Amphetamine psychosis in Tokyo--its clinical features and social problems.

Abstract

Japan is presently experiencing a second epidemic of amphetamine abuse, with methamphetamine abusers committing an increasing number of murders and injuries to ordinary citizens. As a result of the author's study of some 60 cases of amphetamine psychosis, the basic symptomatology of the disease was determined to be a paranoid hallucinatory state. Moreover, according to the contents of the paranoid hallucinatory state and the courses of the disease, amphetamine psychotics were divided into two types--the acute and the chronic. Though the former delusions were vivid, realistic and concrete, the latter were generalized, systematized and grandiose. Regarding the course of the disease, the former were episodic and the latter required longer treatments. Thus as the outline of the social background of these addicts had been made clear, it has been emphasized that the authorities must decide to solve this as a social problem.