5 Facts About Meth the Anti-Drug Ads Won't Show You

There was probably a better way to say that.

When Jessica (not her real name) first saw her boyfriend using meth, her reaction was to storm out of the house in a fury, even though she was currently using heroin. After Oscar shot meth into his penis, he needed medical attention, but he lied and said he'd injected cocaine, because he "didn't dare admit to using meth." He had no trouble admitting that he stuck a needle full of drugs into his wang, which is generally a thing a person should have a problem with. He was only uncomfortable admitting precisely which drug was coursing through his dong.

There's certainly an argument to be made for the intense anti-meth propaganda: Meth is a very bad thing, and by exaggerating the problem, we may keep people from ever starting it. Yet studies have found that these ads don't help, and may actually make the problem worse. To people who don't use meth, they seem cartoonish and ridiculous, and to people who are already users, the ads make them feel ostracized and gross, which often keeps them from seeking help for their problem. It's almost like the people making anti-drug ads have no experience with drugs whatsoever, but surely that cannot be ....

Never mind the many other illegal ways people procure contraband, regulating pseudoephedrine didn't even keep the criminals out of the supermarket. Meth cooks now just hire a bunch of addicts to head over to the CVS for some Sudafed. Each one of these "smurfs" ("I don't know why they call them that," says Oscar) will probably get paid in meth. So in the move to reduce drug use, we have now created entirely new jobs that get paid solely in drugs.

"Meth has given antipsychotic meds street value," Oscar told us, "because people will take those to force themselves to come down and go to sleep." After, say, three days of using meth to keep your energy up while binge-watching every episode of The Wire, you'll do pretty much anything to get some sleep -- even if it means taking pills that can give you diabetes.

But it's all worth it for that sweet, superhuman methy energy, right? If it was good enough to keep our boys fighting in World War II, it's good enough for cleaning the house every weekend. Except, like all drugs, if you do meth enough, you stop getting the positive effects.

"Even though you think of tweakers as people who wanna get up and move and have energy, you kinda just sit," said Oscar. "My addiction slowly evolved to me sitting in my bedroom all weekend watching porn. I didn't even want to go to the trouble of doing anything else. Eventually I did happen to hook up with somebody, and I was so out of shape that a few minutes in I was drenched in sweat and had to stop. I made up something about a heart condition, I was so embarrassed."

And here we are again, arguing that the real problem with drug abuse is that it makes boning more difficult.

"No, they were my friends," says Oscar. "They were shitty friends, but I still had that emotional connection with that other person. I don't think people appreciate the extent to which [an addict] kinda misses those people. They were people. They had redeeming qualities."

It's a fine practice to try to keep addicts out of scenarios that might encourage relapse, but telling them that their "meth friends" aren't real relationships and that they'll have to cut all ties only makes them scared that quitting the drug will leave them all alone. That puts a pretty big "losing all your friends" mark in the "con" column on the chart we presume you use to decide whether to get clean.

Besides, it's not always true: If you're lucky, there will be people waiting for you when you finally get clean.

"My other friends were pretty stoked [when I stopped using and] started spending time with them," Oscar says. "I was the person that they used to like again."

Keep those Rollerblades spinning, Oscar.

JF Sargent is an editor, columnist, and interviewer for Cracked. Contact him on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook. Oscar, who only did meth in his dick that one time, can be reached at oscarkindling@outlook.com.

Related Reading: Did you know getting clean off heroin can be unfortunately orgasmic? Or that your nurse might be stealing your pain medication? Or that drugs pretty much give schedule and routine to homeless people? Have a story to share with Cracked? Email us here.

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