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Available
Call number
Description
The dramatic story of the methamphetamine epidemic of the 1980s as it sweeps the American heartland--a moving, very human account of one community's attempt to battle its way to a brighter future. Crystal meth is widely considered the world's most dangerous drug, but especially so in the small towns of the American heartland. Journalist Reding tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people. As if this weren't enough, an incredibly cheap, longlasting, and highly addictive drug has rolled into town. Over a period of four years, journalist Nick Reding brings us into the heart of Oelwein, tracing the connections between the lives touched by the drug and the global forces that set the stage for the epidemic.--From publisher description.… (more)
Publication
Bloomsbury USA (2010), Edition: Reprint, 288 pages
User reviews
LibraryThing member mikewick
My parents live in rural Northeast Indiana, and from them I hear stories of how meth makes its presence known: how they see discarded two liter pop bottles of quick-fix batches littering the roadside; find propane tanks from larger batches while clearing brush around a lake; catch a whiff of the
Nick Reding's "methland" makes that human element so frighteningly real; in a town quickly losing quality jobs, dependent on the increasingly-consolidated industries that remain, where methamphetamine production fills the economic and emotional gaps that remain. Reding brings together a host of elements in the meth trade, from the tweakers who've lost body parts to batches gone bad to the personalities and organizations who revolutionized meth sales. Paralleling this are the people who've decided to make a stand, such as the small-town mayor who takes a gamble to bring small business back to a shell of a town and the assistant district attorney who's racking up small-time convictions.
There are voyeuristic-worthy details that will appeal the addiction memoir crowd like the story the town-wide famous addict Roland Jarvis, but it's the moments when Reding's describing the larger elements controlling the playing field that deserve the most attention. This is where the book goes beyond describing the effects and goes after the causes, rooting out elements of government and big business who have ignored their complicity in an epidemic. Highly recommended reading for both those addicted to addiction memoirs and readers interested in social issues.
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tell-tale ether stench while driving the country roads. Luckily, the human detritus of meth isn't a story they personally know: of families whose bonds are neglected and negated by addiction; jobs and lives lost; towns and counties stressed to the breaking point by a society in decline.Nick Reding's "methland" makes that human element so frighteningly real; in a town quickly losing quality jobs, dependent on the increasingly-consolidated industries that remain, where methamphetamine production fills the economic and emotional gaps that remain. Reding brings together a host of elements in the meth trade, from the tweakers who've lost body parts to batches gone bad to the personalities and organizations who revolutionized meth sales. Paralleling this are the people who've decided to make a stand, such as the small-town mayor who takes a gamble to bring small business back to a shell of a town and the assistant district attorney who's racking up small-time convictions.
There are voyeuristic-worthy details that will appeal the addiction memoir crowd like the story the town-wide famous addict Roland Jarvis, but it's the moments when Reding's describing the larger elements controlling the playing field that deserve the most attention. This is where the book goes beyond describing the effects and goes after the causes, rooting out elements of government and big business who have ignored their complicity in an epidemic. Highly recommended reading for both those addicted to addiction memoirs and readers interested in social issues.
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LibraryThing member detailmuse
Nick Reding became aware of methamphetamine abuse in 1999 while researching a magazine article about ranching in tiny Gooding, Idaho. From then on, every rural American town he visited seemed overrun with meth, while every major city seemed unaware even of its existence. He found few media mentions
The result is Methland, and it’s indeed a personal story. It’s not Reding’s story (although there are memoir-ish/family-history aspects to some passages), but rather the story of tiny Oelwein, Iowa and its residents, standing as a named example of thousands more meth-devastated small towns across the American Midwest.
Because Reding believes “…meth has always been less an agent of change and more a symptom of it,” he explores the epidemiology of methamphetamine abuse as a “socio-cultural cancer” by involving key participants -- Oelwein’s doctor, mayor, chief of police, county prosecutor, and meth addicts and distributors -- to document the economic, political, and social forces that conspired to nearly destroy the town and, more recently, perhaps redeem it.
This approach allows a fascinating story to develop -- a page-turner, even; conversationally written yet startling and disturbing -- that reminded me of Michael Pollan’s (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) rise of industrial farming and Randy Shilts’s (And the Band Played On) epidemiology of AIDS. Recommended.
