Methamphetamine, abuse

NIDA. NIDA Research Report Methamphetamine Abuse and Addiction, NIDA Research Report, Vol. 2005, 2002. 

Cretzmeyer, M., Sarrazin, M.V., Huber, D.L., Block, R.I., Hall, J.A. Treatment of methamphetamine abuse research findings and clinical directions. J. Subst. Abuse Treat. 24 267, 2003. 

Volkow, N.D., Chang, L., Wang, G.J. et al. Association of dopamine transporter reduction with psychomotor impairment in methamphetamine abusers. Am. J. Psychiatry. 158 377, 2001. 

London, E.D., Simon, S.L., Berman, S.M. et al. Mood disturbances and regional cerebral metabolic abnormalities in recently abstinent methamphetamine abusers. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. 61 73, 2004. 

Iyo, M., Namba, H., Yanagisawa, M. et al. Abnormal cerebral perfusion in chronic methamphetamine abusers a study using 99MTc-HMPAO and SPECT. Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry. 21 789, 1997. 

The most significant shift has been the downward trend of amphetamines use in North America, reflecting reports from the USA. This downward trend follows many years of continued spread of methamphetamine abuse in the USA, from the Pacific towards the rest of the country. 

Nevertheless, the positive trends reported from the USA and Canada have been partly offset by reports of rising methamphetamine abuse in Mexico. This seems to reflect growing methamphetamine production there and, although the bulk of the methamphetamine pro-... 

In 2005, a continued decline in methamphetamine abuse (methamphetamine pills or yaba ) was reported by Thailand. This followed a forceful intervention by the Thai authorities in the market in 2003, which resulted in a decline in methamphetamine abuse, but unfortunately also in a significant number of casualties. The 2001 household survey showed that Thailand had a prevalence rate of 2.4 per cent of the population aged 12-65 and thus the world s most serious methamphetamine problem at the time, despite also having reported the world s largest ATS seizures for many years. In 2003, a subsequent household survey found far lower prevalence rates (0.2 per cent)8. However, these data may have been influenced by police operations, resulting in a likely underestimate as respondents were influenced by... 

Authorities of Indonesia reported some decline of methamphetamine abuse to UNODC in their replies to the Annual Reports Questionnaire. This was in line with the results of the first national survey15 conducted in Indonesia in 2005, which revealed a methamphetamine prevalence rate of 0.2 per cent among the population aged 15-64, which was lower than previous estimates had suggested. 

Australia. While the overall methamphetamine abuse appears to have stabilized, some data point to an increase in the use of crystal ice as well as an increase in injecting methamphetamine.17... 

The stabilization of methamphetamine abuse in Australia, the largest country in the region, meant that the situation also stabilized de facto for the Oceania region as a whole. Nonetheless, individual countries showed opposing trends. For example New Zealand reported a continued rise in methamphetamine abuse in 2005, albeit from lower levels. 

In humans, both the d- and L-forms undergo hydroxylation and A-demethylation to their respective />hy dr ox y me thainphetamine and amphetamine metabolites. Amphetamine is the major active metabolite of methamphetamine. Under normal conditions, up to 43% of a D-methamphet-amine dose is excreted unchanged in the urine in the first 24 h and 4 to 7% will be present as amphetamine. In acidic urine, up to 76% is present as parent drug10 compared with 2% under alkaline conditions. Approximately 15% of the dose was present as /7-hydroxymethamphetamine and the remaining minor metabolites were similar to those found after amphetamine administration. Urine concentrations of methamphetamine are typically 0.5 to 4 mg/L after an oral dose of 10 mg. However, methamphetamine and amphetamine urine concentrations vary widely among abusers. Lebish et al.11 reported urine methamphetamine concentrations of 24 to 333 mg/L and amphetamine concentrations of 1 to 90 mg/L in the urine of methamphetamine abusers. 

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