This was a riveting book that I didn't want to put down. The story of the meth epidemic is truly disturbing, and the author does a great job discussing all of the aspects of it. I like how he makes explicit connections to how unregulated capitalism helped spur on the rise of meth use. Immigration; NAFTA; corporate mergers; loss of labor unions, wages and benefits; lobbyists; big agriculture -- they are all big players in the rise of meth in America's small (and big) towns. While entirely unsurpr...more This was a riveting book that I didn't want to put down. The story of the meth epidemic is truly disturbing, and the author does a great job discussing all of the aspects of it. I like how he makes explicit connections to how unregulated capitalism helped spur on the rise of meth use. Immigration; NAFTA; corporate mergers; loss of labor unions, wages and benefits; lobbyists; big agriculture -- they are all big players in the rise of meth in America's small (and big) towns. While entirely unsurprising, as unregulated capitalism has created myriad problems in its wake, it's sad to read about such a drastic human cost. ( )

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 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. ( )

Not as depressing as I'd feared -- in fact, a fascinating portrait of how the American farm economy, with its emphasis on autonomy and self-reliance, has been transformed into a the top-down hierarchical world of a mining community. The methamphetamines are almost beside the point. Utterly believable. ( )

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 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. ( )

This book offers a jarringly close look at how methamphetimine has transformed the American Midwest, specifically the town of Oelwein, Iowa. I found the book interesting and well researched, I would particularly recommend it to readers who enjoy the topics of addiction and sociology. ( )