Across the Rural Midwest, Drug Casts a Grim Shadow

The New York Times ^ | January 4, 2003 | FOX BUTTERFIELD

[eno_]

Of course, if the Drug War were ended, it would be cheaper than soda pop, and there would be no meth-related property crime.

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[waxhaw]

You have to read through most of this article to get to the root of the problem - "... the dealers are often Mexican migrant workers, many of them illegal immigrants...". Of course, the article listed by name those relatively few non-illegal-immigrant meth users/dealers. This problem is growing across rural America - everywhere there are large numbers of settled illegal immigrant Hispanics. But I'm not surprised the NYT wrote the article in such a way as to avoid mentioning the huge role illegal immigrants have played in the drug trade.

[sarcasm]

They're just doing the jobs that Americans won't do.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

The Mexicans deal to be sure [and I live in an area with lots of Mexicans] and they are not a bunch to mess with. But it can be bought in any neighborhood & on any street corner from kids & adults you would never suspect. It's like candy out there.

By the time your kids & mine get to the Mexicans for their supply they have been using for years.

We have lived a meth nightmare in our home for years.

Would not wish it on anyone.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

[applemac_g4]

Another similarity between the methamphetamine problem in Lovell and in states like Nebraska and Colorado, law enforcement officials say, is that the dealers are often Mexican migrant workers, many of them illegal immigrants, who came to work for low wages on farms or in meatpacking plants or mines.

------

This can't be correct. After all, Jorge has informed us that illegal aliens are hardworking, tax-paying, law abiding citizens...just the sort of salt of the earth folks you'd want living next door.

[B4Ranch]

Given the authority, I'd execute cookers and dealers the same day as the trial, while defertilizing the users before release.

[woofer]

and one of the drug's main ingredients — anhydrous ammonia — is an agricultural fertilizer that lies about in abundant supply in bags on isolated farm fields,

Actually, Anhydrous Ammonia is a low grade refrigerant and is applied in a semi-liquid/gaseous form from a pressure tank, not from bags as a solid. There is a BIG problem with the meth "chemist" trying to collect some by stealing it from the tank wagons. The lucky ones don't get frostbit hands.

Just before Christmas, I worked at a anhydrous ammonia compressing terminus in central Iowa. The maintenance guy related how the product shipped in a pipeline from the Gulf to Iowa and their station was the end of the line. The pressure on the pipeline is about 200 psi. Some meth geniuses decided to put a spigot on the pipeline down the road a ways. He said they found four bodies, a hammer and a punch at the line puncture site when they responded to leak in the morning.

[eno_]

Given the authority, I'd execute cookers and dealers the same day as the trial, while defertilizing the users before release.

That might work. The trouble is that our government would rather spy on our finances, medical treatment, personal communications, and purchases than do that. If the only impact of the Drug War were draconian sentences, instead of bloated jails, corrupt cops, and lots of property crime not getting attention from the cops, it would not be so bad.

[B4Ranch]

What a chilling revelation!

[TroutStalker]

Some meth geniuses decided to put a spigot on the pipeline down the road a ways.

If only the geniuses writing for the New York Times were rewarded so quickly for their mistake of assuming that since it is fertilizer, it must be in a bag.

[IronJack]

I've been hearing this same story for 25 years. The Midwest is to meth what the Golden Triangle is to opium. The story gets resurrected about every 5 to 10 years, I suspect in an effort to get more federal drug suppression money or to prove to the coastal sophisticates that we here in flyover country are urbane enough to have our own drug problems.

[RonHolzwarth]

re: "Meth is the single most serious law enforcement issue that North Dakota is facing, and has ever faced," said Wayne Stenehjem, the state attorney general.

To the experts, methamphetamine is both a symptom of rural decline, as people give up on faltering farms and factories, and a cause that makes the decline worse."

---

I think that the ONLY solution to the drug problem is to discover WHY people are looking for ways to escape the distasteful reality of their daily lives by self medicating with harmful drugs.

If the money now spent on law enforcement were INSTEAD spent on psychiatric studies to determine the WHY, and to provide opportunities for people who chose to use such harmful substances, the price of drugs would drop, and hopefully demand would also decline.

There are those in the medical field who believe that for many drug users, self medication is a symptom of other problems. Around this core group, are others who do it also, because they think it's fun, they have nothing else to do, and they want to fit in.

Chasing rats is an endless game!

To get rid of rats, you need to discover the WHY!

Is it food? Remove the food, and the rats will no longer be around.

Is it because there is nothing else to do? Then, subsidize exciting and healthy opportunities for young people.

Paying the law enforcement industry to chase the rats away is just not gonna work.

The rats will just run somewhere else.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[oceanperch]

It has reared it's ugley face here in Lincoln County Oregon. The lil town of Siletz is just about all tweakers.

I saw what crystal meth did in Cali back in the 80's.

Now it is here and it is not the same stuff from the 80's this stuff is cold tabs and poisons mixed.

Pure crap. Burglaries are almost nightly in our town of 10,000.

Just tonight a stolen car was found trashed in Siletz and last week there was a stand off between a tweak and the Police. They took him down non lethal.

I have had to control my Manic brain for most of my life I cannot for the life of me understand why the hell someone would induce this illness with drugs. The druggies are worse as in they are criminal and get psychotic.

My friend owns a RV/Store down the road and says the last year they stop in the store all the time.

They think no one can tell they are druggies. Oily Hair, sores all over their face and odd behaviour.

Ticks me off I work so hard to not be hyper and compulsive and lead good lives and then these idiots choose to live with their brains all screwed up and become drains on society.

What do you see in the headlines, health concerns over fat folks and smokers. Meanwhile the self induced nuts are running free to steal from others and commit violent act.

Thanks for posting this sarcasm the word needs to get out.

The police can't do a thing either untill a crime is committed.

[oceanperch]

I have to say the meth problem is one I hate.

My sons Dad who I dumped in the 80's due to his addiction is now clean 10 yrs. but is not mentally the same.

Loud and always aggitated.

Lucky to be alive.

So glad I kicked him to the curb as soon as I found out.

He now has a long distance relationship with my son and has really turned into a hard working law abiding citizen. Thank God. We prayed for a lot of years for him.

I noticed the last card he sent was signed God Bless, Love Ya son. The God Bless was new, his Mom says he is a church goin' guy now. Whoa! This guy has literally gone to hell and back.

I am glad.

[oceanperch]

Meth heads have got to be the stupidest people I have ever come across. I mean stupid! They seem to think just the oppisite, your story is a great example.

[uglybiker]

You sure Wyoming's such a great place? ;-)