In summary, racemic meth leads to insanity? Is that right?
No, cheap meth leads to insanity.
If the stuff costs ten times less, people will buy ten times as they would usual.
And use ten times as much.
Thats solely the reason why they go insane.
......
No, thats not right. Most users of meth reach a personal ceiling and from there either stay on the dose or reduce (often it is a bouncing game, reducing - back to the cailing and so on). Only a comparable small number of people get shot through on meth, more on dirty, cut stuff then on rather clean one, real clean meth is actually the least prone to cause insanity/hallucinations whilst the yellow dirt for sure does.
What is described in the article is though typical of the symptoms of a stimulant - depressive abuse combo it appears in comparable mild form already with people smoking too much strong pot and using plain amphetamine in big doses together. With Benzos and Opiates together with Methamphetamin this gets really bad.
Those people who are afflicted from this in the article are victims of so called opoid crisis who now have to go for the cheapest substitutes available and having been pushed into illegality they naturally have learned to know and love meth. Whats left for them? Cartel meth, fentoids and masses of asscheap very potent Benzos. So they take the Benzos in amounbts which would lead usually to a blackout with all the known consequences which often enough get people into prison. To avoid the blackout they take cartel meth. And The result is what was presented.
For US media it is of course much more appealing to blame the home grown problem on foreign drug producers, a social problem on chemistry, faults of the political system on the individual as this what they do best as it expresses the american spirit.