"I have been a police officer for 12 years. More than half of my career has been spent working undercover as a narcotics detective. I have seen women fail to feed their babies for meth. I have seen mothers leave their babies in diapers for God knows how long, the baby needing medical attention because its bottom is so raw from rash. I have seen woman steal from everyone including family to support their meth habit. I've seen people commit murder while on meth." — Troy Rasmussen

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"Methamphetamine is particularly insidious because its users, at least initially, experience what seems to be only a heightened functionality. They do not consider that they have altered their perceptions or even their moods; they just feel that they can work longer and work better. Perhaps this is true in the beginning, but over time we know what really happens — ergo the stereotype of the tweaker working on his car in the middle of the night or the disassembled vacuum cleaner that will never work again.

"It is almost as if some of my clients have auto-induced ADHD; they will sit in a room and fidget and fiddle and doodle and pick and wiggle and do virtually anything except focus. It can be like having to deal with a bunch of large, angry 3-year-olds. But they don't want to be this way." — Susan Shaddock, drug counselor, Los Angeles

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Compiled by Lucinda Dillon Kinkead and Dennis Romboy, Deseret Morning News