Death is the Icing on the Cake: Jerry Langton’s Iced-Crystal Meth, the Biography of North America’s Deadliest New Plague

Ever hear a speed addict tell you meth makes you smarter? It seems to be a popular delusion, even among those who had (or once had) a reasonable level of intelligence. Just before they start moaning about hidden cameras and microphones, they tell you how their IQ jumped 30 points. It’s easy to laugh at the obvious incongruity, yet anyone who has loved someone whose life was slam-dunked by methamphetamine knows it’s not funny. They know it’s incredibly difficult to get help, and that recovery is pretty much a delusion, no matter how hard the user tries.

Finally, someone explains the mysterious, monstrous world of crystal methamphetamine. Toronto writer Jerry Langton began his strange journey while writing a book about the Canadian Hell’s Angels. Meth was once the territory of bikers and wartime suicide bombers, but now its bizarre and tragic legacies are epidemic across North America, ambushing all sorts of communities the way no other drug has. Everything they told you in grade five health class about madness, instant addiction, and robbing (or raping) your mother for marijuana has come true- about meth. Iced: Crystal Meth, the Biography of North America’s Deadliest New Plague never gets hysterical though the facts are truly nightmarish. Meth is an epidemic of virulent proportions, spreading rapidly throughout the world, devastating families, police forces, hospitals, and even the environment. It’s a war that shows no signs of slowing down. Did you know that trees near meth labs die? Did you know that houses that were formerly meth labs cause cancer in the new, squeaky-clean tenants? Did you know that hospitals are closing down because the majority of patients in their burn units are meth cooks and their family members, usually people who won’t be able to pay for their treatment after their profits blow up with their faces?

The human mind and body are pretty resilient and stand up to all kinds of abuse and experiment. Langton unscrews your head and shows what’s happening upstairs when you mix meth with your brain. It just might be that fried egg you saw on TV- “this is your brain on drugs.” Well, everyone knows that the odd New Year’s on blow or an occasional hippie-fest isn’t going to kill you overnight and that you’ve got plenty of brain cells to spare. You might end up an addict- there’s no doubt that millions of lives have been ruined by cocaine. But it’s usually not after one hit. Everyone’s different, of course, and that’s a chance you take when you do anything. You might get hit by a bus on the way to work, too. But what if the chances were pretty much certain that after a few times, you, too will be tapping the walls for hidden microphones, convinced your family is not really real, and willingly risk an exploding death to make more crank? What if this drug really does change your personality, not just enhance it or bring out the worst? There’s too much talk about ‘strong minds’ and not enough talk about science. Langton shows the science of meth and it’s terrifying.

“Although scientists anticipated the fact that meth would have a significant effect on brain tissue, few were prepared for what they saw the first time a user’s brain was image mapped,” Langton writes. UCLA’s Paul Thompson told him, “It was shocking, it was like a forest fire of brain damage.” Cocaine prolongs the time that dopamine lingers in the brain- meth forces your brain to “crank” it out. Hence, the high is (apparently) unlike anything you’ve ever felt. There is nothing in nature that will spew so much dopamine. With these massive surges, you DO have heightened senses, sharpened intelligence, supersonic auditory and other sensory abilities. Your brain treats you to feeling like superman a few times. And after that, you have nothing. After that, you may never feel anything again, even on the drug. This is why the depression and suicide rates are so high and recovery rates are so low. There’s no turning back, and there’s nothing left of your mind. Much of the brain damage from methamphetamine is permanent.

Though web sites proliferate on meth and risk management, or harm reduction, the scientific truth is not on this drug’s side. There’s managing the risk of starving to death, which may be the appeal for the diet-obsessed faction who never took drugs recreationally but got hooked on meth. Want to lose your teeth? Though the sites say that “meth mouth” is a myth, Langton observes that “five out of five dentists” know it’s true. Anyone who has watched ‘meth mom makeovers’ on crappy talk television can rest assured those hideous hags are the rule, not the exception. Meth would make Marilyn Monroe look like something out of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Langton does his research and lets you decide. There’s not much to refute in the troubling picture he presents. The saddest thing I’m left with is overall hopelessness: a drug that is so addicting, rehab is a joke. There’s not much left of life after meth. Suicide is often the only way out, even for addicts who have shown enormous strength in abstaining. Everyone I know who was addicted to methamphetamine first entered their love affair claiming that meth made them happier and smarter. Not much further into the cycle, even the non-religious ones declared the drug to be the Devil itself, a demon, Lucifer, or hell. This book will help you understand why your loved ones can’t necessarily just decide to get better. When I accused one beloved friend of loving meth more than he loved me, he just sobbed, “Not because I wanted to.” I’m not one to subscribe to the sweeping sentimentality of the Just Say No generation, but Just Say Know has led me to a blanket condemnation of this sick, twisted mind game straight from hell. Meth is not derived from plants and supported in anthropology by happy animals or by shamanic rituals- it comes from poisons underneath your sink. Battery acid, drain cleaner, gasoline, lantern fuel, hydrochloric acid- enjoy.

Will you get addicted if you try it? More than likely, though maybe not. If you’ve already tried it and it “didn’t work” or “did nothing for you”, count yourself lucky. On scales used to measure addictiveness, meth gets a 98 out of 100. “Nothing else, (not even crack) breaks the 80 mark,” Langton writes. Langton knows that drug statistics aren’t always reliable, so he doesn’t use one terrible stat for shock value. He paints with a broader brush, and questions how the stats were measured. But no matter what source he looks to, one thing is clear- even the worst statistics are understatements.



Iced: Crystal Meth, the Biography of North America’s Deadliest New Plague
Jerry Langton
Key Porter Books, 2007


Lorette C. Luzajic is a Toronto-based writer. You can read more or learn about her services at www.thegirlcanwrite.net. She is currently at work on a collection of irreverent essays, due out this fall, and she is the editor of www.ideafactorymagazine.net. Her first book, The Astronaut’s Wife: Poems of Eros and Thanatos is in part inspired by the hell of loved ones addicted to methamphetamine. The book is available through her site, or through www.indigo.ca.