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of the problem, and couldn’t contribute his own -- editors weren’t interested in his ideas for a book or magazine article. But when Reding found the epidemic near his hometown of St. Louis in 2004, in an area where he’d hunted ducks during so many autumns of his childhood, the problem became personal and he could no longer bear for it to be ignored.The result is Methland, and it’s indeed a personal story. It’s not Reding’s story (although there are memoir-ish/family-history aspects to some passages), but rather the story of tiny Oelwein, Iowa and its residents, standing as a named example of thousands more meth-devastated small towns across the American Midwest.
Because Reding believes “…meth has always been less an agent of change and more a symptom of it,” he explores the epidemiology of methamphetamine abuse as a “socio-cultural cancer” by involving key participants -- Oelwein’s doctor, mayor, chief of police, county prosecutor, and meth addicts and distributors -- to document the economic, political, and social forces that conspired to nearly destroy the town and, more recently, perhaps redeem it.
This approach allows a fascinating story to develop -- a page-turner, even; conversationally written yet startling and disturbing -- that reminded me of Michael Pollan’s (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) rise of industrial farming and Randy Shilts’s (And the Band Played On) epidemiology of AIDS. Recommended.
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LibraryThing member crazy4novels
Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
Nick Reding's Methland captured my attention for personal reasons. Like Reding, I grew up in a small rural town (population 2000) in the Midwest. Upon adulthood, I moved to a large urban area in the Intermountain West, prompting my parents to
As predicted, my weekly calls home to Mom and Dad began to include stories of rampant drug use and manufacture; the twist was that the locus of the activity was on their end of the line. Tales of former classmates who were now in rehab or jail were surprising (or not, depending on the classmate), but the real shock involved tales of several farmhouses that had blown sky high in the course of faulty meth production. What was going on?
I began paying attention to meth articles in the media. Several reliable sources quoted statistics confirming the fact that drug use, and meth use in particular, was more prevalent per capita in small towns than in cities. It was becoming the not-so-secret scourge of Heartland, USA. I initially attributed the problem to the mind-numbing lack of opportunity and alternative entertainment in rural towns. (Every time my mom mentioned yet another teenage pregnancy, I would jokingly suggest that they take up a collection for a roller rink, and fast.)
Nick Reding puts all of the pieces together in an excellent investigative book that exposes the complex and seemingly unstoppable forces behind the epidemic, while also revealing its human cost through individual stories that will make you hurt. If you grew up in a small town, you know these people.
The heartland's struggle with meth addiction is largely rooted in a cataclysmic shift from small farm and ranch operations to corporate-run centers of mega-production. Animals are raised in centralized factory pens, fattened in giant feed lots, and slaughtered in megalithic processing plants. Grain production has been centralized on huge corporate farms where food is planted, harvested, and processed under the supervision of agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. This shift has devastated the morale and pocketbook of rural America. Former independent entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of easily replaceable wage slaves. Local packing plants that used to pay their employees twenty dollars an hour plus health benefits have been absorbed by mega corporations that pay six dollars an hour and no benefits to a workforce that is powerless to demand anything better. Anyone who toured the Midwest farming country during its heyday, which peaked in the mid-1970's, would be shocked to witness the grinding poverty that permeates its small towns today.
The issue of poverty drives the meth market in multiple ways. The ingestion of meth can temporarily alleviate the depression and hopelessness of a single mother who just completed a double shift slitting chicken bellies at the local Tyson plant. The production of meth in rural basements, a relatively simple but risky endeavor, is a cottage industry that offers low startup costs and large returns to those meth cooks who manage to avoid arrest or incineration. Poverty and lack of decent employment tend to drive rural youths to the West coast and California, where their habit eventually hooks them up with big-time distributors who in turn employ them to funnel meth back to their home town in return for a cut of the cash and goods.
To make matters worse, large processing plants and pig farm factories actively solicit Mexican citizens to cross the border and work for subsistence wages ("First 6 months of housing provided free!"). Although the vast majority of these workers are husbands and fathers desperate to provide a higher standard of living for their families, a fraction of this workforce is inevitably involved in siphoning drugs from Mexico into Small Town, USA.
Corporate culpability doesn't end with agribusiness. Big Pharma has used its massive economic power and lobbying skills to fight meth regulation at every turn. Why waste a relatively modest sum of money adding an element to cold pills that will render them useless for meth making when only half of that sum can "convince" Congress to avoid requiring the additive at all? After all, they argue, they make a legal product for a legal purpose. Why should they have to spend one penny because some societal misfit may personally choose to commit a criminal act? Why indeed.
