Zombies (aka Meth Heads) Are Taking Over My Town.

I live in Portland, Oregon which is now being touted one of the meth capitals of the United States. Fantastic. And I honestly don't want to sound intolerant as I know that addiction is a disease and needs to be viewed and treated as such, but I just hate having to be around tweekers and hearing about their crimes on the news on a constatnt basis.

I moved up here from Los Angeles to give my son a better life, a cleaner & healthier environment to live in, yet to be honest, I see more people completely spun out of their minds walking down the streets here thatn I ever did in L.A. I originally came to Portland,to go to college, and remember it being such a wholesome and wonderful place...and it still has some great qualities, dont get me wrong, but this meth epidemic makes this town (and surrounding ones as well) seem like a set for a zombie movie. I hardly recognize it from the Portland of my college days.

Meth addicts get sickly looking, skinny, pock marked, lose teeth and become extremely aged over the course of their addiction. They are pretty easy to spot in public. If they are tweeking hard, they also make very erratic and jerky movements, scratch and pick at themselves. chew their lips, tongues, cuticles, hair, whatever they can get their hands on. It is scary, and disturbing to witness. Unfortunately, I have to witness it every time I leave my house. I see them at bus stops, in front of the supermarket (although what they are doing there beats me, since they don't seem to ever eat), in the park, the mall.....EVERYWHERE. They look broken and disheveled and vacant. Zombies.

The problem is so bad here that every night on the local news we have a segment called "Meth Watch" where they tell us about what local meth lab has been busted, in what neighborhood, they tell us about how a minimum of one child per week enters the state capital's foster program due to its parents being busted for meth use or production, about what new warehouse, store, home, car has been broken into by a meth head. There have been reports of tweekers dismantling bridges and train tracks (and this in no way is an exaggeration, hard as it may be to believe) in order to sell the metal rods/pieces as scrap metal for money to buy meth. My best friend had her car broken into in the middle of downtown in broad daylight and her 5 year old son's Spongebob backpack was stolen out of it. Meth heads are known to break into cars to steal spare change, jackets, a CD (yes, a single CD!), and the police dept. has warned us not to keep ANYTHING in plain sight in our cars.

Why should decent, law abiding human beings be forced to live in fear and paranoia like this? I am not sure of what can be done to ameliorate this problem, but something has to be done and soon. I am so sick of seeing news stories about tweekers beating their babies and toddlers to death while high, of babies being given meth by their parents or playing with drug paraphernalia. I feel like this is some nightmare that I just can't wake up out of. You can't even go buy Sudafed, TheraFLu or NyQuil over the counter here anymore. I know they have passed this law in other states as well, but my God, I hate the prospect of getting sick now. Last time I had a cold, I had to show my ID, have it written down by the pharmacist before being sold a box of TheraFlu. I felt so dirty, and paranoid as I left the store. You can't even buy any of these items in bulk anymore for fear that they may be used for the manufacturing of meth. I used to buy several boxes of antihistamines (as I suffer from environmental allergies) when I was traveling for work since I never knew if the coutnry I was going to would have Tylenol Sinus or Drixoral. Thank God, I dont travel as much anymore, otherwise I'd be screwed!

So now, my husband and I are faced with the decision of whether we are going to stay here or not. I know that drugs are a problem pretty much everywhere in the States, but like I said, I have never seen anything like this anywhere else....not to this magnitude. I dont want my son to be around this. Ideally we would move to Tuscany and live happily ever after....but that's my own private fantasy....too far from reality.

For now, I guss I just have to get used to driving along trying to avoid the dragging footed, shirtless in the rain & cold, picking at their bodies zombies as they swerve aimlessly around our streets.....yes some of them drive too.....and pretend that I am in a movie....Shaun of the Dead or 28 Days Later......*sigh*