Shadira

“Contrary to what many people might think, the rural United States has for decades had higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse than the nation’s urban areas.”
― Nick Reding, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town

“Meth works on the limbic system of the brain, which is the brain’s reward center, as well as on the prefrontal cortex, where decision making takes place.”
― Nick Reding, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town

“Nagayoshi Nagai, a Japanese chemist, first synthesized desomethamphetamine in 1898. Almost from the beginning, the drug was celebrated for the simple fact that it made people feel good. It was not, however, until Akira Ogata, another Japanese chemist, first made meth in 1919 from red phosphorus and ephedrine, a naturally occurring plant that grows largely in China, that mass production of the drug became viable. Red phosphorus, the active ingredient on the striker plate of a matchbook, can be mined. Ephedrine, like coca or poppies, can be farmed. By 1933, meth was heralded in the United States as a drug on par with penicillin.”
― Nick Reding, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town

“the elderly residents were given excessive doses of opiates so that they would not wake up while the batchers worked. In one Iowa county, the school district banned bake sales after several children unwittingly brought to school meth-tainted chocolate chip cookies and Rice Krispies treats that sickened classmates. Like dioxin, meth residue possesses a unique ability to bind to food, countertops, microwave walls, sink basins, and human lung tissue for days after being synthesized. Making the drug is a dangerous undertaking.”
― Nick Reding, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town