Ironically, one of the final reasons for meth's prevalence in the heartland is the work ethic of its people. Most drugs don't help work performance. Mention "severe drug addict" and most people envision a lethargic, unemployed couch surfer who lives off friends and relatives until they finally throw him/her out. In contrast, meth (at least initially) boosts concentration and energy, allowing the user to work two and three jobs, performing for weeks with minimal sleep until the inevitable crash. Small town rural people who pride themselves on hard work and self-sufficiency often succumb to meth as a temporary way to "hold it all together" while they work through a financial crisis (divorce, sick child, loss of benefits) that requires them to work long hours without relief. Temporary use is seldom temporary for long.
I've laid out the general framework of Nick Reding's book, but the real power of his work comes from personal interviews and the hard-to-hear stories of working people who have been destroyed directly or indirectly by the meth trade. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand meth addiction and, more importantly, the largely unreported societal malaise that is sapping the life from rural America.
Nick Reding's Methland captured my attention for personal reasons. Like Reding, I grew up in a small rural town (population 2000) in the Midwest. Upon adulthood, I moved to a large urban area in the Intermountain West, prompting my parents to
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worry incessantly about the dangers that would surround me in the big city. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before some drug-crazed maniac would break into my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning demanding money and worse.As predicted, my weekly calls home to Mom and Dad began to include stories of rampant drug use and manufacture; the twist was that the locus of the activity was on their end of the line. Tales of former classmates who were now in rehab or jail were surprising (or not, depending on the classmate), but the real shock involved tales of several farmhouses that had blown sky high in the course of faulty meth production. What was going on?
I began paying attention to meth articles in the media. Several reliable sources quoted statistics confirming the fact that drug use, and meth use in particular, was more prevalent per capita in small towns than in cities. It was becoming the not-so-secret scourge of Heartland, USA. I initially attributed the problem to the mind-numbing lack of opportunity and alternative entertainment in rural towns. (Every time my mom mentioned yet another teenage pregnancy, I would jokingly suggest that they take up a collection for a roller rink, and fast.)
Nick Reding puts all of the pieces together in an excellent investigative book that exposes the complex and seemingly unstoppable forces behind the epidemic, while also revealing its human cost through individual stories that will make you hurt. If you grew up in a small town, you know these people.
The heartland's struggle with meth addiction is largely rooted in a cataclysmic shift from small farm and ranch operations to corporate-run centers of mega-production. Animals are raised in centralized factory pens, fattened in giant feed lots, and slaughtered in megalithic processing plants. Grain production has been centralized on huge corporate farms where food is planted, harvested, and processed under the supervision of agribusiness giants like Cargill and Monsanto. This shift has devastated the morale and pocketbook of rural America. Former independent entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of easily replaceable wage slaves. Local packing plants that used to pay their employees twenty dollars an hour plus health benefits have been absorbed by mega corporations that pay six dollars an hour and no benefits to a workforce that is powerless to demand anything better. Anyone who toured the Midwest farming country during its heyday, which peaked in the mid-1970's, would be shocked to witness the grinding poverty that permeates its small towns today.
The issue of poverty drives the meth market in multiple ways. The ingestion of meth can temporarily alleviate the depression and hopelessness of a single mother who just completed a double shift slitting chicken bellies at the local Tyson plant. The production of meth in rural basements, a relatively simple but risky endeavor, is a cottage industry that offers low startup costs and large returns to those meth cooks who manage to avoid arrest or incineration. Poverty and lack of decent employment tend to drive rural youths to the West coast and California, where their habit eventually hooks them up with big-time distributors who in turn employ them to funnel meth back to their home town in return for a cut of the cash and goods.
To make matters worse, large processing plants and pig farm factories actively solicit Mexican citizens to cross the border and work for subsistence wages ("First 6 months of housing provided free!"). Although the vast majority of these workers are husbands and fathers desperate to provide a higher standard of living for their families, a fraction of this workforce is inevitably involved in siphoning drugs from Mexico into Small Town, USA.
Corporate culpability doesn't end with agribusiness. Big Pharma has used its massive economic power and lobbying skills to fight meth regulation at every turn. Why waste a relatively modest sum of money adding an element to cold pills that will render them useless for meth making when only half of that sum can "convince" Congress to avoid requiring the additive at all? After all, they argue, they make a legal product for a legal purpose. Why should they have to spend one penny because some societal misfit may personally choose to commit a criminal act? Why indeed.
