While it's been sitting on my reading table for a month now, I've finally started Nick Reding's Methland. What I've discovered is a riveting account of the slow decline of one corn belt town in Iowa, largely due to an abundant supply of illegal methamphetamine. Reding, a working journalist, travels to Oelwein, Iowa to look into the many ways the drug has unraveled the towns folk, regardless their socio economic status.
Just as revealing but equally vexing is the revelation that methamphetamine was at one time legal, manufactured to help soldiers in combat as well as housewives overwhelmed by the doldrums of suburban living. From here, the drug has jumped all manner of societal firebreaks to land on the short list of most damaging narcotics, right up there with heroin and crack cocaine.
Reding interviews law enforcement officials, as well as those who found dealing crystal meth more rewarding, in more ways than one, than working at Wal Mart.
The reporting is incisive, the conclusions disturbing. Crystal meth has enjoyed unhealthy popularity in northern Michigan so this examination of small town Iowa hits closer to home than I'd like to think.
No comments:
Post a Comment