Hot days and methamphetamine are now a deadlier mix
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[October 09, 2024]
By ANITA SNOW and MARY KATHERINE WILDEMAN
PHOENIX (AP) — On just one sweltering day during the hottest June on
record in Phoenix, a 38-year-old man collapsed under a freeway bridge
and a 41-year-old woman was found slumped outside a business. Both had
used methamphetamine before dying from an increasingly dangerous mix of
soaring temperatures and stimulants.
Meth is showing up more often as a factor in the deaths of people who
died from heat-related causes in the U.S., according to an Associated
Press analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Death certificates show about one in five heat-related
deaths in recent years involved methamphetamine. In Arizona, Texas,
Nevada and California, officials found the drug in nearly a third of
heat deaths in 2023.
Meth is more common in heat-related deaths than the deadly opioid
fentanyl. As a stimulant, it increases body temperature, impairs the
brain’s ability to regulate body heat and makes it harder for the heart
to compensate for extreme heat.
If hot weather has already raised someone's body temperature, consuming
alcohol or opioids can exacerbate the physical effects, “but meth would
be the one that you would be most concerned about,” said Bob Anderson,
chief of statistical analysis at the National Center for Health
Statistics.
The trend has emerged as a synthetic drug manufactured south of the
border by Mexican drug cartels has largely replaced the domestic version
of meth fictionalized in the TV series “Breaking Bad.” Typically smoked
in a glass pipe, a single dose can cost as little as a few dollars.
At the same time, human-caused climate change has made it much easier to
die from heat-related causes in places like Phoenix, Las Vegas and
California's southeastern desert. This has been Earth's hottest summer
on record.
Phoenix baked in triple-digit heat for 113 straight days and hit 117
degrees Fahrenheit (47.2 Celsius) in late September — uncharacteristic
even for a city synonymous with heat. The triple digits have carried
into October — this week, the National Weather Service again warned of
excessive heat.
“Putting on a jacket can increase body temperature in a cold room. If
it’s hot outside, we can take off the jacket,” explained Rae Matsumoto,
dean of the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at the University of
Hawaii in Hilo. But people using the stimulant in the outdoor heat
“can’t take off the meth jacket.”
These fatalities are particularly prevalent in the Southwest, where meth
overdoses overall have risen since the mid-2000s.
In Maricopa County, America's hottest major metropolitan area,
substances including street drugs, alcohol and certain prescription
medicines for psychiatric conditions and blood pressure control were
involved in about two-thirds, or 419 of the 645 heat-related deaths
documented last year. Meth was detected in about three-quarters of these
drug cases and was often the primary cause of death, public health data
show. Fentanyl was found in just under half of them.
In Pima County, home to Tucson, Arizona’s second most populous city,
methamphetamine was a factor in one-quarter of the 84 heat-related
deaths reported so far this year, the medical examiner’s office said.
In metro Las Vegas, heat was a factor in 294 deaths investigated last
year by the Clark County coroner's office, and 39% involved illicit and
prescription drugs and alcohol. Of those, meth was detected in
three-fourths.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration notes in its 2024 National Drug
Threat Assessment that 31% of all drug-related deaths in the U.S. are
now caused by stimulants that speed up the nervous system, primarily
meth. More than 17,000 people in the U.S. died from fatal overdoses and
poisonings related to stimulants in the first half of 2023, according to
preliminary CDC data.
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Dr. Aneesh Naran stands outside the Banner University Medical Center
emergency room after his shift, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024 in Phoenix. (AP
Photo/Matt York)
Although overdoses have been more associated with opiates like fentanyl,
medical professionals say overdosing on meth is possible if a large
amount is ingested. Higher blood pressure and a quickened heart rate can
then provoke a heart attack or stroke.
“All of your normal physiological ways of coping with heat are
compromised with the use of methamphetamines,” said Dr. Aneesh Narang,
an emergency medicine physician at Banner University Medical Center in
downtown Phoenix.
Narang, who sits on a board that reviews overdose fatalities, said the
“vast majority” of the heat stroke patients seen in his hospital’s
emergency department this summer had used street drugs, most commonly
methamphetamine.
Because of its proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border, Phoenix is
considered a “source city” where large amounts of newly smuggled meth
are stored and packaged into relatively tiny doses for distribution,
said Det. Matt Shay, a seasoned narcotics investigator with the Maricopa
County Sheriff's Office.
“It’s an amazing amount that comes in constantly every day,” Shay said.
"It’s also very cheap.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized about 164,000 pounds (about
74,000 kilograms) of meth at the U.S.-Mexico border this last fiscal
year ending Sept. 30, up from the 140,000 pounds (about 63,500
kilograms) captured in the previous 12 months.
And sellers often target homeless people, Shay said.
“It’s a customer base that is easy to find and exploit,” Shay said. “If
you’re an enterprising young drug dealer, all you need is some type of
transportation and you just cruise around and they swarm your car.”
Jason Elliott, a 51-year-old unemployed machinist, said he's heard of
several heat-related deaths involving meth during his three years on the
streets in Phoenix.
“It’s pretty typical,” said Elliot, noting that stimulants enable people
to stay awake and alert to prevent being robbed in shelters or outdoors.
“What else can you do? You have stuff; you go to sleep, you wake up and
your stuff is gone.”
Dr. Nick Staab, assistant medical director of the Maricopa County
Department of Public Health, said brochures were printed this summer and
distributed in cooling centers to spread the word about the risk of
using stimulants and certain prescription medicines in extreme heat.
But it's unclear how many are being reached. People who use drugs may
not be welcomed at some cooling centers. A better solution, according to
Stacey Cope, capacity building and education director for the harm
reduction nonprofit Sonoran Prevention Works, is to lower barriers to
entry so that people most at risk “are not expected to be absent from
drugs, or they’re not expected to leave during the hottest part of the
day.”
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Wildeman reported from Hartford, Connecticut.
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