Ironically, one of the final reasons for meth's prevalence in the heartland is the work ethic of its people. Most drugs don't help work performance. Mention "severe drug addict" and most people envision a lethargic, unemployed couch surfer who lives off friends and relatives until they finally throw him/her out. In contrast, meth (at least initially) boosts concentration and energy, allowing the user to work two and three jobs, performing for weeks with minimal sleep until the inevitable crash. Small town rural people who pride themselves on hard work and self-sufficiency often succumb to meth as a temporary way to "hold it all together" while they work through a financial crisis (divorce, sick child, loss of benefits) that requires them to work long hours without relief. Temporary use is seldom temporary for long.
I've laid out the general framework of Nick Reding's book, but the real power of his work comes from personal interviews and the hard-to-hear stories of working people who have been destroyed directly or indirectly by the meth trade. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand meth addiction and, more importantly, the largely unreported societal malaise that is sapping the life from rural America.
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LibraryThing member markon
Meth as metaphor?
I anticipated reading Methland with some trepidation, since I graduated from high school in Oelwein, Iowa, and my mother worked as a nurse in Fayette & Black Hawk counties for over 20 years. But it was getting good reviews, and I was curious.
What impressed me about this book was
However, sources of this information aren’t included and, coupled with two factual errors about Iowa and Oelwein that shouldn’t have been missed, this made me wonder how accurate the information was.
Though the book is both readable and interesting, I have to say that I was disappointed overall. I kept asking myself, “What’s the point?” If Reding simply intends to lament the struggles of small town America coping with methamphetamine, he succeeds. But I expected more. And buried in the prose are hints of a thesis that isn’t systematically addressed in the book, let alone documented.
From the preface on page 16 : "The rise of the meth epidemic was built largely on economic policies, political decisions, and the recent development of American cultural history. Meth's basic components lie equally in the action of government lobbyists, long-term trends in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, and the effects of globalization and free trade. "
Page 58 : ". . . I was beginning to see meth in America as a function not just of farming and food industry trends in the 1980s and '90s but also of changes in the narcotics and pharmaceuticals industries in the same period. . . And that meth, if it is a metaphor for anything, is a metaphor for the cataclysmic fault lines formed by globalization."
p. 109: "What continued to take shape for me was the portrait of a town that stood as a metaphor for all of rural America and its problems. That's to say that the evolution of the meth epidemic had occurred in lockstep with the three separate economic trends that had contributed to the dissolution of small-town United States. By looking closely at the events of 2006, one can see the parallel trajectories of meth and small-town economics - the one rising, the other falling - dating back to the days of the Amezcuas. And the things that spurred this simultaneous rise and fall: the development of Big Pharmaceuticals, Big Agriculture, and the modern Mexican drug-trafficking business."
Unfortunately, these statements are supported only anecdotally and references aren’t documented. I realize this is a popular book and not an academic one, but I’m not going to be convinced by statements like this that aren’t back up. I’d be interested in reading a reasoned argument, but this isn’t it.
I anticipated reading Methland with some trepidation, since I graduated from high school in Oelwein, Iowa, and my mother worked as a nurse in Fayette & Black Hawk counties for over 20 years. But it was getting good reviews, and I was curious.
What impressed me about this book was
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the layering of complex issues in readable language. The use of specific people and places to illustrate the spread and effects of meth allows a general reader to understand the sociology of meth on a visceral level that a more academic book wouldn’t. It includes information on the development of methamphetamine as a drug and its chemistry and physiological effects, as well as sociological issues surrounding its regulation (or lack thereof), and the economic and political framework that allow its use, abuse, and distribution. However, sources of this information aren’t included and, coupled with two factual errors about Iowa and Oelwein that shouldn’t have been missed, this made me wonder how accurate the information was.
Though the book is both readable and interesting, I have to say that I was disappointed overall. I kept asking myself, “What’s the point?” If Reding simply intends to lament the struggles of small town America coping with methamphetamine, he succeeds. But I expected more. And buried in the prose are hints of a thesis that isn’t systematically addressed in the book, let alone documented.
