OCALA – Methamphetamine abuse continues to spread, despite new laws and public education campaigns aimed at stamping it out. Now, medical researchers are warning that meth is not only addictive, it literally causes brain damage – all the more so when mixed with an HIV infection.
Both methamphetamine abuse and HIV infection distort different parts of the brain, diminishing thought processes such as memory, problem-solving and attention span, researchers at the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center of the University of California-San Diego report in this month’s American Journal of Psychiatry.
Dr. Jay Rubin, a neurologist in Ocala, said the findings agree with what doctors already know about drugs and other stresses on the brain.
“Things like cocaine abuse can cause strokes,” Rubin said. “There may be some certain areas of the brain that are probably more susceptible to damage. It’s known, for instance, that suffocation or near-suffocation causes damage in the parts of the brain like the hippocampus.”
Ocala Police Maj. Guy K. Howie, who commands Marion County’s multi-agency drug enforcement team, said the findings likewise bear out with his own observations of the growing numbers of local meth abusers.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all,” he said. “When you talk to somebody that’s on meth, you know. You watch the way they talk, the way they twitch. And I’ve known some to be up for two to three days at a time. All of the toxic chemicals used to make it has got to do something to both the body and the brain.”
The researchers in San Diego analyzed brain scans of 103 adults divided into four groups: meth abusers, HIV-positive, HIV-positive meth abusers and a control group with neither problem. They also tested each group on their attention span and memory, the speed at which they mentally process information, their ability to learn, verbal skills, motor skills and other brain functions.
Methamphetamine abuse, they found, is related to swelling of the parietal cortex, which helps people understand and pay attention to their surroundings, as well as the basal ganglia, which is linked to motor skills and motivation.
HIV, on the other hand, appears to shrink three parts of the brain: the cerebral cortex, which plays a role in higher thinking, reasoning and memory; the hippocampus, involved in learning and memory; and the basal ganglia.
Both meth abuse and HIV appear to damage the brain separately, and cause the most damage when paired together.
“In HIV-infected people, the . . . impairments are associated with decreased employment and vocational abilities, difficulties with medication management, impaired driving performance and problems with general activities of daily living, such as managing money,” Terry Jernigan, leader of the research team, explained in a released statement.
While the impact of meth is less understood, “abusers of the drug have impaired decision-making abilities,” he said. “These could potentially affect treatment and relapse prevention efforts, as well as things like money management and driving performance.”
The findings are especially significant given the risky sexual behavior and contaminated needles that tend to link meth abuse with HIV infection, according to Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
They are also significant given the rate at which meth use is gaining. A recent survey by the National Association of Counties revealed that the white crystalline drug poses a bigger problem for law enforcement agencies across 45 states than cocaine, heroine or marijuana.
In Marion County, Howie said, police have identified 21 meth labs compared to three at this time in 2004. They have also confiscated 1,584 grams of the drug, compared to 475 grams at this time last year. The 12 cases of meth possession in 2005 – not including the labs – represents an increase as well.
“It’s starting to get popular among teenagers, but it’s more popular with the 20- to 30-year-old crowd,” Howie said. “There are a lot of people in their 40s using it, too.”
Relatively cheap, highly addictive and too-often mistaken as harmless, meth cuts across most economic classes but has been more popular with whites than blacks, Howie said. Abusers of the white, crystalline drug usually develop pock marks on the skin, and scabs that result from scratching.
Lately, meth trafficking has been up locally while production has dropped slightly – but only slightly, Howie said. “That’s because we put several of the people cooking it in jail.”
Beating the epidemic is going to require continued, aggressive education about the drug’s effects and addictiveness, he said – otherwise, “This is going to just take over like crack did in the 1980s.”
