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Women...Can drugs be taken recreationally and safely at the same time?

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One in three women take drugs recreationally, according to an exclusive Glamour survey, and they're convinced they can do it safely. Is that really possible? Writer Ginny Graves investigates.
In April 2011 Barbara,* 29, a personal assistant in Los Angeles, woke up in an unfamiliar room. Where the hell am I? she wondered. White walls, beeping monitor, IV needle in her wrist. Hospital. But why? She remembered taking ecstasy with her friend Stacey at the Coachella music festival, waiting an hour for it to kick in, then taking another pill. She remembered snorting a dab of MDMA (the psychoactive ingredient in ecstasy) and later a bump of coke. And she remembered getting to the hotel, making herself throw up, and freaking out that she wasn't coming down. Then, nothing.

Around 9 A.M., Barbara would later learn, her roommate awoke to a terrifying sight: Barbara was foaming at the mouth and having a seizure. Stacey called 911. By the time Barbara opened her eyes in the hospital, three days had passed. "I'd been in a coma," she says. "The doctor said I was lucky I didn't die, which obviously was incredibly scary, but it was also confusing. Yes, I partied. But I didn't feel like I'd gone on some crazy binge."

Two doses of ecstasy, MDMA, and coke-that is a binge, experts say. And "it doesn't matter what you call it because mixing even relatively small amounts of these substances can kill you," says Kimberly Dennis, M.D., medical director at Timberline Knolls, a women's residential treatment facility in Lemont, Illinois. "There's this illusion that in order to really have a problem you have to use every day and end up in the gutter. But you can have pretty negative consequences even if you use sporadically." Both coke and MDMA, for example, increase body temperature, which can cause heatstroke or seizures like the ones Barbara experienced. And while that episode did make Barbara a bit more cautious, it didn't deter her completely. She still smokes weed and admits she's done ecstasy, mushrooms, and ketamine since then. "I'm super tame compared to most people my age-I don't even drink," she says. "And now I'm more responsible; I know where the drugs come from, and I take a very small amount."

"Responsible" drug use? Is there such a thing? Many young women believe so: In an exclusive Glamour survey of 1,024 women, that idea came up time and again. Thirty-two percent of women in our poll say they've used street drugs (like pot, ecstasy, and cocaine) or prescription drugs (like Adderall and OxyContin) recreationally. And a quarter of all women believe using drugs is OK, as long as you aren't hurting anyone or developing an addiction.

In fact, the startling new picture that emerged from our investigation is of a drug user who approaches her habit in the same shame-free, matter-of-fact manner she might approach her diet or exercise routine. Young women told Glamour they google safety information about what they take, have rules about what and how much they'll consume, and "buy locally"-meaning from trusted friends. "This is a huge cultural shift that no one is talking about," says Joseph Lee, M.D., medical director of youth services at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, which runs addiction treatment centers nationwide. "There's a big pool of women who are college-educated and have their lives together-and also subscribe to the philosophy of better living through chemistry. As a culture, we're blind to this group of users who may not be addicts but who are at risk nonetheless."

What are the risks? How serious are they? And perhaps more important: Why are women ignoring them? Glamour went in search of answers.

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Drugs Are a Way to Bond__

Think of a drug user as someone who parties hard and is out of control? More than half of the women in our survey who use drugs say they do so with friends and boyfriends-often as a way to connect, experience something new, or relax. "At first drugs were my naughty rebellion, but they've turned into something more intentional and self-reflective," says Cassandra, 23, an event planner in Brooklyn who uses pot, mushrooms, acid, and MDMA.

"This isn't about getting loaded. For my friends and me, it's about creating community and escaping our busy lives."

Angela, 25, an entrepreneur in Venice, California, who also uses mushrooms and acid, admits she likes to have a wild night every once in a while, "but 90 percent of the time I take drugs to foster great conversations and relationships. When I'm tripping, I can be open and vulnerable. We discuss the future and our pasts; you get away from the craziness of work and Instagram and Facebook."

We all crave connection, acknowledges Dr.Dennis."Technologyisolatesus;there's been an erosion of social skills due to all the ways we communicate in a non-face-to-face manner," she says. "The question becomes Why do I need mushrooms or cocaine to have a deeper connection to another human being?' Because when you need to use a substance to connect with somebody, your primary connection isn't with the person; it's with the drug."

How women get their drugs can add to the experience too: 50 percent of our poll participants say friends or family provide them. "You're part of the circle," Dr. Dennis says. "And when you share a secret with another person, you feel closer."
They're a Way to Get Ahead
The women Glamour spoke with also say they believe drugs help them maximize their potential, whether that means being productive at work, having the stamina to party longer, or being able to relax on cue.

Stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin are often prescribed for ADHD, and so have a reputation as brain-boosting drugs. "Women using them recreationally are trying to sculpt their best selves-the smartest, the most productive, the thinnest, the most social," says Megan Jones, chief science officer at Lantern, an online mental health site (golantern.com). But those users without ADHD may get nothing more than a placebo effect: "We've found academic performance actually declines in those who use ADHD drugs without a prescription," says Amelia Arria, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. "The wonder drug image is overblown."

And the benefits don't last, according to women Glamour spoke to. Kelly, 30, was living in New York City, holding down a six-figure job, and engaged to a med-school student. She felt like she was "on top of the world"-thanks, in large part, to the Adderall she stole from her fiance??. "People were amazed at how much I could get done," she says. Then two years into her marriage, she caught her husband cheating. A psychiatrist prescribed Xanax, an antianxiety med, but she still cried all the time-until a friend handed her some oxycodone.

Those tears? Gone. But she ended up in a drug-induced stupor. "I thought I was too smart to get addicted," she says. "Then after a month or two I was so exhausted I laid in bed for three days. It wasn't the divorce. I'd gotten over that. It was the drugs. They'd taken over my life."

Kelly's parents put her in rehab. She now lives and works in Austin, Texas, where she dotes on her daughter, age two. "I thought I was using drugs responsibly," she says. "Then everything came crashing down."
Women Think They Use Safely
Kelly's initial belief that her drug use was no big deal is not rare: In our survey 17 percent of those who use drugs compared it to having a few drinks. Likewise, nearly a third believe it's safer to take prescription meds like Xanax recreationally than street drugs, like coke-unsurprising, experts say, given how many of us grew up taking things like Ritalin or Prozac, or knowing someone who did. Today many women practice what they think of as "safe use."

In fact, the women we spoke to discuss buying drugs as if they were shopping for organic kale. "My friends and I educate ourselves; we're constantly talking about this interaction or that study," says Amanda, 23, an entrepreneur in Indianapolis. Angela says she buys only from "trusted" sources: "We need to know what we're getting. Especially if it's Molly [a drug similar to ecstasy], which is a crapshoot because it's so adulterated." Adds Veronica, 24, a publicist in Santa Monica, California: "It's convenient to buy drugs together, and safer. My friend found an amazing source of acid in Berkeley and bought 100 tabs to sell to all his friends, which is great because it means we know the product is clean and reliable.

Every woman has her own rules. Cassandra drinks lots of water and never takes "cheap" drugs. Veronica sticks with weed and Adderall, drugs she feels are safe. ("But Xanax? Painkillers?" she says. "That stuff can kill you.") Becca, 34, a marketing professional in Springfield, Illinois, says she researches the Internet for side effects and dangerous combos. "But," she admits, "I sometimes wonder whether all this information is really making us safer or just giving us a false sense of security."
Everything's OK-Until It's Not
Experts can answer that for Becca: No, that information is not making you safer. "This idea of responsible drug use is similar to saying, I'm playing Russian Roulette responsibly,' " says Dr. Dennis. "The bullet does come around." Here are the facts: Prescription drugs aren't safer. Chemically, Adderall and cocaine are practically twins, says pharmacologist Nicole Cartwright Kwiek, Ph.D. Between 2010 and 2013, ER visits related to prescription stimulants tripled among those 18 to 34. And in 2010, four times more women died from prescription painkillers than from cocaine and heroin overdoses combined.