From the preface on page 16 : "The rise of the meth epidemic was built largely on economic policies, political decisions, and the recent development of American cultural history. Meth's basic components lie equally in the action of government lobbyists, long-term trends in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, and the effects of globalization and free trade. "
Page 58 : ". . . I was beginning to see meth in America as a function not just of farming and food industry trends in the 1980s and '90s but also of changes in the narcotics and pharmaceuticals industries in the same period. . . And that meth, if it is a metaphor for anything, is a metaphor for the cataclysmic fault lines formed by globalization."
p. 109: "What continued to take shape for me was the portrait of a town that stood as a metaphor for all of rural America and its problems. That's to say that the evolution of the meth epidemic had occurred in lockstep with the three separate economic trends that had contributed to the dissolution of small-town United States. By looking closely at the events of 2006, one can see the parallel trajectories of meth and small-town economics - the one rising, the other falling - dating back to the days of the Amezcuas. And the things that spurred this simultaneous rise and fall: the development of Big Pharmaceuticals, Big Agriculture, and the modern Mexican drug-trafficking business."
Unfortunately, these statements are supported only anecdotally and references aren’t documented. I realize this is a popular book and not an academic one, but I’m not going to be convinced by statements like this that aren’t back up. I’d be interested in reading a reasoned argument, but this isn’t it.
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LibraryThing member bwoodreader
I keep reading books about meth, and I keep finding myself engrossed in the stories. Methland takes off where Beautiful Boy and Tweak leave off. Those are personal family stories, this is an investigation into what meth is doing to rural America, who the culprits are, and who the heroes are.
(I would have liked to see an index in this book. That would have made it more helpful for future researchers.)
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Methland addresses the problem of what the culture of the drug is doing to small towns but also to America as a whole. Reding investigates how meth got to small towns in Iowa (and across the nation), what the government is and isn't doing about it, Mexico's role, the role of the food industry, and the local people who are giving their careers and lives to try to stop this controversial epidemic. He develops relationships with addicts, politicians, and cops over a few years (2005-8) and lets readers meet these people and learn how their issues came to be. An engaging book, this should be read by politicians and citizens interested in the ramifications of addiction on the American Dream.(I would have liked to see an index in this book. That would have made it more helpful for future researchers.)
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LibraryThing member rivkat
This is a book about globalization and the collapse of economic security in small-town America, and I wanted it to be about twice as long. There were a bunch of fascinating stories—like that of the woman who masterminded the first great expansion of meth in the Midwest—that seemed summarized.
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Reding argues that meth is a perfect American drug because (at least early on) it allows people to work for days without sleep, so it fits into our ideals about enterprise. But at the same time meth rose with the disappearance of actual jobs—so how does that work? I wanted more—I guess I wanted him to be more than a journalist. Show Less
LibraryThing member HHS-Staff
Reviewed by Mr. Overeem (Language Arts)
An absorbing analysis of the development of methamphetamine from a "wonder drug" that was vaunted as being able to cure depression and increase production (scary) to the scourge of Small Town, USA. Anyone interested in the side effects of corporate
An absorbing analysis of the development of methamphetamine from a "wonder drug" that was vaunted as being able to cure depression and increase production (scary) to the scourge of Small Town, USA. Anyone interested in the side effects of corporate
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consolidation, globalization, illegal immigration, and "The War on Drugs" must read this. The events Reding describes are very close to home. Show Less
LibraryThing member CarolynSchroeder
This is a great account of the meth industries in the rural parts of the United States. Also, the interplay and education regarding the "big picture" (e.g., the pharmaceutical companies, the various governments and other countries importing component parts of various compositions of meth) is
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absolutely fascinating, scary and all too real. Mr. Reding shows a huge amount of empathy for all the players in the chain of events (dealers, users, suppliers), in fact, at times too much. He often suggests that addicts are merely a product of a rough life, low wages, few jobs, the need to work harder and without those events, the epidemic would not be what it is. I'm not so sure, it's a cheap, highly addictive drug that is relatively easy (albeit dangerous) to make. In any event, it's a great book, very readable and thought-provoking. My only real complaint is there is too much of the author's life, background, fears and desires. That got off track of an otherwise fairly scholarly approach to the problem. I live and prosecute in Illinois and while the epidemic is not as bad in the Chicago collar counties (although we do indeed see it), the rural areas of the state are absolutely beleagured. I now understand it all a bit better ... and fear it more as well. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject matter. Show Less
LibraryThing member MsGemini
Methland was a book I read over a period of time. The story was well done but intense and I was only wanting to read small sections at a time. I have read several other books on addiction but they mostly focused on an individual, their family and the way drugs changed their lives. This book went a
I am glad I stuck with this one and I would recommend this one to those interested in the subject of addiction.
