So, you want to be a methamphetamine user. It’s the new game in town and everyone seems to be doing it. They call themselves “tweakers” and they rarely need to sleep or eat anymore. You want a piece of that action, so you get yourself some ice.

Welcome aboard, my friend. Soon your teeth will be rotted as the meth flows through your blood to your heart, muscles and bones. Your choppers will be brownish stumps and your gums will be black. Meth eats your body from inside out, but so what?

When you’re tweaking, you feel like Superman. You have limitless energy and all the hours of the day are yours. So what if it sometimes seems like the whole world is out to get you? So what if you’ve dropped 40 pounds and you look like a cadaver with rotting teeth? Who cares if you have to rip off friends and family to get your next snort or shot?

It’s all good. Because meth isn’t like that wimpy crack cocaine that treated you so shabbily. A meth buzz will last two to four hours instead of 10 minutes or so. For those hours, you will feel as though you have unlimited strength and stamina. You will rule the world. Meth convinces your body it can go on long after it has reached its limit.

You twitch, you get depressed, you suffer from paranoia. It’s OK, my tweaker friend. All you need is a little more meth and a little more after that. They don’t say “life or meth” for nothing. The chemistry of your brain has changed. Your brain and your body requires more of the drug and you have to be willing to do anything to get it.

Locally, you can get some crystal or ice for about $200 a gram. That’s not much more than you paid for crack. Sell your car, swipe the rent money from your roommate or knock over a convenience store. Get yourself some meth and stay awake for another three days. You’ll crash into a stupor for a day or two but the show must go on.

“Once you start using meth, that becomes your drug of choice,” says Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Supervisor Gerry Baril. “You use to the point of destroying your health. It increases the risk of collapse from stroke or heart failure. You don’t use methamphetamine in moderation.”

Exactly. Life or meth. The drug is not nearly as accessible in our part of the state as crack cocaine. You will have to be creative. You might think about cooking your own meth at home. All you need is some simple ingredients you can buy at the pharmacy and a few other odds and ends.

This is where it gets fun, tweaker. Now you get the added thrill of burning your lungs with noxious vapors, perishing in a flash fire or blowing yourself up. Your skin will peel right off your arms because of constant exposure to chemicals. You will scramble from store to store, buying cold medicines, inhalers and chemicals from which to concoct your sweet meth.

Now you’re whipping up your own stuff and snorting or injecting around the clock. You’re a disfigured corpse with rotted teeth and you’re as paranoid as ever. You booby trap your small home. You place an explosive device here, hang fish hooks there. Anything to slow the advance of those cops that you know are watching you.

But what fun! Long nights without sleep followed by days of crashing in a depressed, delusional unconsciousness. You cook meth, you sell meth, you live every moment for your next injection or snort.

“You steal, you deal, you do what you have to do,” says Baril.

Remember your fellow tweaker who got pinched by the cops down in Portland in July? He shot himself in the head rather than face the consequences of life on the drug. Life or meth, baby.

If any drug stands to overthrow crack as the drug of choice in our area, meth is it. The popularity of the stuff has rolled into New England like a landlocked tidal wave from the western and central states.

Users are either cooking the stuff in box labs – makeshift cooking centers in apartments, hotels or campsites – or buying quality meth from the organized boys out West. Some of them take a chance and get their shipments through delivery services or the mail.

Drug agents are seeing low-grade meth in the rural areas of Androscoggin, Oxford and Kennebec counties. Some of the high quality stuff is flooding Washington County and the southern part of the state.

Whether or not Lewiston gets nailed by a methamphetamine epidemic remains to be seen. It’s anybody’s guess. Lewiston loves its crack and use of that drug is as high as ever. But when users come to realize they can get a similar but longer high from meth? Who knows.

“The meth problem is here and it’s not going away,” Baril said. “We’re just biding our time to see if the crack users will make the transition.”

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.