Mixing drugs is especially dangerous. On any given day in 2011 (the most recent year for which public-health data is available), an average of 339 people ages 18 to 25 were admitted to the ER after using drugs while drinking. "I see women all the time who combined sedatives with alcohol and can't remember if they had sex the night before," says Eric Lavonas, M.D., a toxicologist at the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver.

Friends can't guarantee safe drugs. "Less than 5 percent of ecstasy is untainted," warns Dr. Lavonas. "There's no quality control in the world of illegal drugs." For example, Barbara, who ended up in a coma, thought she'd had Molly, but doctors found speed and crystal meth in her system.

And your body is particular. "Just because your friend's brain can handle acid doesn't mean yours can," says Dr. Lavonas. "And some of the new drugs are so potent we're seeing terrible reactions. Seizures that won't stop. Temperatures of 108 degrees that lead to multisystem organ failure." Addiction is a real possibility. "It's a myth that people with addiction have to use a substance every single day," says Dr. Dennis. "Lots of women who wind up in rehab were only using sporadically. In fact, that's becoming the norm."

But help is available. If you think you have a problem, says Dr. Lee, talk to a therapist with addiction training (find one at aaap.org). Be honest with your doctor about what you're taking. And remember, says Arria: "You might feel OK today, but in the long run you'll be better off if you learn healthier coping strategies, like how to express your true feelings."

Dr. Lee makes one concession: "Most women who use drugs won't have catastrophic problems, just like most people who speed won't die in a car accident," he says. "But we all assume we'll be the lucky ones, which means someone will be wrong. And that someone might be you."
Ginny Graves is an award-winning writer in Marin County, California.

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Is Everybody on Something? A Look at Women and Recreational Drugs

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One in three women take drugs recreationally, according to an exclusive Glamour survey, and they're convinced they can do it safely. Is that really possible? Writer Ginny Graves investigates. In April 2011 Barbara,* 29, a personal assistant in Los Angeles, woke up in an unfamiliar room. Where the hell am I?

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Tokio Hotel - Feel it all (censored version)

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Tokio Hotel - Feel it all (censored version)

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In an interview the German singer and songwriter Bill Kaulitz said the following regarding the release of his music video Feel it All: "I said, lets just make a video about [drugs], maybe about me getting lost. For me 'Feel It All' is really about feeling every aspect of life. Life has downsides and darkness, light and dreams, hate and freedom and that rebellious side. I wanted to show all of that and I always wanted to play a role of a lost soul."

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Tokio Hotel - Feel It All - [Censored Version]

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Tokio Hotel - Feel It All - [Censored Version] ▶ Exclusive Single Pre-Order: http://j.mp/FIAorder Directed By : Mattias Erik Johansson Producer : Calle Tidbeck @ Diktator Sweden Thanks to all extras and the amazing crew! Uncensored version will be available on www.TokioHotel.com .

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"Being intoxicated or high is the new fad. You really aren't living your life unless you are addicted to something..."

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It is no secret that many celebrities are addicted to drugs and alcohol. It seems to have become cool to have a problem with a substance these days. Being intoxicated or high is the new fad. You really aren't living your life unless you are addicted to something.

Wait, what? Really? This seems backwards, doesn't it?

The ironic part of successful celebrities endorsing drug and alcohol abuse is that most people don't get much done when using or drinking, but these people have reached fame and fortune while drunk and high.

Rappers, actors, and musicians are notorious for addictive personalities, and for talking about their struggles with addiction, but it seems that lately, more and more famous people are trying to hype their perceived stylishness of substance use.

The glamorization of drug abuse in the media is causing problems not only for the celebrities that suffer legal, interpersonal, professional, and health or mental health consequences of addiction, but also the impressionable young people who look on with admiration.

If a young person grew up watching the Batman movies, and loves the actors in each one, and wants to just like Val Kilmer, Christian Bale, or Kim Basinger, and then he or she sees Heath Ledger die from prescription painkiller use, what message does that send? Granted, Heath was not one of the people out promoting his drug problem, but it serves as an example of the media's involvement in the spread of addiction stories.

The darker side of the media's glamorization of drug abuse is more evident in the music industry. Rappers like Lil Wayne who write lyrics about codeine abuse by calling it "Sizzurp" and Kanye West who write about the drug Molly, with lyrics that encourage the fun of the Ecstasy-like drug, do not touch on the danger of a drug-abusing lifestyle.

And, instead of seeking treatment for addiction, Lil Wayne makes an effort to hide the health consequences he's experienced. He was hospitalized for substance-related seizures that he tried to keep quiet.

Will the glamorization of drug abuse in the media get worse? It seems that there are new people with a positive message who are stepping into the public eye. The company Sober is Sexy is spreading the word that being drug-free is cool with messages on t-shirts and phone covers saying "Heroin killed the radio star" and "The only coke I do is diet."

Instead of buying into the seemingly glamorous world of fame and drug abuse, check out celebrities who are sending a positive message of a substance-free life.

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The Glamorization of Drug Abuse In the Media - 866-316-4012

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It is no secret that many celebrities are addicted to drugs and alcohol. It seems to have become cool to have a problem with a substance these days. Being intoxicated or high is the new fad. You really aren't living your life unless you are addicted to something. Wait, what?

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Apparently there are benefits to being an addict...

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People who believe in the disease theory are dumb. They can't help it, so we shouldn't mock them. You see, they don't have enough human insight to answer the question, "Why do alcoholics drink even though it hurts them?" Other than by positing that they have some inbred disease that compels them to drink, that is.

Stupid, huh? But, as I said, don't make fun of them. Because their stupidity - which reigns supreme in America - has a tragic element. It guarantees that we will never actually impact addiction, either for individuals or society-wide.

Think of a college kid who gets drunk on weekends with his or her friends. What an experience! As Thomas Vander Ven, Ohio University sociologist, details in Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink Too Much and Party So Hard, the revelers can overcome their inhibitions, act stupid, and sing, dance, and laugh. Moreover, they can continue to feel a part of a group that is now united in misery the morning after, when they can both recount their war stories of the night before and suffer the horrors of hangovers together.

All in a day's - or a weekend night's - work, you might say. And most people outgrow this experience when they leave college. Except some don't. There are two groups of such drinkers. One group extends the college fraternity (or fraternity-style) environment into young adulthood.

And the other group does something more consequential. They have found that the drinking experience alleviates deep-seated anxieties they have about themselves and their lives. In other words, alcohol provides more than temporary camaraderie for such drinkers. It provides existential relief. And people find such crucial psychological benefits are hard to relinquish.

Fast forward. Even most of these existential drinkers find more enduring satisfactions and reassurances in life and at some point cease to encase themselves in alcohol. But some go on to alcoholic careers. And it is this group of drinkers that disease adherents are most likely to encounter - in AA groups and rehab - and to posit that they must be out of control of their drinking. Why else would they continue to imbibe, diseasifiers' thinking goes, unless they had no choice?

But let's return to the realm of the human being. People who have learned to allay their anxieties and fears, to feel good - or at least okay - about themselves while intoxicated, to gain some sense of control that they otherwise are bereft of - well, those are hard people to persuade to give up the bottle. Which is what AA and the 12 steps are selling - "Step over to the sunny side of the street where I live - it's much better here."

Maybe - if you like folding chairs and listening to endless drunkalogues. As to gaining a grip on your anxieties - and finding more fulfilling ways of being - well, AA is a pretty haphazard way to go about that. Which is why we are waiting for a miracle cure yet to be discovered in some government or university lab. You know, a replacement for alcohol that makes people feel good about themselves. Let's see - what would we call such a substance?