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step further and looked at an entire town and the way Meth became such a part of this community.I am glad I stuck with this one and I would recommend this one to those interested in the subject of addiction.
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LibraryThing member kqueue
Methland is a fascinating and somewhat frightening look at the rise of methamphetamine addiction in the United States. It focuses on the small town of Oelwein, Iowa as a microcosm of the meth problem which is complex and many layered. There are so many things that allowed meth to become the
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epidemic that it is: the loss of family farms and small business to big agriculture; the power of the pharmaceutical lobby; the Mexican drug trafficking organizations; and illegal immigration and migrant workers. Author Nick Reding takes this complex and seemingly disparate topics and winds them into a cohesive narrative that includes anecdotes of real people – doctors, addicts, dealers, prosecutors, DEA agents – on the front lines of this battle and makes it real. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers, but there are glimmers of hope. I highly recommend this book for anyone who lives in small town. Show Less
LibraryThing member itbgc
Methland is a true story which is well worth reading. Not only is it informative, but it is also inspirational and enjoyable. The author (Nick Reding) painted a clear picture of the effects of meth addiction on individual users, their families, the local community, the state, and the country. He
Reding answers questions like, how does a meth addiction compare with other addictions? Why would someone start using meth? Why would someone start manufacturing and trafficking meth, and how do they do this? How does meth affect families, especially the children? How have Big Agriculture and Big Pharmaceuticals changed life in the Midwest and contributed to drug abuse? How do drug dealers and manufacturers adjust to new laws? Can stricter laws and enforcement eradicate the meth epidemic in the US?
What I liked best about this book are the details of exactly how the tiny, practically comatose town of Oelwein, Iowa, courageously and successfully fought to regain life in their community under the leadership of an energetic, optimistic mayor, Larry Murphy. I can only imagine the “Community Burial Ceremony of Gloom and Doom” he organized to celebrate the victories won and to inspire more in the future.
This book obviously needs a lot of editing, but I only read the advance copy.
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shares the information he gleaned from spending countless hours listening to and observing people on all sides of the meth issue--drug addicts and their family members, drug manufacturers and dealers, local and federal law-enforcement officers and legislators, and the town’s doctor, prosecuting attorney, and mayor.Reding answers questions like, how does a meth addiction compare with other addictions? Why would someone start using meth? Why would someone start manufacturing and trafficking meth, and how do they do this? How does meth affect families, especially the children? How have Big Agriculture and Big Pharmaceuticals changed life in the Midwest and contributed to drug abuse? How do drug dealers and manufacturers adjust to new laws? Can stricter laws and enforcement eradicate the meth epidemic in the US?
What I liked best about this book are the details of exactly how the tiny, practically comatose town of Oelwein, Iowa, courageously and successfully fought to regain life in their community under the leadership of an energetic, optimistic mayor, Larry Murphy. I can only imagine the “Community Burial Ceremony of Gloom and Doom” he organized to celebrate the victories won and to inspire more in the future.
This book obviously needs a lot of editing, but I only read the advance copy.
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LibraryThing member julierenee13
I was very interested to read this book as my husband is a former meth addict (before I knew him). I was really hoping to understand the addict by reading this book. I found the book to be very informative. I wouldn't say I loved it, but it was good.
