Meth Now Being Disguised as Children’s Vitamins
Methamphetamine has taken hold of our society in just the same fashion as heroin and benzos. The drug has seriously gained popularity over the last 10 or so years and some professionals believe it offers itself as a “safer” alternative to heroin, since the drug culture has obviously taken notice of all the overdoses happening. The Mexican drug cartel has made sure the U.S. is mostly flooded with their high-potency “ice,” getting new users hooked every day. As with every popular drug, meth use, sales, and distribution has evolved as more and more addicts demand the substance. The cartel has had to be extraordinarily inventive with how they’re getting it into the United States, whether it be in secret compartments built into cars, strapped onto the bodies of “mules,” or cleverly shipped through the mail. As U.S. Border Patrol and Customs has been catching onto the cartel’s methodologies and figuring them out more and more, the cartel went and flipped the script and changed the meth game completely.
Recently Ohio State Troopers came into possession of a huge shipment of tablets thought to be MDMA, or “ecstasy.” To their dismay, the tablets actually tested positive for methamphetamine instead. Frighteningly enough, some of the tablets looked a lot like typical over-the-counter pain relievers and some even resembled children’s vitamins. The problem with this is that some people might not know what they’re taking or in what doses. The cartel seems to have shifted from moving meth in the form of “shards” or crystals into pressing innocent-looking pills for easier transport and also, what some professionals believe is an attempt to remove the stigma methamphetamine use carries in order to create more customers. Lt. Robert Sellers said, “Why pill form? It all comes down to money. Drugs cartels have lost customers who’d been using heroin because they’ve overdosed. It reduces the fear in people of doing a hard drug, because now, it’s just a tablet.”
That’s a very valid point and also quite concerning. Opioid addicts might have started migrating towards meth so they don’t have the constant worry of overdosing on fentanyl and some users might actually start their addiction to meth with these pills, falsely believing they’re not taking hard drugs and being able to merely “pop a pill.”
Mike Gmoser, Butler County Prosecutor, made a very valid point with this statement in reference to the drug cartel; “They’re a business. They’re in a business to make money, and they don’t care what it does to your family.”
That’s all the drug game is, a business. It’s not personal and no lives are spared, but the pure chaos and wreckage drugs are currently causing our society is just sad, at the very least. Now is the time to get help if you or someone you know is struggling. The drug culture is changing rapidly and getting more dangerous by the day. Now is the time to confront this thing, deal with it, and hopefully effect a change.
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