Parker Schorr, The Cap Times
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| Jess Przybylski of Chippewa Falls started using methamphetamine after the father of her children died in a car crash. Over a five-year period she lost custody of her two children, Zander, left, and Peyton, twice. After completing intensive treatment in 2016 as a condition of her sentence, she got her children back. (Photo: Parker Schorr/The Cap Times) |
Jess Przybylski had never really dealt with loss. Then the father of her children was killed in a car crash. In 2011, her friends offered her methamphetamine to distract from the grief.
Soon after, Przybylski lost her job. Her two children were taken from her once, then once more when she was caught faking a drug test. A growing rap sheet eclipsed her college degree as she lost cars, relationships — and nearly her life.
“It was a one-time thing, and that was it,” Przybylski, who lives in Chippewa Falls in northwest Wisconsin, says of her meth addiction.
“It started out slow, but it was a pretty hard downward spiral for about five years. … It gets to be where it just takes over your life and it’s not fun anymore. It’s all you think about.”
Like other amphetamines, meth elevates dopamine levels in the brain, creating a rush. But it is significantly more powerful than stimulants like cocaine, says Timothy Easker, director of Chippewa County Department of Human Services.
Meth can keep individuals awake for days on end, causing psychosis and even organ failure.
While the widely known opioid epidemic killed 3,800 people in Wisconsin between 2014 and 2018, a surge in meth use has quietly supplanted opioids in western and northern parts of the state, according to service providers and public health officials.
The State Crime Laboratory handled 1,452 meth cases in 2018 — an increase of more than 450% since 2008. The number far exceeded the 1,055 heroin cases handled by the lab that year.
On Oct. 4, federal authorities in Madison announced that 16 people from Wisconsin and Minnesota were charged with state and federal counts of allegedly distributing meth in the Wausau area.
Unlike some Midwestern states, where police shut down hundreds of meth labs a year, in Wisconsin, the problem is more hidden. Much of the meth used here originates in Mexico and is transported to the Twin Cities, according to a 2016 analysis of methamphetamine use and trafficking compiled by federal and state law enforcement officials.
The drug can be in the form of powder, crystals or pills and can be smoked, snorted or injected.
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