Seeking A Treatment For Meth Addiction In Seattle

LOADING ERROR LOADING At some point between their son’s stints at sober houses, jail and 14 rehab centers, Annie and Richard Becker gave up hope that he would ever stop using meth. “I’ve always felt like, is anybody paying attention to the fact that there’s all these meth users who don’t have any kind of treatment?” Richard said. Scoggins said the pilot had the potential to “address public disorder issues by reducing challenging behaviors associated with illicit stimulant use.” Durkan’s office and a health adviser for the city speaking on background said the mayor doesn’t support funding a pilot to test Ritalin for meth addiction because Ritalin hasn’t been tested and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for this purpose. The spokeswoman, Kamaria Hightower, said Durkan “shares the concerns of the community” about meth and supports therapy-based strategies “including contingency management and cognitive behavioral therapies.” Dave Willard, the vice president of the downtown Seattle Metropolitan Improvement District, says the business group hasn’t taken a formal position on the pilot but supports “anything that can move the ball forward and reduce impacts on the community,” including verbal and physical attacks against his organization’s street cleanup and outreach workers, which Willard says have increased dramatically in the last three years. Carl Hart, a researcher at Columbia University and author of “High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society,” argued in a 2014 paper that “many of the immediate and long-term harmful effects caused by methamphetamine use have been greatly exaggerated just as the dangers of crack cocaine were overstated nearly three decades ago.” Drug reform advocates say this stereotyping creates a stigma around meth use that makes it harder to gain political support for solutions like stimulant replacement therapy.