Inside meth

The widespread use of meth, goes a long way toward making our countryside a unified whole, with our hollowed out suburbs, and half-abandoned urban cores.  Think of it as a successful sort of multiculturalism - granted of a hellish sort.

 

A professor, foolish or brave, embedded himself into the modern meth culture of Jefferson County, Missouri.

 

He had many interesting items to note, but I thought one unusual, but on target comment was:

I Embedded with a Community of Meth Users
Alice Robb, New Republic, 6 January 2014 (hat tip: MR)

It’s like you or me taking ADHD meds—a sort of legitimated form of speed. Adderall is middle-class meth. It motivates people to produce themselves as the kinds of avid, goal-pursuing, risk-taking and at-the-ready subjects of late capitalism. The stressed, anxious and overworked individuals that animate many segments of the US ‘mainstream’ economy are perhaps the more presentable kin of the emaciated, toothless, pockmarked, wide-eyed and busy meth users I encountered.

It's interesting to see that the original headline appears to have been something like "Meth: Adderall for Construction Workers".  We are indeed a self-medicating society.