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The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition
University of Minnesota Press, 2019 Paper: 978-1-5179-0771-6 | Cloth: 978-1-5179-0770-9 Library of Congress Classification HV5822.A5 Dewey Decimal Classification 362.299509778091
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Meth cooks practice late industrial alchemy—transforming base materials, like lithium batteries and camping fuel, into gold
The Alchemy of Meth is a nonfiction storybook about St. Jude County, Missouri, a place in decomposition, where the toxic inheritance of deindustrialization meets the violent hope of this drug-making cottage industry. Jason Pine bases the book on fieldwork among meth cooks, recovery professionals, pastors, public defenders, narcotics agents, and pharmaceutical executives. Here, St. Jude is not reduced to its meth problem but Pine looks at meth through materials, landscapes, and institutions: the sprawling context that makes methlabs possible. The Alchemy of Meth connects DIY methlabs to big pharma’s superlabs, illicit speed to the legalized speed sold as ADHD medication, uniquely implicating the author’s own story in the narrative. By the end of the book, the backdrop of St. Jude becomes the foreground. It could be a story about life and work anywhere in the United States, where it seems no one is truly clean and all are complicit in the exploitation of their precious resources in exchange for a livable present—or even the hope of a future. See other books on: Alchemy | Drug addicts | Material culture | Missouri | Rural See other titles from University of Minnesota Press |
Nearby on shelf for Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology / Drug habits. Drug abuse:
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