I know. We'd call it an addiction.

Stanton Peele's new book (with Ilse Thompson), is Recover! Stop Thinking Like an Addict and Reclaim Your Life with The PERFECT Program. Follow his guided self-cure program at lifeprocessprogram.com.

Follow Stanton on Twitter

P.S. I get a lot of comments -- always have -- and this one kind of encapsulates many of them:

You really, really are a bad person Mr. Peele
Submitted by Erich on December 29, 2011 - 7:12am.

I'll tell you why that is.

People who don't get it. Like you for example Stan old boy. Furthermore, people who stand to profit from offering a dissenting view (and books and programs, etc., like (once again) you Stan.

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The Benefits of Addiction: Why Alcoholics Drink

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The disease theory short circuits the thinking needed to understand alcoholism by instead fantasizing that alcoholics are driven to drink by some as-yet-to-be-discovered micro-mechanism. Ahh, too bad, since this fallacy prevents us from helping alcoholics and addressing problem drinking society-wide.

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Drug and Alcohol in Advertisement and Entertainment

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Drug and Alcohol in Advertisement and Entertainment

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"More than $25 billion per year is spent on advertising for tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs, and such advertising has been shown to be effective."

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Celebreties Glamorizing Drugs and Alcohol

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Celebreties Glamorizing Drugs and Alcohol

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"The most mainstream social sites celebrities are active on are Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook."

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Celebrities Glamorizing Drugs and Alcohol on Social Media

As social media popularity rises, more and more celebrities are signing up for the websites to connect with their fans and share their lives. The most mainstream social sites celebrities are active on are Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

On these sites, celebrities often post pictures of themselves in different social environments, some of which involve drugs or alcohol. For example, Snoop Dog, the celebrity with the most posts on Instagram, poses with alcohol in 7.4 percent of his pictures. Other frequent celebrity posters of alcohol and drugs are Diddy, Rhianna, Drake and Nicki Minaj.

Another celebrity that has caused controversy on the topic of drugs on social media is Miley Cyrus. The singer frequently posts pictures of herself with the hashtags #drugaddict and #alcoholic. She glamorizes these drugs to her followers who want to be like her.

Many followers of these celebrities look up to them and try to emulate them at times. If they see one of their favorite singers smoking marijuana or drinking alcohol, they may be more likely to try these things as well.

Although celebrities are entitled to live their own lives, they should take into consideration the people that watch what they do and realize how much they influence them.

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Celebrities Glamorizing Drugs and Alcohol on Social Media -

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Celebrities Glamorizing Drugs and Alcohol on Social Media As social media popularity rises, more and more celebrities are signing up for the websites to connect with their fans and share their lives. The most mainstream social sites celebrities are active on are Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

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I usually listen to Pandora music in the morning when I wake up or when I shower, and I started noticing the commercials for prescription drugs. Does anybody else notice how the narrator fast forwards through the potential side effects of the drug while upbeat music plays on the background or on TV commercials all while the person is smiling? I'm just like "why would I be happy knowing a side effects is potential stroke? Hmm maybe it's the happy music playing in the background...I guess it's not too bad"

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"It took everyone a long time to catch onto the fact that 'Rehab' is actually serious. She said no, and died five years later."

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Music video with a twist on what illegal drugs can be used for. If you can't afford painkillers for someone who has cancer, would it be okay to buy cheaper illegal drugs?

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Sometimes addiction is not shown visually in a music video, but this one has weight on the the lyrics. "The drug dealer was a doctor who was trying to heal me."

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MACKLEMORE - DRUG DEALER (FEAT. ARIANA DEBOO) OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

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Supermodels Recall Lives of Sex, Drugs, and Fear of Aging

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Supermodels Recall Lives of Sex, Drugs, and Fear of Aging

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Drugs can make models have a certain look...

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Start with beautiful women. Supermodels, in fact. Ask them to tell the camera about their youth -- sex, drugs, a little rock and roll, all-night parties with Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, photo shoots with Richard Avedon, dancing and snorting cocaine until the wee hours at New York City's Studio 54. Be prepared for some razor-sharp answers -- pro and con -- on the subject of plastic surgery and aging.

Along the way, the models of mixed race may recall what it was like having angry mobs try to turn over your bus while you traveled through the Deep South. And a fashion editor may admit that, yes, we knew some of the models were shooting heroin because we noticed the tracks on their arms -- but we did nothing.

Mix it all together and you have photographer-filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders' "About Face: Supermodels Then and Now," an elegant romp, laden with tidbits of social history, through the fashion world of the last 60 years. The story is told by Christie Brinkley, Jerry Hall, Beverly Johnson, Carmen Dell-Orefice, Isabella Rossellini, Paulina Porizkova and other equally stunning women who don't hesitate to speak their minds.

"About Face," which airs on HBO tonight, started at a party that Greenfield-Sanders attended three years ago. A party he hadn't planned to attend, in fact, but a friend convinced him he should put in an appearance. Harry King, the '70s hair stylist, and Nancy Donahue, a supermodel who'd graced the covers of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar, were hosting it for Facebook friends.

"I was dragged to the party," Greenfield-Sanders, whose portraits hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Portrait Gallery, told ABC News. "I double parked my car. [But] I walked in, and the room was filled with beautiful women. This was definitely a photograph, I thought, maybe more. I started talking to these women, and I was so impressed with them it made me think there was something more to it."

Greenfield-Sanders, whose previous films include "The Black List," "The Latino List" and "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart," is not a fashion photographer, nor is it particularly one of his interests.

"I'm interested in race, achievement, confidence," he said, and he naturally gravitates to strong women. "My wife is a feminist and I have two daughters who are very strong and independent." The film, though was a way of looking at aging -- a sensitive issue for women whose success may depend on their aura of youth. "I deal with it, I think about it, and [these women] are a group who had a heightened experience. Their lives are about being beautiful."

Carmen Dell 'Orefice, 81 and still striking, opens and closes the film. She alludes to the self-image problem many supermodels, surprisingly, faced until the camera validated their often unusual beauty. When Dell 'Orefice was young, her mother, she tells us, told her she had "feet like coffins" and "ears like sedan doors." She's been modeling for 65 years, and when she started out, if you told someone you were a model, well, they would naturally assume you were a hooker.

Isabella Rossellini says that when she started modeling it wasn't a career, it was more about having a little spending money. She questions the idea of women having plastic surgery: Is it the new feet binding? Misogyny? Dell 'Orefice is matter-of-fact on the topic: If you had the ceiling falling down in your living room, would you not have it repaired?

Jerry Hall, still fabulous after 50 with her long blonde hair and leopard print dress, her down-home, gutsy, throaty Texas twang still there after the years she has spent living in England, says she thinks it's bad that we have as role models people who look scary to small children.

Many of the women in the film touch on the peril of aging for those who make their living by being beautiful. "You do live in a bubble. Everyone tells you how beautiful you are," says Beverly Johnson , who became the first African American woman to grace the cover of Vogue in August 1974.

When she was modeling, a career lasted three to four years. She had a good friend who was graduating from college, getting married, making a down payment on a house. "And I'm living in fear of getting older," she says, as we see her strutting down runways looking gorgeous.

There are tales of racism, of drug overdoses, of AIDS. There is the story of a fashion director calling for one black woman in a cast of more than 30. Hall recalls the era when you'd wonder if a friend was so thin because he was smoking too much, drinking too much .... or because he had AIDS. Jade Hobson, fashion director for Vogue, says she used to stand by the photographer with binoculars just to make sure everything was in place. One day she saw track marks on supermodel Gia Carangi's arms. Carangi died at age 26 of AIDS.

