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.”
Alice Robb: Who makes meth?
Jason Pine:
Many people in Jefferson County begin cooking to supplement their
income and to cover the costs of their own addiction. There were some
people profiting, but those profits dwindled as their habits increased.
These meth manufacturers are not like cartel leaders: They’re making it
for personal use. New regulations against pseudoephedrine-based medicine
have made large-scale production harder. There’s a new recipe that’s
easier and simpler, though it’s more dangerous and explosive.
AR: How do people in Jefferson County get into meth?
JP:
Many of the people I met began meth on the job—concrete work, roofing,
trucking, factory work. It’s a way to make the job easier, to work
longer hours and make more money. Meth increases dopamine levels in the
brain, which can cause people to engage in repetitive (and often
meaningless) actions—a behavioral effect that syncs up well with ‘work
you gotta turn your mind off for,’ as one cook told me.
AR: How do they consume it?
JP:
People smoke it, inject it—sometimes they’ll just cut themselves open
and pour it into their veins. Other times, people will eat it: They’ll
stick it in Twinkies, roll it up in balls of Wonderbread, put it in
their coffee if they’re working. The convenience of meth is that it
doesn’t require constant administration. It’s not like coke that you
have to take every hour or crack that you have to take every ten
minutes.
AR: How does meth affect people?
JP:
They become exuberant and talkative, switching subjects often. They’re
very happy and want to share. There’s some moodiness, too—they’ll
quickly snap into some kind of aggressive reaction. They generate a lot
of abstract ideas. They want to talk about their own theories—not well
thought-out ones, of course, but they’ll feel that they’re onto
something. Often, God comes up while they’re explaining their
hallucinations. The neurological effects of high dopamine levels can
induce religious sentiment and transcendental thinking.
They
talk about feeling more alive, more god-like. They don’t talk about the
drug like, say, a heroin user would talk about being radically altered
or slipping out of life; rather, they feel like more of a self.
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