One of the most morally conflicted experiences of my life came from sitting in a jury room at the county courthouse deciding the future of a young man accused of trafficking methamphetamine.
With a court-appointed attorney and a girlfriend who turned state’s witness, the defendant was a sitting duck.
The jury voted to convict. And that means I did too.
The judge thanked us for performing our civic duty. I knew better. We may have upheld the letter of the law, but the defendant’s biggest offense had been to develop a substance use disorder without first being born into a family with enough money and power to keep him out of prison.
The state won a pyrrhic victory that day. One low-grade, desperate dealer with a drug disorder went to prison, and methamphetamine use rolled on.
When I sat on that jury years ago, I assumed the meth in question was home cooked, perhaps in one of the cars I had seen behind police tape at the gas station by the interstate on occasion. Or maybe from one of the charred farmhouses that showed up on the evening news.
Because in those years, we all assumed small cities and rural areas were driving the meth crisis. Many of us still think that.
It’s time to update our understanding of where meth comes from, who uses it, and how it affects our culture, health, and criminal justice system.
Home Cooked – A 50-Year History of Meth in America
How did meth get a reputation as a “hillbilly” drug? Why was meth ever so explosive in rural America? And why is it back in the news today?
This week the Daily Yonder launches “Home Cooked,” a five-part podcast covering the methamphetamine crisis in the U.S., from its early days as a biker-gang enterprise, to its rise as a cottage industry in rural America, to its current surge in the international drug trade.
You may think the meth crisis has abated because you can’t buy your favorite decongestant off the shelf anymore. In fact, meth is more popular than ever, and meth-related deaths have increased 50-fold in the last two decades.
Those facts come to us from Olivia Weeks, the Daily Yonder reporter who created the series.
Olivia showed me I have a lot to learn about meth – how it became irrevocably associated with rural America versus what’s happening today with the drug. Because the meth crisis, it turns out, is far from over.
You may know Olivia from her weekly “Path Finders” interviews with people who are shaping our understanding of rural America. She’s also been our guide to important scholarship about rural America through book reviews and author interviews. She is a voracious and curious reader about all things rural. And she’s part of the production team for our weekly radio newscast, the Yonder Report.
Olivia has spent years digging into the history of meth in America. Her first knowledge of the drug came when she was growing up in southern Illinois. The walls of her public high school had those before-and-after posters of meth users that pictured healthy young people alongside wraiths in the “after” photos.
Oliva’s curiosity about meth continued when the nation’s attention shifted to the horrors of the opioid epidemic. Opioids got the spotlight, but meth use continued unabated, with consequences that were similar to those experienced by users of powerful narcotics. In the podcast series, she tells us why – and how – so-called “hillbilly cocaine” morphed into an imported urban street drug that dealers increasingly have targeted toward people of color.
These are some of the things that have changed. Others stay the same.
Today in some courtroom, the scene that played out before my eyes years ago is repeating. This time around, the jury may acquit. Or they may not. If it’s a conviction, someone goes to prison and someone gets a commendation. If it’s acquittal, the bailiff calls the next case.
Olivia’s series explains how we got to this point.
Please listen and tell a friend to do the same.
Tim Marema is editor of the Daily Yonder.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
