"Those dangers could be entirely erased if a doctor just gave users a substitute stimulant." Bwahhahhhahhaha!!!!! Right, Lester.

Darwin nominees hard at work.

@1 No shit.

"Here, try a double espresso and go find a job young fella."

on track to get your own genius grant, Ken Mehlman

@3 Yep.

@6 Can I get the gub'ment to pay for my wine habit then? Seems only fair.

@7 Drunks are irritating to everyone around them. Junkies just want to nod in the corner.

@3

Life finds a way

@9 So does death.

@10

Dodgson! Dodgson, we've got Dodgson here!"

This could be a good thing. Meth screws people up more than other drugs do. I never understood quite why but it seems to really be worse. If this worked like methadone does for heroin addicts it would really help.

@13 I was thinking that to. There's all sorts of rock bottom vices—heroin, booze, pills, etc., but people don't come all the way back from meth. I'm not sure what is specific to its chemistry that speed et al lack, but it really seems to eat permanent holes in ones brain.

Lester, any word on what percentage of this population might be veterans? I'm thinking if you publish that info every time you and your colleagues write an article of this nature, it might (might!) forestall the trolls.

Worth a try, anyway...

@15 Hate to burst your bubble but most veterans never see a shot fired in anger (85%) and spent 4 years in the service doing paper work or driving trucks and then get lifelong socialized healthcare which, apparently, is pretty shitty, like all ‘free’ government things.

By the way, veteran homelessness is down over 30% nationally in the past ten years.

Anyone stupid enough to do drugs like meth sort of deserve what they get. It's like anyone who votes GOP. You have all the facts, you know the history, and you still do it. Why help people like that?

Trump wants to be Gus, but he is Tuco...at best.

Skinny Pete-level punk ass mark at this point.

@1 - It worked in Portugal. They decriminalized drugs, set up harm reduction centers, gave out free heroin, meth, whatever, free needles, and medical care on site. They also offered addicts free addiction treatment.

The end result has been remarkable, almost no overdose deaths, a huge drop in drug related crime and drug debris such as dirty needles, and a dramatically lowered rate of new addictions. There will always be a small percentage of people vulnerable to addiction due to their genetic makeup but what happened in Portugal is showing Europe how to keep the rate as low as possible, which is probably the best outcome we can hope for until we've figured out how to cure addiction.

@21

The main challenge to applying that case study to the United States is that, by not instilling the same policy across the board in the state, let alone the entire country, legalized areas become a Mecca for those constrained by the prohibition and prison favoring policies outside the enforcement oases. As such, we regularly have an infusion of criminal outsiders and drug seekers who are selectively insulated from consequences or a ubiquitous policy of compassionate proactive recovery. Without a holistic policy shift and consistent enforcement, we will not see results like Portugal did.

The kind of headline I want to see is Meth Deaths Are on the Rise on the City Council

"Meth killed more people than heroin in King County last year. [...] This powerful stimulant is often called `crystal meth'"

This phrasing makes one wonder if the reporter is aware that the substance of topic, methamphetamine, is often called "meth," and that the crystalline form of such is often called "crystalized methamphetamine" or "crystal meth."

Also, what do "60 percent lower odds of arrest" and "39 percent lower odds of being charged with a felony over the following two years" mean? Subtracting a percentage is an odd operation (60% lower just means 40% of something, right?), and subtracting a percentage from odds is even stranger.