over the years not only from one place in the United States but all over it. Meth has left no good in its wake; it wreaked havoc on addicts and families alike. Federal surveys also state that, “the share of Americans using the drug has stabilized, at about 1 percent of the population over the age of 12, which is far higher than the rate for heroin but half the rate for cocaine.” This 1 percent equals out to around 400,000 American addicts.

These studies on the cost of meth to the nation were really an effort to study the effects of addiction in relation to the quality of life it has on addicts. These factors included, but were in no way limited to poor health, anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations that tended to shrink what the addict had going for them and the pleasure they once felt from the drug also drops over time. In this case, the user feels the need to use more of the drug and increase each dose to enable them to feel the same high they once felt. That high can no longer be obtained and never lasts as long as the first time. Therefore, once an addict is addicted, that is when the use of meth increases and the individual really starts to go down-hill.

The study also states other costs which include,
“$4.2 billion in crime and criminal justice , $904 million for endangered children put into foster care, $687 million in lost productivity, $545 million for drug treatment, $351 million for healthcare, and $61 million for injuries and deaths at exploding meth labs and for cleaning up the toxic waste they produce.”

The meth epidemic is really just a drain on society and finances alike and needs to really be taken care of. That $23.4 billion each year is something that we shouldn’t have to deal with and that is just for meth. If each drug is taken into account it can essentially be tripled or more by the financial price and burden they produce. If there were proper plans implemented in today’s society, I do not believe that this problem would have gotten so out of control.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05meth.html?_r=2

Meth and Sentencing

Whenever the issue of drugs or drug usage is brought up into the court system, certain sentencing guidelines always apply. Sentencing guidelines have come a long ways and in my opinion are far from perfect. Although sentencing has evolved into treatment plans and meetings instead of incarceration, sometimes the only option left is to incarcerate. The Drug Policy Alliance Network states that, “More than 19,000 methamphetamine users are treated each year in California under the state’s treatment-instead-of-incarceration initiative.” This shows the number of people that need programs to get through their drug problems and the state needs to give it to them. Along with these programs come better citizens and less people in prison for drug related crimes. Obviously these programs do not work for everybody and some people just need to be incarcerated for what they have done.

Meth is a highly popular and growing drug that is rapidly taking over all other drugs on the streets. It is easy to make and cheap to buy, and that is why its addiction is growing. Along with the addiction level come the penalties for using the drug. As more people use the drug, more penalties and laws come out to fight against it. For example, “Senate Bill 2024 increases methamphetamine sentencing to the same as crack cocaine: 5 grams meth will bring a mandatory sentence of 5 years and 50 grams meth has a mandatory sentence of 10 years.” This bill may sound nice on the outside, but once it is examined, the real consequences can be seen. This bill will only affect the low-level meth offenders and states that possession itself can result in long prison sentencing. This will bring continuous prison overcrowding and will then cost the taxpayers to house them. Typically we are talking about incarcerating a non-violent, stay at home drug user who poses no threat to anybody except himself and now we are throwing him in prison because of some lousy drugs. To me, this makes absolutely no sense and is a complete waste of money.

There is always another side to every argument that emerges at some point. The Sentencing Project is a great place for information and arguments alike. The Sentencing Project states that, “Only 0.2 percent of Americans are regular users of methamphetamine – four times as many use cocaine and 30 times as many use marijuana regularly.” This goes to show that we are just incarcerating something we don’t like, not necessarily something that is bad or “taking over” America. All other statistics dealing with meth are either declining in some aspects or staying about the same as a couple years ago. I do believe that in some places meth is more readily available and that is where the “epidemic” is located, but do we really need to raise the bar on sentencing to accomplish something? It just seems like the wrong way to go in helping people that have a drug problem. Throwing them in prison will not help them cope with the addiction they suffer from, but only make it worse. Without the proper programs and resources to deal with drug abuse effectively, the issue and problem will never have a chance to go away.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugbydrug/methamphetam/index.cfm
http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/10/1016.html
http://www.famm.org/Resources/OtherReports/SentencingProjectMethReport.aspx