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How Iraq’s crystal meth epidemic is ravaging the nation
- kaesar14 5y agoEverytime I read an article like this, 18 years out from the start of the war, I'm reminded of this Onion headline from that time: https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-region-and-1819594296 https://www.theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entir... "This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t" The statistic in this article about under-25 unemployment being 36% breaks my heart. This would've been me now, at my current age, born in a different place at the same time.
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- wahern 5y agoInterestingly, the unemployment rate only began increasing in 2012: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SLUEM1524ZSIRQ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SLUEM1524ZSIRQ Same pattern for total unemployment: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?locations=IQ https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?location... In 2012 it was as low as it ever had been in 20 years. So what began in 2012? ISIS? Syrian civil war refugees? Completion of U.S. military withdrawal? (All a consequence of the U.S. intervention, to be sure, but knowing that isn't particularly useful in this case.)
- kaesar14 5y agoAll 4? I imagine American occupation was "good" for employment while it was going on - providing a steady flow of income from soldiers and the military paying for goods and services while we were there.
- nickik 5y agoAlso, no longer being under international blockade after 10 years might help.
- wahern 5y agoThe unemployment rate was pretty constant from 1992 to 2012. "20 years" in my previous comment was ambiguous, but I had meant the 20 years prior to 2012, not 20 years prior to today. Which, now that you mention it, is also a curious thing--the constancy even after the blockade was lifted.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoUS military always carries all the shit they use from US, so that effect would be rather miniscule on the "enemy soil".
- sn_master 5y ago> "A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism" I used to live in a major middle eastern country when this was going on. People were outright talking about the Crusader wars and there was a terrible sentiment against anyone with a light complexion.
- dls2016 5y agoAnother classic focusing on the 18-year aspect: Soldier Excited To Take Over Father’s Old Afghanistan Patrol Route https://local.theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-father-s-old-afghanistan-p-1819580201 https://local.theonion.com/soldier-excited-to-take-over-fath...
- mc32 5y agoI know we have a few advocates for legalization. How do you address this scourge with legalization beyond a principles based approach and one that deals with the reality on the ground? I’m for soft drugs legalization, but when it comes to these things that just consume people I cannot see legalization as a viable approach.
- el_nahual 5y agoWell, the reality on the ground says that drugs being illegal does not actually make them unavailable. That much is clear! So the idea behind legalization is not "it should be easier to do drugs!" but rather: 1. It's already easy to do drugs, so how can we make it safer to do drugs? 2. Precisely because of drugs' illegality, extraordinary rents are collected by some of the worst humans on earth. Can we make drugs legal and repurpose those rents for education, health, and harm reduction purposes? Legalization doesn't mean you can buy crystal meth at the local 7-11, it just means you don't buy it from a drug lord cum human trafficker.
- mc32 5y agoHow is making it safer to do drugs manage addiction? Ok, so I don’t get adulterated drugs, that still doesn’t do anything for the addiction. Are we then going to actively discourage people from doing drugs? If so how? What effective form does that take?
- ch4s3 5y agoDecriminalization and legalization brings peoples addiction out of the kind of hiding that prohibition requires. This makes it easier and safer for people to seek addiction services, and easier for their loved ones to spot their problematic use earlier. Portugal is testament to this. Also consider places like the Netherlands or various states in the US where cannabis is legally available. What you see there is that other drug use shifts to cannabis which is relatively safer than alcohol or opioids. You also see declining rates of use among teenagers as it become less mysterious and dangerous but rather common and uncool.
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- ocschwar 5y agoI'm going to plug this Iraqi-founded and run organization: <a href="https://www.ideasbeyondborders.org">Ideas https://www.ideasbeyondborders.org">Ideas Beyond Borders.</a> They're paying Iraqis to translate things to Arabic and expand the Arabic Wikipedia. The idea is to expand the range of aspirations Arabs can cultivate and pursue. Also, (and I say this as an Israeli): it needs to become easier for Iraqis to land student and work visas elsewhere. The worldwide clampdown in travel and migration, even before Covid it was particularly difficult for Iraqis, and so was keeping them in this pressure cooker.
- tcj_phx 5y agoStimulants -- amphetamines, cocaine, etc -- have physiological effects sort-of similar to Mono Amine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOI). MAOIs were sold as the first generation of anti-depressant drugs. These substances have mood-elevating benefits sort-of similar to cocaine and amphetamine, but without the euphoria and crash. Later generations of anti-depressants are less effective that the MAOIs, but MAOIs fell out use because doctors of that era tended to think newer==better, some MAOIs caused side effects when combined with fermented foods (fine cheese, etc), and patents allowed for a marketing budget for the pharmaceutical companies to promote their latest FDA-approved prescriptions to physicians. Stimulants do their harm by shredding the mitochondria [0]. My observations are that Cocaine is a much safer stimulant than meth amphetamine. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18211048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18211048 Emotional stress is a very important driver of substance abuse. Anything that restores the mitochondria/metabolism helps with stimulant abuse. Most important is helping the person find meaning.
