A slightly different protocol guided my interaction with two former meth traffickers: Lori Arnold of Ottumwa and Jeffrey William Hayes of Oelwein. Over the course of three years, Lori and Jeffrey William, as he prefers to be called, sent me hundreds of pages of letters from the federal prisons where they were serving lengthy sentences. The letters detailed not just the ins and outs of major meth production and distribution in their respective hometowns, but also the ups and downs of their lives in prison. Even though Jeffrey William hardly appears in this book, his letters were nearly as vital as Lori’s in providing context and detail to the rise of the modern meth epidemic—and moreover, to the causal link between the industrial meth trade in California, Mexico, and the rural Midwest that he and Lori helped to initiate. In the end, their letters are also stories that frame a par tic ular time in the history of rural America.
In order to give specific shape to the careers of Lori, Jeffrey William, and Major, I drew heavily on reports issued by the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy and the National Institutes of Drug Addiction. I also depended on international, regional, and local methamphetamine assessments published regularly by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In addition, several people made accessible to me information not available publicly, mostly outlining the history and present role of major Mexican meth traffickers, along with the link between these trafficking organizations and terrorist organizations. Among the people whom I interviewed formally on at least two occasions were Bill Ruzzamenti, the director of California’s Central Valley High-Intensity Drug-Trafficking Area; Tony Loya, the director of the National Methamphetamine Chemical Initiative; Sherri Strange, special agent in charge of DEA’s Southeast Region, headquartered in Atlanta; and Phil Price, former SAC of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. In May 2006, I attended a meth summit between Mexican and U.S. officials, including the attorneys general of both nations, in Dallas. In interviews there, one government official spoke openly—in return for anonymity—about what he saw as the “direct and conscious link between failed U.S. immigration policy and the meth epidemic.”
My contention that the economic downfall of the rural United States is attributable in large part to the consolidation of the American food business is based on a wide range of sources. Many of those sources are the farmers and meatpacking workers of Oelwein and Ottumwa, Iowa. Along with dozens of newspaper articles written since the beginning of the farm crisis in the 1980s, these men and women helped form the foundation of my thinking on the subject. Also of particular importance was the work of two rural sociologists: William Heffernan at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Douglas Constance at Sam Houston State University in Texas. I drew heavily on Dr. Heffernan’s paper—written along with Drs. Mary Hendrickson and Paul Gronski—titled “Consolidation in the Food and Agriculture Business,” which essentially synthesized three decades of research, the bulk of Dr. Heffernan’s well-documented career. The input of Dr. Constance, on the other hand, came via long e-mails and phone conversations.
The work of several other sociologists was fundamental in the making of Methland, whether or not I had reason to cite their work in the text. Three documents of particular interest were Dr. Patricia Case’s “A History of Methamphetamine: An Epidemic in Context,” Dr. Craig Reinarman’s book Crack in America, and Dr. Karen Van Gundy’s paper “Substance Abuse in Rural and Small Town America,” written at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
Numerous scientists contributed greatly to the information in this book. To them I owe my understanding of meth’s chemical properties, of the specific behavioral and psychological repercussions of meth addiction, of the biochemical effects of meth on the human brain, and of the psychological effects of a drug epidemic not just on individuals, but on communities. Much of the information that I accessed is available publicly, though several people in particular sent me papers in progress and also took time to speak with me about their ongoing studies, be it in person, by e-mail, or on the phone. These include Dr. Perry Halkitis at New York University, Dr. Rick Rawson and Dr. Tom Freese at UCLA, Dr. Sean Wells at the University of Toronto, and Dr. Linda Chang at the University of Hawaii.
The number of archived newspaper articles on which I drew directly or indirectly while writing Methland fills two file drawers. These articles come from papers as geographically and demographically disparate as Allentown, Pennsylvania’s Morning Call and the Fresno Bee. Taken of a piece, the articles form one of the deepest strata on which this book rests. Of particular importance was the three-part series “Unnecessary Epidemic” written by Steve Suo in the Oregonian in October 2004. Equally crucial were several pieces written between 1999 and 2003 in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times detailing immigration violations at meatpacking plants, particularly those that followed the story of a federal indictment against Tyson in 2001. Pieces and series in the Chicago Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution played important roles as well.
In the end, though, nothing is as important in Methland as the people. The newspapers, the science, and the research papers serve only to corroborate what I saw and what I was told by the residents of Oelwein, Iowa. They were the ultimate source of this book, which in its simplest form is an exercise in fitting one small American town into a broader framework of crisis. Everyone who appears in Methland does so by choice and with full knowledge. Without them Methland would be empty indeed.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Nick Reding is the author of The Last Cowboys at the End of the World, and his writing has appeared in Outside, Food & Wine, Fast Company, and Harper’s. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife and son.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Prologue: Home
Part One: 2005
1. Kant’s Lament
2. The Most American Drug
3. The Inland Empire
4. Family
5. The Do Drop Inn
Part Two: 2006
6. Mirror Imaging
7. The Cop Shop
8. Waterloo
9. The Inland Empire, Part Two
10. Las Flores
Part Three: 2007
11. Algona
12. El Paso
13. Disconnected States
14. Kant’s Redemption
15. Independence
Epilogue: Home Again
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources
Nick Reding Page 26
