The Alchemy of Meth - A Decomposition (Paperback, 1)

Meth cooks practice late industrial alchemy-transforming base materials, like lithium batteries and camping fuel, into gold Meth alchemists all over the United States tap the occulted potencies of industrial chemical and big pharma products to try to cure the ills of precarious living: underemployment, insecurity, and the feeling of idleness. Meth fires up your attention and makes repetitive tasks pleasurable, whether it's factory work or tinkering at home. Users are awake for days and feel exuberant and invincible. In one person's words, they "get more life." 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.

General

Imprint:	University of Minnesota Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 2019
First published:	2019
Authors:	Jason Pine
Dimensions:	216 x 140 x 25mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade / Trade
Pages:	200
Edition:	1
ISBN-13:	978-1-5179-0771-6
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social groups & communities > Rural communities Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Human geography > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Illness & addiction: social aspects > Drug addiction & substance abuse Promotions
LSN:	1-5179-0771-3
Barcode:	9781517907716

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