LibraryThing member princesspeaches
This nonfiction ethnographic tale was wildly interesting. Detailing American's problem with Meth and particularly how the epidemic invaded American's small towns. I am from a small town and have seen many of these same situations and watched friends end up in heartbreaking situations, just as are
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detailed in Methland. It tells an important story and does it well. My only quibble is some slow pacing towards the end and the last few chapters, almost in an effort to wind down, seem to point to the easing of the Meth problem. I think this is deceiving, however this is my opinion and I still thought the author did an amazing job getting inside this story. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stefibeth
A true crime book of epidemic proportions! Reding mentions that he doesn't want to produce just another true crime book and this is anything but. Engrossing, informative, and scary all at the same time. The reader becomes drawn in to the story and feels as though it's THEIR small town that has
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gotten down and out and hopes for it's recovery. You feel both disdain and empathy for the addicts at the same time. Richly developed. Show Less
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
This is an account of the suthor's research into the evil ofmethamphetamine. He spent a lot of time in Oelwein, Iowa, and tells some shocking stories of people enslaved by the drug. The book is not as well organized as it should be, and jumps aound a lot in time and place. It is not fun to read
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about such a dangerous drug, and people caught in its insidious grasp. Show Less
LibraryThing member TrishNYC
As more and more Americans move away from small towns to urban areas, many carry with them an idealized version of the places they left behind. They imagine idyllic scenes of families at work and play, engaging in simple pursuits, farming the land, attending places of worship and living low key
One of the reasons why Meth has been able to penetrate and destroy communities in a somewhat unique manner, is the fact that its component elements can be acquired very easily in common drug store purchases. Ephedrine and Pseudo ephedrine are both ingredients of over the counter cold medicines and can be acquired without a prescription. So in addition to the drug cartels that produce Meth, everyday people are able to produce Meth in their kitchens with just a few ingredients and a basic knowledge of chemistry. Meth production at home has led to many house fires and explosions, claiming the lives of innocent victims in addition to poisoning non using bystanders( e.g children).
Its is interesting to see Meth's current status as an illicit drug, as it was once a legally prescribed drug for weight loss, depression and all manner of ailments.Tests on mice show that the body starts to form antibodies that vaccinates itself against the drug thus making attainment of a high more and more difficult with each use. This means that addicts seek larger and larger quantities of the drug to get a high thus making them even more desperate and resorting to extreme means, violence included, to get that high.
The author draws some very interesting conclusions about the role of immigration, monopolies in the agricultural sector and even Washington lobby groups to Meth's inception and spread. This is a very interesting and well researched book. As I read, I was surprised by how insidious the Meth problem has become as I too had bought the myth of the idyllic small town, believing that drugs were more of a big city problem. It is a sad and complex portrait of what happens when certain factors, high unemployment, poverty and disconnection from certain basic needs occurs. I found the book to be readable if at times bogged down by too many facts and details.
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lives. But many of these towns are becoming unrecognizable as communities are swept up in the consumption of a dangerous drug that leaves its users physically and mentally damaged, financially depressed and rips families apart. Methland is Nick Reding's attempt to understand Meth's spread as it weaves a path of destruction through small town America and what this means for society at large. One of the reasons why Meth has been able to penetrate and destroy communities in a somewhat unique manner, is the fact that its component elements can be acquired very easily in common drug store purchases. Ephedrine and Pseudo ephedrine are both ingredients of over the counter cold medicines and can be acquired without a prescription. So in addition to the drug cartels that produce Meth, everyday people are able to produce Meth in their kitchens with just a few ingredients and a basic knowledge of chemistry. Meth production at home has led to many house fires and explosions, claiming the lives of innocent victims in addition to poisoning non using bystanders( e.g children).
Its is interesting to see Meth's current status as an illicit drug, as it was once a legally prescribed drug for weight loss, depression and all manner of ailments.Tests on mice show that the body starts to form antibodies that vaccinates itself against the drug thus making attainment of a high more and more difficult with each use. This means that addicts seek larger and larger quantities of the drug to get a high thus making them even more desperate and resorting to extreme means, violence included, to get that high.
The author draws some very interesting conclusions about the role of immigration, monopolies in the agricultural sector and even Washington lobby groups to Meth's inception and spread. This is a very interesting and well researched book. As I read, I was surprised by how insidious the Meth problem has become as I too had bought the myth of the idyllic small town, believing that drugs were more of a big city problem. It is a sad and complex portrait of what happens when certain factors, high unemployment, poverty and disconnection from certain basic needs occurs. I found the book to be readable if at times bogged down by too many facts and details.
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LibraryThing member writergal85
Methland provides a very thorough investigation of the methamphetamine infiltration on a small Iowa town. It is less about the product and more about the people. Methland would have been much more powerful with stronger and more detailed physical descriptions. I enjoy reads like Germs by Judith
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Miller, et al. and Biohazard by Ken Alibek. When I read medical or science-related non-fiction; I want to be haunted by it. I want to have nightmares. Methland just did not go there for me; it did not delve deep enough into the depravity. The sub-title of the book is “The Death and Life of An American Small Town.” maybe I just do not believe in small-town America. Or more likely for this city woman, Methland failed to provide me with an insider’s view on small town America. A skillful writer can place any reader anywhere. While author Nick Reding gets very involved in the town and its residents, parts of Methland read like a textbook or a long Op-Ed piece. I just cannot completely care enough about meth. To make Methland more effective for me, I needed a bolder before and more definitive after. Having one's life destroyed so completely by meth or another drug is a choice and I don't feel sorry for these people. We spend so much time and money and other resources busting meth cooks and dealers etc., yet other sources sprout up elsewhere. Where will it end? Am I callous? Maybe. Am I an urban, latte-sipping liberal intellectual with a master’s degree far detached from the working poor of the Midwest agriculture states? Absolutely. I understand the portrait of a small town and its destruction that Reding ventured to paint in Methland. There just is not a black and white. It is very gray. And with meth, the drug, one cannot expect it to be that way. Show Less
LibraryThing member eejjennings
Excellent explanation of the meth epidemic in small town Iowa in the 1990s and 2000s.
