Symptoms and Course of Psychosis After Methamphetamine Abuse

To the Editor: The frequency of methamphetamine use has alarmingly increased in Iran, as in many other countries in recent years.1 The most recent survey on drug abuse in Iran, performed a couple of years ago, showed that only a minority of the Iranian substance abusers (3.6%) used methamphetamine.2 However, in the past 2 years and with the local production of methamphetamine, its price has dropped to less than one-fifth its former price. Methamphetamine use has increased several-fold in that time, and current nonofficial estimates suggest that methamphetamine is currently the second or third most widely used illicit substance in Iran, which means its use is in a real epidemic state. Moreover, many of the patients who abstain from opioids, including the patient described in the present case, turn to methamphetamine as an assumed “non-addicting” substitute. As a result, methamphetamine-induced psychosis has substantially increased and an overwhelmingly increasing number of these individuals are admitted every day to psychiatric emergency settings.3