Why Small-Town America Is Drowning in Drugs

[marmar]

from The Fix, via AlterNet:



In his best-selling—and uncannily prophetic—2009 book, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town, author Nick Reding compared crystal meth to a “sociocultural cancer.” The easy-to-make stimulant can spread with the speed and destructiveness of a disease, but curiously, it can take many years to take hold, like a cell mutation triggered by decades of bad decisions. The subject of Reding's book was a struggling town in Northern Iowa called Oelwein, home to a population of 6,415. A once-wholesome community, Oelwein had fallen on hard times during the past decade, when the collapse of its industries—including many family-run farms—threatened its citizens livelihoods as well as their way of life. In classic post-traumatic stress mode, Oelwein fell victim to the crank epidemic, becoming a midwestern focal point for speed dealers.

.....(snip).....

Jeff Deeney: Have you been back to Oelwein since the book was first released?

Nick Reding: Yes. Several times. The paperback version of my book has a new afterwards about my first visit back, when I appeared at a town hall meeting at which a lot of local people got a chance to vent their spleen at me. There had been a big uproar after Methland was published because many residents felt that I had maligned their town, sensationalizing it, painting things blacker than they were. I got death threats and all kinds of negative stuff. So we all needed to take a few hours to clear the air. It was not a particularly great experience, as you can imagine, but at least the death threats stopped.

.....(snip).....

Deeney: In Oelwein you observed the hopelessness that comes in the wake of the collapse of industry and the middle class, and how it's linked to crystal meth trafficking and addiction. Over the past year, the Occupy Wall Street movement has appeared, dramatizing the enormous inequality of wealth in this country. Methland highlighted this development several years before it became a political issue. Have you given any more thought to how the chipping of the wealth upward may impact communities and drug problems?

Reding: The economic decline, which seems so recent, has actually been building in the Midwest and most of the country for nearly 40 years. When there are fewer and fewer people who benefit from the wealth that exists, and growing numbers of people are losing their jobs, their houses and their sense of middle-class security, you have what economists call a death spiral. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/154219/why_small-town_america_is_drowning_in_drugs/

[girl gone mad]

1. k & r

[limpyhobbler]

2. I was shocked when I lived in a small town in rural Ohio for a couple years,

to find the place crawling with drugs. Crystal meth, black-market prescription opiates and anti-depressants, and even crack were sold openly at a workplace.

There is a sense of hopelessness for a lot of people there. They don't really have any prospects for any kind of "better" life. Or even just a different life. A lot of people are sort of stuck. There is no feasible way for them to leave. The best they will ever be able to hope for is a steady shitty job that barely pays the bills. It doesn't seem like there is much to lose so some people use drugs just to break the monotony, and end up getting addicted.

Another problem is people don't have health insurance so they self medicate. For example they might have knee pain or back pain that they have no way of getting addressed. So they stay on oxycontin (or a similar painkiller) longer than they should to cope with the pain. Of course it's very addictive.

Once someone is addicted, the rehab/detox/counseling resources might be even less than in more suburban or urban area. So they are more likely to stay addicted and cause more harm to themselves and others.