Justice
The Rise and Fall of America’s Rural Meth Labs
In his new book The Alchemy of Meth, anthropologist Jason Pine chronicles how methamphetamine addiction reshaped rural Missouri, and beyond.
Scouring the roads of Eastern Missouri for methamphetamine labs one day in 2013, Jason Pine came across a likely looking property: 20 vacuum cleaners hung from the trees in the yard; a truck, strangely filled to bursting with jewelry and Barbie dolls, decayed in the yellow grass. Nearby sat a beached speedboat, a riding mower, and a selection of gardening implements. Rusting mechanical bits formed patterns on the lawn.
A lot of nearby yards resembled this one, scattered with scrap metal and rusted bicycles and plastic bins. They’re not junkyards, Pine says—under the careful hands of small-town tinkerers, even crushed and broken appliances and household objects can be repaired and sold. They’re just yards full of stuff.