{"id":26057,"date":"2025-04-16T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T09:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26057"},"modified":"2025-04-16T09:24:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T09:24:32","slug":"as-fentanyl-deaths-slow-meth-comes-for-maine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26057","title":{"rendered":"As Fentanyl Deaths Slow, Meth Comes for Maine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Something worrisome was happening at Spurwink, a mental health clinic in Portland, Maine. Many patients being treated for opioid addiction had gone missing for days, even weeks, skipping prescription refills and therapy appointments.<\/p>\n

The counselors feared their patients were relapsing on fentanyl. But those who reappeared did not show the telltale signs \u2014 no slurred speech, pinpoint pupils or heavy eyelids. On the contrary, they were bouncy, frenetic, spraying rapid-fire chatter, their pupils dilated. They warned of spies lurking outside the building, listening devices in ceiling tiles, worms in their throats.<\/p>\n

In Portland, where the fentanyl <\/span>can be both diluted and even costly, another drug, cheap and plentiful, has been surging to meet demand: methamphetamine<\/a>, a highly addictive stimulant that electrifies the brain and grips the central nervous system.<\/p>\n

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This pretty foodie mecca has become yet another American city to be overwhelmed by meth<\/a> \u2014 not the home-cooked biker party drug from the \u201990s, but a far more dangerous<\/a> concoction, mass-produced in Mexican cartel<\/a> labs. In recent years, it has been spreading across the country, increasingly becoming a drug of first choice in many locations.<\/p>\n

Portland\u2019s meth onslaught came on as the city\u2019s drug treatment community was starting to taste hope: echoing a national trend<\/a>, deaths from opioids have been declining<\/a>, largely because of medications that reverse opioid overdoses and those that dull cravings.<\/p>\n

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Something worrisome was happening at Spurwink, a mental health clinic in Portland, Maine. Many patients being treated for opioid addiction had gone missing for days, even weeks, skipping prescription refills and therapy appointments.The counselors feared their patients were relapsing on fentanyl. But those who reappeared did not show the telltale signs \u2014 no slurred speech, pinpoint pupils or heavy eyelids. On the contrary, they were bouncy, frenetic, spraying rapid-fire chatter, their pupils dilated. They warned of spies lurking outside the building, listening devices in ceiling tiles, worms in their throats.In Portland, where the fentanyl can be both diluted and even costly, another drug, cheap and plentiful, has been surging to meet demand: methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant that electrifies the brain and grips the central nervous system.This pretty foodie mecca has become yet another American city to be overwhelmed by meth \u2014 not the home-cooked biker party drug from the \u201990s, but a far more dangerous concoction, mass-produced in Mexican cartel labs. In recent years, it has been spreading across the country, increasingly becoming a drug of first choice in many locations.Portland\u2019s meth onslaught came on as the city\u2019s drug treatment community was starting to taste hope: echoing a national trend, deaths from opioids have been declining, largely because of medications that reverse opioid overdoses and those that dull cravings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26059,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26057"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26060,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26057\/revisions\/26060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}