File this one under, "Yet More Things That Teachers Didn't Have To Worry About 20 Years Ago:"
At least one Illinois lawmaker believes a solution to the meth crisis may be right under our noses...a state lawmaker wants to equip...teachers or daycare workers with a better awareness of the presence of methamphetamines."Everybody's probably smelled marijuana or heard it, or smelled it if they were even at a concert. But methamphetamine has a very distinct smell that smells like cat urine." That smell largely comes from the anhydrous ammonia, one of the key components of meth. So Michael McAuliffe has won house approval to provide certain professionals with scratch and sniff cards so they can compare a meth smell with unusual odors they might detect on the clothing, hair, or skin of their students, indicating the child had been exposed to the drug's production or use...
The Illinois Federation of Teachers is looking at the legislation to determine it's application and any liability that could be involved, should one of their members bring a foul smell to the attention of police.
A related article on the meth crisis in Minnesota is here:
Nebraska and Oregon are among the nearly two dozen states that have entrenched meth problems, most of them in the West and Midwest, according to state-by-state advisories the Drug Enforcement Administration released this year...Already in Minnesota, a fifth of addicts who entered drug treatment for meth use last year were younger than 18, according to Carol Falkowski, a researcher at the nonprofit Hazelden Foundation, who tracks the state's drug trends for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.Another recent state survey found that about a quarter of girls and a fifth of boys in Minnesota's alternative learning schools had used meth at least once in the last year. Ten percent had used it 10 times or more.
It's just the old fogey in me coming out, but I can't imagine why anyone - even a teenager - would want to do a drug whose negative side effects include:
Hyperactivity and irritability
Visual and auditory hallucinations (hearing "voices")
Suicidal tendencies and aggression
Suspiciousness, severe paranoia
Shortness of breath and increased blood pressure
Cardiac arrhythmia and risk of stroke
Sweating, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
Long periods of sleep ("crashing" for 24-48 hours or more)
Prolonged sluggishness, severe depression
Weight loss, malnutrition, anorexia
Itching (illusion that bugs are crawling on the skin)
Welts on the skin
Involuntary body movements
Paranoid delusions
Severe amphetamine induced depression and/or psychosis