Faces of Meth

[2] Steve Suo and Joseph Rose, staff writers for The Oregonian, began an investigation into the methamphetamine epidemic taking place on the West Coast of the United States in late 2002.

[5] 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 in her cell.

Rose's article discussed the development of King's drug prevention project and the physiological effects of methamphetamine on the human body.

The images often depict signs of premature aging, facial scarring from picking scabs, and advanced tooth decay, commonly referred to as meth mouth.

[2] 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.

[2] 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.

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.

According to a research paper published in the International Journal of Drug Policy which examined both Faces of Meth and the Montana Meth Project, despite "claims of success and substantial public and private funding, these programs have received limited empirical evaluations [...] The ineffectiveness of anti-drug programs such as these has been attributed to their emphasis on fear and disgust [...] By emphasizing the extreme physical and mental harm of drug use these campaigns allow users to frame the ads as inauthentic.