Methland 3

This last reading has been rather dry but informative. Things have gotten significantly better in Oelwein. Mayor Larry Murphy is serious about reconstructing a meth-ridden Oelwein. Murphy says that "rock bottom provides a firm foundation…Oelwein could do nothing but push itself up." (123). Murphy's plan is to rid the town of meth and build it up from the ashes. The first step was to build a foundation of economic growth. He had to make Oelwein seem as though it would be a sustainable place for a business and for people to raise families. Murphy had to get a grasp on the meth problem and get businesses that wouldn't stimulate the meth industry by offering lousy jobs. There had to be stable jobs.

Before anything could be done, Reding tells us how the Oelwein Police Department only have one person who has a college degree, the chief. It is difficult to have an uneducated ten-man police force clean a meth infested town. Murphy needed the town's empty meth labs to be cleaned up. To clean up a meth lab, it costs the town $6,000.  On average, the police would dismantle one meth lab every four days. Assuming they didn't run out of meth labs, that would cost Oewlein $547,500 per year. I had no clue a meth lab cost a town so much! The police force during this time also tightened up on everything.

They acted with regards to assuming "everyone is guilty and put the screws to them." (132). This, out of all things in the past reading, struck me. I understand 100% that the police force needs to take on such an aggressive principle in order to do things in a meth town. But at the same time, in America, don't we assume everyone is innocent until proven guilty? Especially in a small town where everyone knows everyone, wouldn't the cops be a little more lenient? Mildred Binstock, a local restaurant owner, called the police chief a Nazi. Fortunately, the police's efforts did make a difference. After around four years, Oelwein moved on to Phase II of their reconstruction.

After a while, the presence of small town cooks like Roland Jarvis dissolved and were replaced by large Mexican drug cartels. And with ephedrine illegal, crystal meth was becoming increasingly popular. Crystal meth is a much more powerful and pure form of the meth of the late 1980's. "Crystal was both a crank addict's and a crank dealer's dream." (152). Crystal could be made for less money, in higher quantities, and get users to higher inexplicable and undeniable tweaks.

There was no chance I would try meth before thus far in the book. And there is certainly no way I'm trying it after hearing of the "paranoia, the Parkinson's-like shaking, and the schizophrenic hallucinations" that users experience (152).