The use of Colorado methamphetamine complicates the recovery from opioid addiction: shots

Injured on a computer screen at the Denver Recovery Group, Councilor Melissa McConnell looks at the latest results of the urine test of her client Sara Florence

. last fall, it's lit up like a Christmas tree. Now everything is clean. Florence says she stopped using heroin five months ago; she stopped using methamphetamine soon after that.

"I shoot, I smoke, I sniffle," says Florence. "It's horrible, I just feel like shit, you know, but I've done it again, it does not make sense, you know, it's really addictive. "

Meth is particularly insidious, she says, because it's cheap, readily available and "very common Everyone does it."

His assessment is in line with the drug overdose figures from the Department of Public Health and the Environment of Colorado to show the sustainable presence of meth in the state.The drug has been found in 280 Coloradans systems that have died from overdoses in 2017. – a sharp rise from the previous year, which was more than five times higher than in 2012.

Denise Vincioni, Executive Director of Denver Recovery Group, says her organization continues to see "Creepy use of methamphetamine." It is very difficult to treat on an outpatient basis, she says.

Methamphetamine admissions from what was once the largest substance abuse treatment center in Canada. State – the Arapahoe H now closed – almost doubled between 2013 and 2017. Admissions for methamphetamine treatment have also increased steadily over the last five years. And there is a new twist, Vincioni says: In the past, users seemed to mainly stick to a drug – opioid pills or heroin or cocaine. Now they use those with methamphetamine

"They go almost together," says Vincioni.

McConnell says that once people come for treatment, "They start getting rid of opiates, but their methamphetamine use increases."

Contrary to the representation of methamphetamine production in Popular telefilms, Colorado methamphetamine is rarely prepared in neighborhood basements from local drugstore ingredients. Instead, it is mainly imported, often by the same routes as heroin.

"I would say that almost 100% of our methamphetamine comes from Mexico," says Tom Gorman, director of Rocky Mountain. High intensity drug trafficking area. Much of it is produced in large quantities in "superlabs".

The ongoing impact of drugs appears in police statistics. Denver's arrests for possession of methamphetamine have almost tripled in 2017 compared to 2013. The amount of methamphetamine seized by HIDTA-funded drug task forces in Colorado, as well as by Colorado State patrol agents , has risen sharply from 2016 to 2017.

Methamphetamine has recently been overshadowed by opioids and marijuana in Colorado newspapers, says Gorman, but "We have had a problem with methamphetamine for a long time." [19659006] Do more people use the drug now?

"Maybe," he says. "But that has always been our number one problem."

Sara Florence of the Denver Recovery Group is a 36-year-old mother of three. Her medication addiction started early, she says – at the age of 15, when her parents gave her painkillers for a toothache. Just like that, she was hooked.

"I grew up around that, you know," Florence said. "It was around me, my environment, my two parents were addicts, and so, you know, it was hard not to be one."

These disorders eventually led to heroin and eight years of fighting against methamphetamine. The day she was arrested for stealing a Subaru, that's when she hit bottom, says Florence.

"I was homeless and had nowhere to live and drive the stolen vehicle and sleep there. The ultimate charge, says Florence, was "an aggravated motor vehicle theft".

Then he went to the drug court and finally to the Denver Recovery Group. After seeing his drug test come back clean, Councilor McConnell gave Florence a big hug.

"It's so much better to live now than I'm doing anything," Florence says. "It's the cleanest since the age of 15 years."

Yet, Vincioni worries about the impact of this new wave of methamphetamine – how that could affect its customers. People who depend on more than one drug are much harder to treat, which limits their chances of "continuous and sustained recovery," she says.

His institution treats outpatients, but Vincioni knows that "

" It is very difficult to stabilize patients who continue to use methamphetamine, "Vincioni explains.

If a client abandons the Denver Recovery Group's treatment and counseling program, staff often do not know what's happening to them. The worry is that they might not survive.

This story is part of NPR's partnership with Colorado Public Radio and Kaiser Health News . [ad_2]
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