"We exploited these girls," admits Hobson. The drugs, adds Hobson, "brought a certain look." So the industry turned the other cheek.

But the women who lived to tell the story tell it well in "About Face," and while they remember the pain of their youth, they revel in where their lives have taken them today. Great fun are the stories of being discovered: Jerry Hall went to Paris, then to the French Riviera, expecting to be discovered. And within an hour after she walked outside one morning, she was.

Carol Alt has a different tale of being discovered. "I was waitressing at a beer and steak place on Long Island," she told ABC News. Her father -- "the first feminist I knew," she says -- was a fireman with four children in college, and Carol was in ROTC so that she could attend Hofstra University in the fall. A photographer who was on his way to the more tony enclave of the Hamptons told the tall 17-year-old waitress she should be a model. She rolled her eyes. But he kept at her. "It was Friday night, I was busy," says Alt. "I finally said, 'OK, give me your number.'"

Two weeks later, after breaking up with her boyfriend, she called the photographer, who directed her to an agency. It wasn't long before she was at a magazine where an editor squawked, "Who cut your hair? Your eyebrows look like s---, and you're too big for our clothes." But it wasn't long before she found herself, 15 pounds lighter, on her way to Europe for an Italian Harper's Bazaar fashion shoot.

"We were up at four o'clock in the morning, living on three hours of sleep for two solid weeks," she said. "They'd bring a sandwich of bread and ham with the crusts cut off. It was very very hard work and very little food." Returning to New York, she said, she had changed so much that her mother didn't recognize her at the airport. "She walked by me six times. I burst into tears. I was pale, I was green, I was emaciated."

Nevertheless, Alt speaks of her modeling career with great fondness. (It's hardly over: She posed partially nude in Playboy at age 48, and she's acted in more than 50 films, most recently Woody Allen's "To Rome With Love.") Ask her what her favorite thing about modeling was, and she doesn't hesitate to answer in one word: "Freedom. Freedom to be who I wanted to be. I wasn't that gawky kid in high school that everyone wanted to make fun of."

"We lived the greatest adventure," Hall says of the glamour and the days and nights with Warhol and Dali and transvestites in Paris who were great fun. "It was about making a whole world."

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Start with beautiful women. Supermodels, in fact. Ask them to tell the camera about their youth -- sex, drugs, a little rock and roll, all-night parties with Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, photo shoots with Richard Avedon, dancing and snorting cocaine until the wee hours at New York City's Studio 54.

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I was looking at some documentaries about models and plastic surgery. There has been debate on how much plastic surgery is ok to have, but some people have dozens of procedures. Can plastic surgery be an addiction? How has media shaped the way we have seen addiction?

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The Mother Addicted to Plastic Surgery | Where Are They Now | Oprah Winfrey Network

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By the time Jenny Lee was 28 years old, she'd already had 26 plastic surgeries. When Jenny first appeared on The Oprah Show in 2004, she admitted that she was obsessed with perfection. Watch and find out if Jenny was able to beat her addiction to plastic surgery.

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title says it all

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travis scott - drugs you should try it [music video] ( days before rodeo)

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Travis Scott - Drugs You Should Try It [Music Video] (Days Before Rodeo)

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Travis Scott - Drugs You Should Try It [Music Video] ( Days Before Rodeo) Follow Travi$ Scott: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/travisscottl... Twitter: https://twitter.com/trvisxx Instagram: https://instagram.com/travisscott I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY OF THIS VIDEO - ALL RIGHTS GO TO, Beat ID,TravisScottVEVO AND ALL AFFILIATED COMPANIES WITH THIS SONG.

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A talk show hosts treats a person with an addiction as if she chose to be an addict for selfish reasons...

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Jeremy Confronts the Most Shocking Drug Addict in the Show's History | The Jeremy Kyle Show

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Subscribe now for more! http://bit.ly/1LeF0z4 Jeremy confronts a drug addict whose addiction has led her to lose her children and drive her to prostitution. Apply to be on the show: http://bit.ly/1IJDyAg Like, follow and subscribe to The Jeremy Kyle Show!

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" So what is the film? In a lot of ways, we looked at [it] as a monster movie. The creature was invisible; it lived in their heads. 'Addiction.'”

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Fifty years ago, a small group of Pittsburgh filmmakers decided to make a scary movie. Working from a shoestring budget with limited crew and a cast partly composed of amateur actors, they headed out to a Pennsylvania farmhouse and began crafting a horror classic.

Today, Night of the Living Dead is universally regarded as the king of zombie flicks, but it didn't start out that way. What started as a weird idea for a movie about aliens went through rewrites, crucial casting decisions, and a little fire to become the film we know and love today. So, to celebrate the granddaddy of the modern zombie story-which is getting a 4K restoration release at New York City's Film Forum this weekend-here are 10 gruesome facts about Night of the Living Dead.

1. THE ORIGINAL IDEA WAS AN ALIEN COMEDY.

In early 1967, writer/director George A. Romero, writer John A. Russo, and actor Rudy Ricci were working together at the Latent Image, their Pittsburgh-based commercial film company, when they decided it was time to try their hand at making a feature film. Though the effort eventually produced Night of the Living Dead, early concepts were very different. Russo initially thought of making a horror comedy about "hot-rodding" alien teens who would visit Earth, meet up with human teenagers, and generally cause mischief with the help of a cosmic pet called "The Mess." The group's budgetary constraints made this concept impossible, so Russo instead dreamed up an idea about a boy who runs away from home, only to discover a field of corpses under glass, which were rotting to the liking of alien creatures who would eventually consume them. Russo presented this idea to Romero, who latched on to the flesh-eating angle.

2. GEORGE ROMERO WAS HEAVILY INSPIRED BY I AM LEGEND.

Armed with Russo's flesh-eating concept, Romero went to work, pairing it with a story he'd been working on that "basically ripped off" Richard Matheson's apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend. Russo later recalled that Romero returned with "about 40 really excellent pages," including the opening in the cemetery and the arrival at the farmhouse. Russo set to work on the rest, and Night of the Living Dead began to come to life.

3. DUANE JONES REWROTE HIS OWN DIALOGUE AS BEN.

The character of Ben was originally written as an angry, rough truck driver, with somewhat crude dialogue to reflect that. When actor Duane Jones came aboard the production, he began revising the dialogue.

"As I recall, I believe that Duane himself upgraded his own dialogue to reflect how he felt the character should present himself," actor/producer Karl Hardman, who played Harry Cooper, later recalled.

4. THE FAKE BLOOD WAS MADE ON A BUDGET.

Night of the Living Dead was made on a budget of less than $150,000, which meant everything from props to sets had to be created on the cheap. Since the film was shot in black and white, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so either red ink or chocolate syrup was used, depending on the desired effect in each shot. For the scene in which Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) begins eating her father's corpse, the crew's leftover lunch was employed.

"Earlier in the day, we were eating hamburgers or meatball sandwiches, so they just smeared chocolate syrup all over it and that's what I was biting into," Schon said.

5. THE NUDE GHOUL CAUSED A SPECTATOR SCENE ON SET.

Reasoning that least some of the "ghouls" (Romero never referred to the creatures as zombies) would have woken up in the morgue and walked away naked, the crew opted for a single living dead extra to be nude on camera, and enlisted a local artist's model for the job. When word spread that the production planned a nude scene during one of its night shoots, local residents apparently decided they wanted to have a look.

"The night they filmed the nude ghoul, all of Evans City found out about it. They had their lawn chairs set up around the edges of the property," Judith Ridley, who played Judy, said. "It was funny to see the rest of the zombies trying to keep their eyes elsewhere instead of looking down at the obvious places on the nude one."

