methland

Methland is an article by Nick Reding in 2005.  The story takes place in oelwein, Iowa.  The beginning of the article describes the town and population.  The story goes on describing the small town with farms on the outskirts of town that soon the town was divided by "the farmer and the tweaker"(Reding page 6).  The story goes on describing methamphetamine's progression in the US from 1999.  The story goes into a story about two of the townspeople Sean and James.  Sean being a meth user, and the story soon shifts its focus on Roland Jarvis.  Jarvis was an extreme example of the horrors of using meth.  Jarvis was a meth cook and user that had been severely burnt in an explosion of his meth lab.  Jarvis had one of his arms burnt down to a nub, and still years later continued to use meth.  My interpretation of why Reding wrote this article was to describe what happened to his hometown after being gone in college for years, and what is happening all over the country in big and small towns.  The devastating affects meth had on his town was described as a quiet small town with church going citizens, to half the population turning to meth addicts ruining the economy, and turning his town into what he described as a ghetto in Compton.  He named the article The Most American Drug because it was the fastest growing and most used drug in America.  Winter's Bone could also be described as one of the many small US cities that has been over-run with methamphetamine.  For more information on this click http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine