Faces of Meth
Encyclopedia
Multnomah County Sheriff's Office
Multnomah County Sheriff's Office serves the close to 700,000 residents of Multomah County, Oregon, United States. Multnomah County Sheriff's Office is a County Law Enforcement agency that handles 9-1-1 calls and assists other city agencies such as Portland Police Bureau. The current Sheriff is...
in the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. The project uses mug shot
Mug shot
A mug shot, mugshot or booking photograph, is a photographic portrait taken after one is arrested. The purpose of the mug shot is to allow law enforcement to have a photographic record of the arrested individual to allow for identification by victims and investigators. Most mug shots are two-part,...
s of repeat offenders to demonstrate the deleterious effects of methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
on its users. The idea for Faces of Meth began in 2004 when deputy Bret King of the Corrections Division Classification Unit used mug shots to identify individuals with a history of using meth. King and his co-workers collected images of people charged with crimes related to meth addiction to document the change in physical appearance over time due to the use of the drug. The project uses before and after mug shot photos to show the physical deterioration of the user as a result of using meth. The images were originally used in educational sideshow and video presentations delivered to students in Oregon high schools. This Faces of Meth drug prevention strategy has since become popular across the United States.
Background
Steve Suo, staff writer for The OregonianThe Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
, began an investigation into the methamphetamine epidemic taking place on the West Coast of the United States
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
in late 2002. Oregon was especially hit hard by meth at the time, with more addicts per capita than any other state. Suo's story was published in October 2004 as "Unnecessary Epidemic", a five-part investigative series. Around the same time, deputy Bret King was working at the Multnomah County Detention Center when he witnessed a 20-year-old woman experience amphetamine psychosis
Amphetamine psychosis
Stimulant psychosis is a psychotic disorder that appears in some people who use stimulant drugs. Most commonly, stimulant psychosis occurs in drug abusers who take very large doses but, in rare cases, it can also present in patients taking therapeutic doses under medical supervision...
in her cell. After glancing at her mug shot and seeing how the drug had physically changed her appearance, King began to collect booking photos of meth users on a daily basis, eventually creating "the faces of meth", a slideshow of "the most extreme faces" altered by the devastating effects of meth use.
Two months later, on December 28, 2004, Oregonian reporter Joseph Rose published "Faces of Meth", the first to highlight the before and after photos King had collected. Rose's article discussed the development of King's drug prevention project and the physiological effects of meth on the human body. In May 2005, several of King's images were published as a public service poster in a partnership between The Oregonian and the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. King and the Faces of Meth project appeared on NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News
NBC Nightly News is the flagship daily evening television news program for NBC News and broadcasts. NBC Nightly News has aired from Studio 3B, located on floors 3 of the NBC Studios is the headquarters of the GE Building forms the centerpiece of 30th Rockefeller Center it is located in the center...
in August of that same year. In February 2006, the public affairs television program Frontline aired "The Meth Epidemic", a documentary produced in association with The Oregonian. The Frontline episode featured King and showed images from the Faces of Meth project in the first segment, "Uncovering Meth's History and Spread".
Images and videos
The Faces of Meth project uses before and after mug shots of arrestees to demonstrate the harmful effects of using meth. The images often depict signs of premature aging, facial scarring from picking scabs, and advanced tooth decay, commonly referred to as meth mouthMeth mouth
"Meth mouth" is an informal name for advanced tooth decay attributed to heavy methamphetamine use. According to the American Dental Association, meth mouth "is probably caused by a combination of drug-induced psychological and physiological changes resulting in xerostomia , extended periods of poor...
. The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office has also published several slideshows and videos. Faces of Meth was originally released in 2005 on a CD containing 59 images and a PowerPoint presentation for educating youths about the dangers of meth. This public education strategy, intended to discourage drug use, has since become popular across the United States. According to Bret King, the images were effective in communicating the message of the drug prevention project:
What I've observed when kids watch my program is they become pretty uncomfortable ... People cover up their faces. They can't look ... They feel sick to their stomach. But I think the most visible thing is their facial expression or the verbal utterances they make – gasps in the audience ... I want that shock value to be there. I want to make an impact that lasts with these people. I want them to not forget what they've seen.
In 2009, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office released From Drugs to Mugs, a new 48-minute documentary and expanded update of the Faces of Meth drug prevention strategy. The video "illustrates the dangers and potential outcomes of the decision to experiment with drugs" using interviews with inmates arrested for drug-related crimes and testimony from the people who work with them in the judicial system. Questions in the interview were based on a 2008 survey of almost 500 high school students who were asked about the most important elements in their decision to use or abstain from using drugs.
Reaction
Reactions to the project were positive, but some concerns were raised about privacy lawPrivacy law
Privacy law refers to the laws which deal with the regulation of personal information about individuals which can be collected by governments and other public as well as private organizations and its storage and use....
. Max Margolis of Oregon Partnership's YouthLink Program described the shocking imagery as an "honest tactic", because "the damage to the body, the rapid degeneration – those are realities of the drug." Douglas J. Edwards, Editor-in-Chief of Behavioral Healthcare, criticized the project's methods, stating that permission was not obtained from the subjects, and that the identities of the subjects could have been concealed using black bars to block the eyes. According to the Faces of Meth project, all of the mug shots they use are public records and do not require permission.