- runawaybottle 5y agoOr in layman’s terms, some people prefer uppers as opposed to downers.
- wil421 5y agoHow’s does ADHD medication compare to Meth? Is it the higher dosage with Meth? When I took Aderall it said methamphetamine salt.
- Synaesthesia 5y agoThey're basically the same thing. Difference is ADHD meds are 5-10mg Meth, or similar drug at a lowish dose, and orally. But you can take meth a low dose and achieve the same effect. Taking more doesn't help your performance, it makes it worse, and you get way more side effects, especially mental side effects. These build up with time.
- bsagdiyev 5y agoADHD meds are definitely not methamphetamines. They are amphetamine salts. Methamphetamine can be prescribed in rare cases but that isn’t the typical treatment at all.
- sn_master 5y agoI encourage anyone to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at least once. They're all online now because of COVID, and you'll find ones specific to each city or state. You don't have to be an addict to attend one and it'll help you greatly understand what people are going through.
- sneak 5y agoI offer a counter to this: NA and its more famous cousin AA are faith-based, not evidence-based.
- siftyy 5y agoParent doesn't mention anything about the recovery rate, simply understanding what they're going through.
- sn_master 5y agorecovery rate is more applicable to rehab centers, and those publish their recovery rates as required by law. Most are pretty sad (50% or more relapse is typical). NA/AA meetings aren't meant to offer help to any one individual, rather group support to help those who want to better themselves make the right decisions, or to simply vent in-person out to others who won't judge them.
- cylon13 5y agoCan you elaborate as to why you think someone should avoid going to NA or AA because it's not "evidence"-based? It's essentially just a community where people share stories and support each other, not some religious cult.
- Eric_WVGG 5y agoWhen he said "evidence-based," he's referring to statistically recorded rates of recidivism. You are correct, NA and AA are primarily social clubs, and there's no harm in that. But if the point is to recover from addiction, keep looking.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoLots of problems with modern Iraq can be blamed on the US invasion, and English-language media is inclined to connect issues with the war because that framing is accessible to their readership. But is there really so much of a connection here? Crystal meth epidemics have arisen among a number of peoples – white South Africans, Thais, in the US both poor Rust Belt inhabitants and some rather affluent gay subcultures, etc. – whose countries have not been invaded recently.
- Synaesthesia 5y agoAll of those places have something in common. They all fell from relative affluence or comfort. In South Africa, white people no longer had job guarantees. Iraq had a total collapse of it's society. And the USA has also had a decline or stagnation in middle class incomes.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoEasy to make so it is very cheap and less risky to deal in than crack, coke, heroin which never caught on locally. There has always been cannabis users but druggies would then juice it up by mixing it with Methaqualone.
- blackoil 5y agoBe it Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq or Central America. Wherever British/US army goes to bring culture and democracy, drug epidemic follows along.
- luckylion 5y agoTo be fair, Afghanistan was a huge drug producer before the US/NATO invaded. Have they become a giant consumer as well?
- nickik 5y agoAs far as I know, under the Taliban in the 90s there was by far the lowest amount of drug export from Afghanistan. Now its basically a pure narco/military state, far more then Columbia ever was.
- RedComet 5y agoThose silly goofballs at the CIA... they just love introducing meth to sparsely populated and largely agricultural communities, don't they.
- Nydhal 5y agoWhat this article totally fails to mention is the new widespread reduction techniques from the Ephedra plant (also called Mormon Tea) which grows widely around the world and even in the south western USA! The Iraq route goes Afghanistan -> Iran -> Iraq -> ... https://cen.acs.org/policy/global-health/Afghanistans-crystal-meth-boom-rooted/99/i13 https://cen.acs.org/policy/global-health/Afghanistans-crysta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedrine#Recreational_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedrine#Recreational_use https://twitter.com/mansfieldintinc/status/1372670650029109256 https://twitter.com/mansfieldintinc/status/13726706500291092...
- RichardCA 5y agoThis is good too, there's a lot of history to take in. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/
- bjourne 5y agoOne reason for Hamas' rise to popularity was the drug epidemic in Gaza in the late 1980s. The Israeli occupation looked the other way as gangs sold illicit drugs to the Palestinians. People dependent on drugs makes for good collaborators and informants. Hamas made short work of anyone suspected of being a collaborator and of people in "immoral industries", i.e drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps, and sellers of pornography, often via public and brutal executions. It wasn't pretty but it curbed the drug epidemic. Drug abuse is a good breeding ground for religious extremism. It's not that hard to convince people that "Western influences" are bad if it means that more people become drug addicts. It's not that hard to convince someone that they should fight for God if they spent the last ten years as drug addicts.