6. THREE DIFFERENT CREW MEMBERS SET THEMSELVES ON FIRE DURING FILMING.

To add to the realism of the zombie attack scenes, both Russo and actor Bill Hinzman-who played the iconic "Cemetery Ghoul" in the opening sequence-volunteered to be set on fire. Russo was lit on fire during the scene when the survivors are throwing makeshift Molotov cocktails at the undead, while Hinzman poured lighter fluid on his suit so he could be lit during the scene in which Ben wards off the ghouls with a torch. In both cases, everything went according to plan, but one fire was started by accident.

For the scene in which Ben sets a chair on fire to distract the ghouls, crew member Gary Streiner volunteered to coat the prop with gasoline. Everything went fine for the first take, but when it came time to give it a second try, Streiner ran into trouble when he tried to add more gasoline.

"I just went over and started to pour the gas on and the liquid found a hot ember somewhere and a flame just came up into this container I'm holding in my hand," he said. "I jumped back and all of a sudden I'm on fire!"

Hinzman came to the rescue and extinguished the flame before Streiner was seriously hurt.

7. BOTH ROMERO AND RUSSO MADE CAMEOS.

Night of the Living Dead 's co-creators make cameo appearances in the film. Russo played one of the ghouls who managed to reach into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tire iron, while Romero can be seen in the Washington D.C. sequences as a reporter.

8. JONES FOUGHT AGAINST AN ALTERNATE ENDING THAT WOULD HAVE SAVED BEN.

One of the film's most famous elements is its grim ending, in which Ben, having survived the night, is shot by the sheriff's zombie-hunting posse and thrown on the fire. At one point, a happier ending for the film was considered, but Jones fought it and won.

"I convinced George that the black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all that had gone on, in a corny and symbolically confusing way," Jones said. "The heroes never die in American movies. The jolt of that, and the double jolt of the hero being black seemed like a double-barreled whammy."

9. IT'S IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN BECAUSE OF A CREDITS ERROR.

Night of the Living Dead might be the most famous public domain movie of all time, but it was never intended to be. The Walter Reade Organization, which distributed the film, wanted to release it under the title Night of the Flesh Eaters, but lawyers representing the makers of 1964's The Flesh Eaters threatened a lawsuit, so the title was changed to Night of the Living Dead. When the title changed, though, copyright notices were not added to the opening titles or to the end credits. Though the filmmakers have fought it in federal court, the film is still in the public domain.

10. ITS CREATORS SANCTIONED BOTH A REMAKE AND A REVISION OF THE ORIGINAL, BUT NEITHER WAS WELL RECEIVED.

In 1990, Russo, Romero, and other collaborators from the original film re-teamed to remake Night of the Living Dead, with the hope that the project would help shore up their original copyright claims. Russo produced, Romero revised the original script, and makeup effects wizard Tom Savini (who would have worked on the original film had he not been serving in Vietnam at the time) was brought in to direct. The film features a strong cast (including Tony Todd as Ben) and more sophisticated makeup effects, but failed to reach the classic status of its predecessor.

Then, in 1998, Russo, Hinzman, Hardman, and actor/producer Russ Streiner (who played Johnny) decided to revisit the film for its 30th anniversary. Inspired by the Star Wars Special Editions, Russo wrote and filmed new scenes for the project, including an origin story for the Cemetery Ghoul. The effort was not well received. As for Romero, though he wasn't involved, he reported "no bad blood" between himself and his former collaborators.

Additional Sources: Night of the Living Dead: Behind the Scenes of the Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever, by Joe Kane; One for the Fire: The Legacy of Night of the Living Dead (2008)

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12 Addictive Facts About Requiem for a Dream

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Fifty years ago, a small group of Pittsburgh filmmakers decided to make a scary movie. Working from a shoestring budget with limited crew and a cast partly composed of amateur actors, they headed out to a Pennsylvania farmhouse and began crafting a horror classic.

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Sadly, one of the actresses (Brittany Murphy) died in real life due to prescription medications.

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An out-of-control speed freak (Schwartzman) is introduced his drug of choice's creator (Rourke) by his dealer (Leguizamo). A massive three-day adventure ensues (with Fugit, Murphy, and Suvari in tow).

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Sometimes using addiction as comedy undermines the seriousness of a health problem

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This summer, the guys who brought you Superbad reunite for the action-comedy Pineapple Express. Lazy stoner Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver (James Franco): to purchase weed, specifically, a rare new strain called Pineapple Express.

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Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth

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Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth

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I highly recommend this read

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Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth

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Joel W. Grube **Research for and preparation of this paper were supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) grant AA12136 to the Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.The author thanks Dr. Elizabeth D. Waiters for assisting in the review of alcohol portrayals in popular music.

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The influence of social media on alcohol use

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The influence of social media on alcohol use

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"Social media is full of advertisements, news, and other impactful visuals. Brands like big alcohol and big tobacco use social media to target their consumers."

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We're officially in the thick of the digital age. The internet has been the greatest invention of our time and its possibilities really are endless. Every industry, interest, and consumer around the world has been affected by its power. Social media is relatively new to the internet and enables people to be connected to each other and to the world all the time. We are constantly sharing our lives, including our struggles.

This makes the dynamic of addiction and social media unique but can also make it a more dangerous place for those who are using. Let's explore the influence social media has on alcohol abuse:

How does social media influence alcohol use?

Social media is full of advertisements, news, and other impactful visuals. Brands like big alcohol and big tobacco use social media to target their consumers. Restaurants use social media to promote their drink specials and happy hours. Additionally, social media is where parties and get-togethers are organized. If you want to host a party, you make an event on Facebook. It's easily accessible for people-and even strangers-to find parties, alcohol, and drugs.

Because social media is such an integral part of people's lives, it can also influence the way they drink or use drugs. According to a national teen survey done by CASAColumbia at Columbia University in 2011, American teens ages 12 to 17 who spend any time on social media during a given day at increased risk of smoking, drinking, and drug use. In comparison to teens who spent no time on social media in a typical day, teens that do are five times likelier to use tobacco, three times likelier to use alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana. The survey also found that 40 percent of teens surveyed have seen photos on Myspace, Facebook, or other social networks of people passed out, drunk, or using drugs.

Social media allows young kids to see these influential photos. Shockingly, half of the teens who saw photos of people drinking or using drugs on Facebook and other social media sites first saw these photos when they were 13 years old or younger. Over 90 percent of the teens first saw these photos when they were 15 years old or younger.

Compared with kids who have never seen photos of people drinking, using drugs, or passed out on social networking sites, the teens that have seen them are:

3 times likelier to use alcohol.

4 times likelier to use marijuana.

Almost 3 times likelier to be able to get controlled prescription drugs without a prescription.

More than twice as likely to be able to get alcohol in a day or less.

Likelier to have peers who abuse illegal and prescription drugs.

More interesting is that displaying risky behaviors online in photos is consistent with what behaviors take place offline. For example, teens who share one risky behavior, such as promiscuity, on social media, are more likely to display other behaviors like alcohol use, according to The Journal of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Additionally, alcohol use posts on social media have been linked to alcohol behaviors offline, shown by the fact that older adolescents whose Facebook posts suggest problem drinking behaviors are more likely to have a higher score on a problem-drinking screen.

Restrictions exist to prohibit young people from exposure to alcohol advertisements on the traditional social media sites, but teens still have access to these ads in regular venues. Social media is unique in that alcohol brands can target consumers and create relationships with their audience. Users are often asked to "like" alcohol brands, to attend their events, and share photos of themselves using their products. If you do not want to see alcohol-branded content in your Facebook newsfeed it's hard to block it.

In other words, social media is the perfect environment for drugs and alcohol to be displayed, viewed, bought, and sold.

It's also a place where anyone can create a culture of drug use and drinking amongst their friends and connections.