LibraryThing member SturgisPublicLibrary
Methland focuses on the methamphetamine epidemic in the town of Oelwein, Iowa, but it also covers a broader sociological and political perspective of the meth inundation in America. Nick Reding spent time getting to know people in Oelwein, and he shares their stories in a moving manner. I was
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captivated by their effort to save the town of Oelwein, and fascinated by their individual encounters with meth. The sociological and political parts of the book are dense at times, but the stories of the people in Oelwein are so darned interesting that it makes reading the rest worthwhile. By Chapter 11, I wanted the book to end as much as I want the meth epidemic to end, but the pace picks up again, and by the final chapter I was cheering for the town of Oelwein and for Nick Reding for telling their story. Show Less
LibraryThing member justablondemoment
For somebody that needs a research book this would be great. For me it wasn't what I was after. Although I ended up putting it aside, it was interesting for a 'factual' book, especially since I am from the midwest and it did kept me going for awhile. Excellent job of this author for all his
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compilation of facts and research though. Show Less
LibraryThing member mojomomma
This is an excellent book that all Iowans and Midwesterners should read. Reding traces the emergence of meth in Iowa in the early 90's, just as Iowa is coming to grips with the fall-out of the 1980 Farm Crisis and steadily dwindling population. My gosh, we didn't stand a chance against the forces
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that conspired against us in small-town Iowa. This is scary as hell, especially for me, living in the midst of a meat-packing town where wages are low. Aside from a few Iowa geography goofs (UNI is in Cedar Falls, not Cedar Rapids; I doubt the person who went to Drake University in Des Moines worked the night shift at a meat-packing plant in Davenport, 2.5 hours away; and Iowa City is not the biggest city in Iowa) everyone here feels like people I grew up with, both the doctors and the lawyers and the tweakers. Show Less
LibraryThing member Grabbag
Absolutely horrifying non-fiction book about the terrifying effects of methamphetamine in middle America. Effects caused by the poor economy that ripped through small towns across the country, starting in the early 1990s. The personal accounts are terrifying, disgusting, and saddening.
Reding chose
Reding chose
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to release this at the right time. After people read Nic Sheff's [Tweak], hopefully they'll pick this one up. Show Less
LibraryThing member goodinthestacks
"Methland" by Nick Reding is not a book just about the meth epidemic that took over small towns and large cities across America. It is a book about how big business and the government were complicit with foreign drug cartels in making this drug synonymous with rural American life. This book is
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about rural American life. Show Less
LibraryThing member yankeesfan1
Methland was a fascinating and at times horrifying read. Reding did a great job of capturing the life of small town America, and connecting the complex, multinational meth trade towards day-to-day life in these small towns. Many of the stories will live you with feelings of both sympathy and
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disgust. It definitely makes you think of what can be done to help people in these towns. Despite touching on a variety of political issues, I didn't feel like it leaned to one side or another. I really enjoyed the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member katiekrug
A disturbing look at the role of methamphetamine in rural America and the toll it has taken. Focused on Oelwein, Iowa, Reding brings us the story of meth cooks, junkies, doctors, lawyers, and politicians and how their lives intersect and influence one another thanks to the devastation wrought by
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this drug. A fascinating book, but weakened a bit by a little too much repetition. Show Less
Call number
C > Addiction, Recovery
Collection
Awards
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize (Non-Fiction — 2009)
Friends of American Writers Award (First Place — Adult Literature — 2010)
Hillman Prize (Book — 2010)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2009)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Nonfiction — 2009)
Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2009)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2009-06-16
Physical description
288 p.; 8.32 inches
ISBN
9781608192076