meth

Autopsy samples reveal that methamphetamine use makes dangerous structural changes in heart muscle that increase the risk of heart attack, sudden cardiac death and heart failure.

Of the more than 170,000 county death records that the coroner’s office has made public since the 1990s, at least 9,700 cases mention methamphetamine.

Note that there is often a lag of 4 to 8 months in the reporting of most meth deaths in the county because it takes that long for toxicology results to be returned from the lab to the medical examiner. There are a few cases when the determination is done sooner, perhaps due to testing done at a hospital and/or by police.

Ted Isaacs was 85 when he died from a meth overdose. Marina Miller was 80.