Social media and recovery

Another interesting phenomenon is social media and recovery. There is a positive and a negative side to everything in life. Even though social media can be a place inundated with alcohol and drug use, it can also be a hub for recovery. When I got sober I was able to find a plethora of information online about getting sober and living in recovery. I frequented sober blogger sites, followed sobriety accounts on Twitter, and "liked" recovery pages on Facebook.

With each passing day, there is more and more offered in the recovery space online. There are now podcasts, Facebook groups, Twitter chats, chat room meetings, all dedicated to overcoming addiction and living a life in recovery. You can actually get sober online. The only recovery space can be a great compliment to an addiction treatment program or a component to your aftercare program. There are options for everyone.

We should continue to use social media as a powerful tool to combat the stigma of addiction and promote prevention among our youth. Let's use our social media powers for good.

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The Influence of Social Media on Alcohol Use

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We're officially in the thick of the digital age. The internet has been the greatest invention of our time and its possibilities really are endless. Every industry, interest, and consumer around the world has been affected by its power.

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Media Influence on Adolescent Alcohol Use

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Media Influence on Adolescent Alcohol Use

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Advertisements, music, television and in movies...

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Alcohol use by adolescents is a major health concern. Approximately three-fourths of adolescents have tried alcohol by the end of high school. Adolescents who begin to drink at an early age are at higher risk for injury, illness, long-term alcohol abuse, or even death related to alcohol use.

There are many influences on whether an adolescent begins to drink alcohol at a young age. Some of these include home life and whether parents have talked about rules for alcohol use with their children. Whether an adolescent's peers drink alcohol also influences his or her likelihood of drinking alcohol. Another influence on adolescent drinking is the media: movies and television that depict alcohol use, music that includes lyrics about alcohol use, and advertisements for different brands of alcohol.

Alcohol use on television and in movies: Research studies of adolescents have shown that teens who see alcohol use in movies and on television are more likely to start drinking alcohol at a younger age.

Alcohol use as a topic in music: Research studies have shown that alcohol use is often a topic explored in songs that are popular among adolescents, and the lyrics of these songs often relate alcohol use to sex or violence.

Alcohol in advertisements: The alcohol industry spent $1.7 billion in media advertising in 2009. Many alcohol advertisements are placed in different types of media that are popular among adolescents.

A study in this month's Archives looks at adolescents' reports of their favorite alcohol brands. Brands named by adolescents as their favorites tended to be the same brands that have high advertising expenditures, such as Budweiser and Smirnoff. This suggests that alcohol advertising influences teens' attitudes toward alcohol.

Another study in this month's Archives observed more than 2000 young adolescents who initially did not drink. Adolescents who were exposed to alcohol advertisements were more likely to say that they had a positive attitude toward alcohol use, and they were more likely to have started drinking alcohol by the end of the study period. This suggests that alcohol advertisements may lead adolescents to have positive attitudes toward alcohol and to start drinking alcohol.

Parents can help prevent the media from influencing their children's attitudes toward alcohol use by using both of the following tools:

First, reduce exposure to the types of media that show alcohol use. This can be done by reducing your child's media use overall, which has other health benefits. Another suggestion is to view media with your child and reduce exposure to media that have references to alcohol use.

Second, talk to your child regularly about what he or she is seeing or hearing in media related to alcohol use. You can help your child "outsmart" the alcohol advertisers by discussing false or misleading information. You can discuss how television and movies usually show only the positive side of alcohol use. This strategy is called "media literacy."

Center for Media Literacy
http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/making-media-work-you-action -ideas-families

To find this and other Advice for Patients articles, go to the Advice for Patients link on the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine Web site at http://www.archpediatrics.com.

Source: Center for Media Literacy

The Advice for Patients feature is a public service of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The information and recommendations appearing on this page are appropriate in most instances, but they are not a substitute for medical diagnosis. For specific information concerning your child's medical condition, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that you consult your child's physician. This page may be photocopied noncommercially by physicians and other health care professionals to share with patients. To purchase bulk reprints, call 312/464-0776.

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Media Influence on Adolescent Alcohol Use

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Alcohol use by adolescents is a major health concern. Approximately three-fourths of adolescents have tried alcohol by the end of high school. Adolescents who begin to drink at an early age are at higher risk for injury, illness, long-term alcohol abuse, or even death related to alcohol use. ...

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What does addiction look like? What does the internet say?

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How close are they to real life?

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Interesting that in real life, this movie was pretty accurate concerning Robert Downey Jr.'s life. Downey plays a guy named Julian who comes from a wealthy family in Beverly Hills. Julian is involved with his ex best friend's ex girlfriend Blair. Blair warns his ex best friend, Clay, about Julian's problems. The movie gets pretty graphic and you certainly question the use of drugs. It gave great exposure to the drug lives of young wealthy post college grads in the 80s.
Rush
Just a disturbing movie all around. Jason Patric plays an undercover cop set to bust a girl named Kristen (Jennifer Jason Leigh) when he winds up getting addicted himself and falling in love with Leigh in the process.
Trainspotting
One of my favorite movies about drug addiction, Trainspotting explores heroin at its finest. The process of getting the drug, the ritual of doing the drug, and how the drug sucks you back in time after time. And the backdrop is the poor town on Edinburgh. Excellent supporting cast in Ewen McGregor's first spotlight movie.
Permanent Midnight
This movie just messed me up all around. Ben Stiller did an excellent job going from comedic actor to serious drug addict role. There's just too much detail in this movie for me to handle. Lots of needle and insertion of needles. And the scene in the office where Stiller and dealer are jumping against windows is insane.
Requiem for a Dream
Four people who are doing their best in the world wind up succumbing to drugs. Despite the fact they have lofty aspirations, these four people wind up getting into the dirtiest, and most disturbing parts of the drug underworld. One of Arnofsky's finest cinematic accomplishments, Requiem remains and will remain a cult classic. Great soundtrack too.
Traffic
Traffic takes a look at drugs from all angles. From the source, to the fight against drugs, to drugs in the home, Traffic is one of the finest movies about drugs in history. Of the three angles of drugs the movie portrays, I particularly find Erica Christensen's character to relate to this article. The movie sort of gives the message of "it just goes to show you, even the best and brightest can get sucked into the world of drugs." And not only that, be taken to the worst places imaginable, all under the eye of a drug czar.
Pure
In short the movie is about a boy who is trying to deal with his mother's heroin addiction. His mother is dependent on a pimp and dealer which forces the boy (who is 10) to take care of his mother and younger brother. Even though he's so young, the boy takes serious action to prevent his mother from dying (as his father did).
The Basketball Diaries
Great look at a true story here. Leonardo Dicaprio plays a star basketball player and poet who falls into the sordid world of drug addiction in Manhattan. He goes from being a high school phenom to complete junkie in a matter of months resorting to violence, stealing, and selling his own body just for a hit. It's an excellent story and Dicaprio is excellent (as is Mark Wahlberg as his prick friend).
Drugstore Cowboy
A "heroin driven" Bonnie and Clyde. A couple must finance their drug habit and to do so they rob drug stores. Eventually however, luck runs out.
Midnight Cowboy
One of the first movies that portrayed gritty, urban heroin addiction with all its associated despair on full display. It remains one of Dustin Hoffman's finest roles, and the only movie with an "X" rating to ever receive an Academy Award for Best Picture.

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10 Excellent Movies About Drug Addiction - Page 2 of 2

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Interesting that in real life, this movie was pretty accurate concerning Robert Downey Jr.'s life. Downey plays a guy named Julian who comes from a wealthy family in Beverly Hills. Julian is involved with his ex best friend's ex girlfriend Blair.

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"This song is about his addiction to heroin. A lot of people call their drugs girls because of their "love" for them."

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This is one of my favorite songs by Lana...the music and lyrics are beautiful, but in a way drugs have a romantic kind of vibe almost artistic...very far from the reality of addiction.

