Home is where the meth is

~ Jason Schwartz

meth-lab514_0An anthropologist embedded with meth addicts in Missouri and has an interview in the New Republic.

The trailer parks of Jefferson County, Missouri, are a far cry from the international cartels of Breaking Bad, but this is the real picture of meth in America: Eveready batteries and Red Devil Lye on kitchen counters, used syringes mixed in with children’s homework, drawers full of forks bent out of shape by chronic users’ obsessive tinkering. Over the course of nearly a decade studying home meth production in the rural U.S., SUNY Purchase anthropologist Jason Pine has looked on as Jefferson County’s practiced ‘chemists’ cook their product, watched addicts inject their own veins, and visited houses destroyed by meth lab explosions. “Jefferson County is largely rural,” Pine told me. “Houses can be quite secluded. It has rocky ridges that make it unsuitable for farming, but great for meth cooking.”

If you’re interested, a couple more articles by the author are available here and here.

via Meth: Adderall for construction workers | New Republic.

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.

2 thoughts on “Home is where the meth is”

  2. Great article! What interesting insight that meth functions as blue collar Adderall, that it helps feed a feeling of industriousness that so many Americans, rich or poor, hold close to their hearts. An illustration of what Mark Kleinman said, “the politics of drug policy is never very far from identity politics” (http://books.google.com/books?id=T9FoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=%22the+politics+of+drug+policy+is+never+very+far+from+identity+politics%22&source=bl&ots=LPoD_XIpU0&sig=mESCE6ZfwZwqTHk3s_4T8hh3afY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NoreUojRHri-sQTYxICwAg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20politics%20of%20drug%20policy%20is%20never%20very%20far%20from%20identity%20politics%22&f=false)

    Thanks for sharing this piece.

Comments are closed.