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Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You

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Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You

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This song seems to be about a love-hate kind of relationship, about ambivalence towards addiction, drugs, or maybe even rehabilitation.

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Three Days Grace - I Hate Everything About You (Official Video)

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Guitarist Anthony Armstrong explained the song's redemptive lyrical content: "When we are falling and reaching the point where we are at the bottom we need someone to catch us. It's a place we have all been. It's encouraging to know that there is someone that will be stronger than we can be for ourselves at that moment.

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Music video by Red performing Hold Me Now. (C) 2012 Provident Label Group LLC, a unit of Sony Music Entertainment

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I came across this band after I read the "Heroin Diaries" by Nikki Sixx co-founder, bassist, and primary songwriter of the band Mötley Crüe.

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"She lights a candle, but she doesn't know why.
She wants to save me, but I'm barely alive.
My soul is thirsty. I just wanna get high.
Make her go away."

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Music video by Sixx:A.M.;Debbie Harry performing Pray For Me (explicit). (C) 2007 Eleven Seven Music

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"This song is about Nikki's early upbringing and what caused him to get lost. A poor family dynamic lead him to steal, lie, and get involved with drugs.
The second part of the song is about Nikki's overdose.

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Music video by Sixx:A.M. performing Tomorrow. (C) 2008 Eleven Seven Music

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Catchy song...but with a message.
"Cause day and night
The lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night
He's all alone through the day and night"

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Kid Cudi - Soundtrack To My Life - YouTube

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Kid Cudi - Soundtrack To My Life - YouTube

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"I was close to go and trying some coke
And a happy ending would be slitting my throat
Ignorance the cope man
Ignorance is bliss
Ignorance is love, and I need that shit"

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"I’m stuck in this I can’t turn back
I see myself and I’m staring back"

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Fozzey & VanC - Stuck In This with Lyrics

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i dont wanna pretend that im something else ..

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Their front man Chester Bennington recently died by suicide. He struggled with depression and addiction...his songs now carry a new weight due to the message.

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Breaking the Habit (Official Music Video) [HD UPGRADE] – Linkin Park

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Who hasn't heard about this show?

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Here’s what ‘Breaking Bad’ gets right, and wrong, about the meth business

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Here’s what ‘Breaking Bad’ gets right, and wrong, about the meth business

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If you aren't watching "Breaking Bad" at the moment, you need to reconsider your life choices and then you need to get thee to Netflix. Each season has been much better than the one that preceded it, and if that keeps up the end of season five is poised to be something else.

But if you've made it this far, you've doubtless wondered whether the meth industry actually works as depicted on the show. Could a genius innovator like Walt really become this successful? Are charismatic businessmen like Gus Fring running front businesses to hide their meth trade? Are super labs real? Let's break down the similarities and differences, topic by topics. Mild spoilers, but I'm not going to spoil anybody's death or anything like that.
Super labs are real

One of the most striking elements of "Breaking Bad" is the "super lab" that Walt and Jesse use to practice their science in seasons three and four. It's a huge, glittery chemistry wonderland full of brand new equipment and high cleanliness standards. It seems much too grandiose for the rough world of meth, right?

Wrong, actually. Experts on the meth market say that superlabs are actually pretty common, at least among manufacturers associated with Mexican cartels. "In 2002/2003, the Sinaloa cartel saw that meth was the next big thing, and started to be active in creating these super labs and making the meth in Mexico," says Sylvia Longmire, a retired Air Force captain, author of " Cartel," and consultant on Mexican drug war issues.

The United States has tight controls on the import and mass purchase of precursor materials to make meth, but they were easier to come by in Mexico, because of the country's weak justice system."Mexico has fairly strong restrictions on precursors, but there's so much corruption that restrictions don't mean a lot," Ralph Weisheit, a professor of criminal justice at Illinois State and co-author of " Methamphetamine: Its History, Pharmacology and Treatment," says.

At first, the superlabs were built in Mexico, where the precursor had been imported, and then the resulting product was smuggled into the United States. But that proved too risky, and the cartels have moved to using U.S.-based superlabs. "The biggest benefit to making it here is the distribution," Longmire says. "Getting the chemicals individually into the U.S. is less risky than bringing the final product in...It's different getting caught with that than with 10 pounds of crystal meth." So the idea of a superlab hidden in a laundry in New Mexico actually isn't all that implausible.
It's not that hard to get methylamine

This has been explained well before by Daniel Lametti at Slate, but it bears repeating. A lot of the show's drama derives from Jesse and Walt's efforts to procure methylamine, a precursor chemical. Much meth production uses pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in some over-the-counter cold medicines like Sudafed. But restrictions of Sudafed's sale have made it difficult for meth manufacturers to get in bulk. One way to get around that is by using "smurfs," or individual Sudafed buyers who each get a small amount to avoid suspicion and then sell them to the manufacturer. But at the end of the first season, Jesse and Walt chose to switch to an alternative recipe reliant on methylamine rather than bother with getting all that Sudafed.

Getting that methylamine has been tough for them. They robbed a warehouse in "A No-Rough-Stuff Type Deal" to get some, and in the fifth season they robbed a train to get it. But that needn't be so. I'll let Lametti explain:

Chemically speaking, methylamine is just ammonia with one hydrogen atom swapped out for a methyl group-a carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms. Without getting into too much detail, an easy way to achieve this swap is to "bubble" ammonia (a gas) through methanol (a liquid) that's been laced with a dehydrating agent like Silica gel. You could probably buy these chemicals at Home Depot and CVS. Silica gel packets are often packaged with new shoes and electronics to keep them dry.

So why do Walt and Jesse steal methylamine? While making a thousand gallons of the chemical would be expensive, that cost pales in comparison to the profits generated by their business. However, buying a whole bunch of chemicals in bulk would probably attract unwanted attention. (The most likely answer, of course, is that having Walt and Jesse steal methylamine simply makes a good plot point.)

I don't really buy the idea that buying lots of ammonia and methanol would arouse more suspicion than, you know, robbing a train, so I think the "it makes for a good plot point" explanation prevails here. Still, it's a really important plot point, with much of the first half of the fifth season's drama revolving how to get it, how to divvy it up among members of the gang, etc., so it's sort of surprising that Vince Gilligan, et al never bothered to explain why they couldn't just make the methylamine themselves. Update: Here's a good rebuttal to Lametti's argument from a chemist. Who's right is above my paygrade but if Walt agreed with that guy, it's easy to see why he would want to get methylamine another way.
There are two meth markets
Meth experts usually draw a distinction between two types of meth markets. One is informal, and based on meth made in small amounts, often in rural areas, and exchanged through a barter process. "That kind of production tends to be relatively nonviolent," Weisheit says. "You're not fighting over turf or meth that much, and there's not much cash trading hands as typically people are bartering - "you get this and I'll get that," or "I'll split up and you'll all get some," or " if you get these ingredients I'll teach you how to cook." The scale of that production is getting smaller and smaller as precursors get harder to come by. As Stanford med school professor Keith Humphreys points out, states that have made pseudophedrine prescription-only, such as Oregon and Mississippi, have all but eliminated their meth labs.

But its social costs, while large to the users-cum-manufacturers-cum-dealers involved, are largely contained within those social networks. The main risks to the public at large come with explosions and the ensuing environmental impact, and the costs to children in households where this kind of meth production/use is happening. "I think the bad things that home growing produces are mainly damage to environment and to families, because meth users tend not, as a rule, to use it as teens, but in their mid-20s early 30s, so they will use around kids," Weisheit says.
The Mexican market is very violent
And then there's the Mexican market, which is large-scale, cash-heavy, very violent because of turf disputes and disputes over money, and generally much more of a concern. This is where the heavy violence involved in Gus Fring's cartel-like operation starts looking pretty realistic. "Many viewers were repulsed when Walt and Pinkman used acid to melt a body in an early episode," Patrick Reeden Keefe, a staff writer at the New Yorker who's reported on the business models of Mexican cartels, once wrote. "But this is such a common disposal technique in Mexico today that it has acquired a nickname-the guiso, or 'stew.'"

Keefe also notes that Walt and Jesse's fear that they will be killed if someone else - say, Gale Boetticher - learns their recipe and can cook for Gus is well-founded: "A federal prosecutor in California told me recently about a case in which a group of American ecstasy producers entered negotiations with a Mexican cartel to manufacture large volumes of the drug, but ended up abandoning the deal when they realized that the cartel intended to keep them around just long enough to learn their recipe, then kill them."

And for all the messed up acts of violence that the show's depicted over the years - a certain incident with a box cutter comes to mind, not to mention Tortuga - as Keefe says, there's no topping what Mexican cartels are capable of. The cartel with the most grotesque methods is probably Los Zetas, which once dumped 49 bodies off a highway in Cadereyta, killed six people - cutting out the hearts of three of them and carving "Z"s into the other three- in Cancun, and has recruited members by holding up buses, forcing passengers off, and them making them perform "gladiator fights" to the death, with the one survivor joining the ranks of Los Zetas. Luckily their leader was recently captured, but that mainly helps their rivals, Sinaloa, who aren't exactly saints themselves.

In this part of the meth market, production typically is a few steps removed from the actual cartel. "A lot of it is subcontracted out, a lot of that is so cartels can insulate themselves from identification and prosecution," Longmire says. "Sometimes it's gang leaders, sometimes friends of friends, and sometimes they have a vague idea of who they're working for, and the cartels prefer it that way, since the guys who are cooking the meth for, say, La Familia, if they're arrested they can't roll on the people they're working for." So it's probably not likely that a cook like Jesse would meet a cartel leader like Don Eladio, as he does in "Salud."
Purity matters - but maybe less so to cartels
One of the most convincing critiques of the show I've read came from The New Inquiry's Malcolm Harris, who argued that the show's obsession with highly pure method - supposedly Walt's calling card, and the thing that got Gus interested in buying his wares - doesn't square with the real world, in which meth is almost always "stepped on," or diluted. There isn't a market for pure meth, not because it's not better, but because of who's buying meth. "It's a textbook case of what freshman economics students call inelastic demand," Harris writes. "As Stringer Bell told D'Angelo Barksdale in another show about drugs, in direct contrast to what Walter claims, 'When it's good, they buy. When it's bad, they buy twice as much. The worse we do, the more money we make.'"

Even if that logic holds, there may still be reasons for Walt to make his meth as pure as possible. "When Walt measures the purity in the lab, he's figuring out how much of the expensive and tightly controlled precursor chemicals became saleable product and how much went to waste," Lindsay Beyerstein at In These Times has argued. "The purer Walt's product, the more [distributors] can dilute it." But that doesn't explain why Walt's meth on the street, when found by his DEA agent brother-in-law Hank and analyzed by the agency's experts, is so much purer than other meth out there. Walt's product would only make it to the street like that if there really was demand for purer meth.

So, is there? There certainly is a certain cachet to pure meth in the smaller meth market described above. "For the local cook, the mom and pop operation, there is an enormous amount of status and prestige that goes along with producing high quality stuff," Weisheit says. "There was a researcher who did field research on this, who interviewed a woman who said, 'A cook is a god, what they want they get. If they want sex they'll get sex.'" But Weisheit agrees with Harris that it's less likely that purity will be demanded in the larger, Mexican-run market. "There's not much stepping on it in mom and pop, he says. "You get stepping on it with Mexican distribution networks, but even there people are going to pay more attention to stuff that's really good."

Longmire is more insistent that purity matters. "Obviously, the more pure that you can get it, the higher a price you can charge for it, and the more profit you can make off of it," she says. "There's always a market for higher quality drugs, it's just a question of who affords it." There will be bad, cheap meth, sure, but there are high-end markets for meth too. Weisheit notes that one of the few urban demographics where demand for meth is heavy is among gay men. "You probably don't see meth as a street drug, as it's so often sold in gay clubs where you don't tend to get arrested, and they're kind of out of sight from police," he says. "[Dealers] put up signs in nightclubs, so it's an easy group to reach that way." There will obviously be demand for cheap meth in that market, sure, but there will be more demand for higher-end meth than you'd see in impoverished rural areas.
Meth use is often an economic necessity
One of the things that annoys me about "Breaking Bad" is its occasional depiction of meth users as largely disconnected from society and utterly desperate. That's not always true. There are "functional" addicts, especially working mothers, who rely upon strong stimulants like meth to juggle their sundry responsibilities. One plausible theory has it that the rise of meth coincided with the rise of low-paying low-skilled service work, where people had to work multiple menial jobs to earn the same amount they used to earn in one manufacturing job, or other good-paying low-skilled position.

The CDC notes that some meth users rely on it to get "increased energy to work multiple jobs." Researchers at Indiana University and at the Universities of Colorado and Kentucky have found that, "The long hours and tedious work in oil fields, agriculture, construction, ancillary health care and fast food restaurants may be more tolerable on methamphetamine. Users report using meth to provide the energy to work multiple jobs or be a good mother."

Guides to identifying and treating meth addiction, like Herbert Covey's "The Methamphetamine Crisis," tell readers to look out for, "workaholics or low-income adults who use it to stay awake and perform in multiple jobs. Working low-income individuals find meth attractive because they must work several jobs or long hours to support themselves or their families. They find that higher energy and alertness (ability to stay awake for prolonged periods) helps them cope with the demands of multiple jobs."

This holds up if you look at places where meth use is highest. Hawaii's heavy rate of meth use has been attributed to its high cost of living and service-based economy. "If you're doing mind-numbing, repetitive work, this enables you to overcome both the painful tedium of the boredom as well as increase concentration and safety," Dr. William Haning, a psychiatry professor at the University of Hawaii, once told the Maui News. Weishert notes that Cambodia and other countries in Southeast Asia are the biggest consumers of meth (above even the United States), and it's often used as a work aide. "Women who have to have a job and then do traditional homemaking, they're just exhausted and meth is a pick-me-up, a powerful one," he says.
Laundering happens
In the fourth season, Walt and Skyler buy the car wash - A1A, based on the real-life Octopus car wash in Albuquerque - where Walt used to work in order to launder Walt's copious earnings from the drug trade. Is that level of ceremony, just to clean the money, realistic?

For the highest echelon of cartels, sure. "You see that with the upper level people in an organization," Weisheit says. "The lower level people don't make enough to make it worth doing that. You want to get into a legitimate business, ideally one that deals in cash like a restaurant or bar." Longmire says the higher-ups may be moving on from restaurants and bars, though. "They're using wire transfer companies like Western Union, Moneygram, Coinstar - that's increasingly popular," she says. "They're increasingly using trade-based laundering, where they'll bring in cheap fabrics from Asia and sell those into the U.S., or bring them south to Mexico, and sell them for a much higher dollar value. They're doing it through mining, construction equipment, quarter horses and gambling, casinos and a variety of different businesses."

So yeah, Walt is probably doing the smart thing here. But Badger and Skinny Pete shouldn't sweat it.

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Here's what 'Breaking Bad' gets right, and wrong, about the meth business

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If you aren't watching "Breaking Bad" at the moment, you need to reconsider your life choices and then you need to get thee to Netflix. Each season has been much better than the one that preceded it, and if that keeps up the end of season five is poised to be something else.

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aka El Señor de los Cielos is a Mexican TV show

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Based on a true story of a Latino man

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Parties are one of the main environments where drugs are consumed. Electric Dance Music is a big part of drug culture.

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