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Michigan's Cass County (specifically Dowagiac) has a meth problem. One of the contributing factors: there's nothing for young people to do there; no youth center or anything like that. Dowagiac practically worships its old folks, at the expense of the youngsters.
No, I'm not buying that the young people have nothing to do as an excuse. I grew up in a smaller town about 7 miles from Dowagiac in the 50's/60's and lived in a rural area and we didn't use drugs! I get this same thing in KS now even about underage drinking "Oh, the kids have nothing else to do." Seriously, what a joke. I suggested they go around picking up trash and mowing lawns, doing chores, getting some sort of physical exercise with the growing number of obese children. In another KS town, they put in all kinds of things, skate parks, new swimming pool, etc. and the drug problem did not improve. They also had other types of parks and a rec center. Doing drugs has nothing to do with a lack of other activities. Also, most of the children that use drugs now have parents that are doing them too.
Like a lot of things, I think the "epidemic" has been blown way out of proportion compared to how bad it ACTUALLY is, & it's caused people to run around with a "chicken little" mentality.
It's funny--no matter where you go, it seems people are scared to pieces of the tiniest risks. To wit: I live out in the middle of nowhere off of a dirt path that is practically private property, yet I get people telling me I shouldn't even let our kids play THERE because they might get run over. It's not like it's a major highway outside of a large city or the like, it's a dirt path in a very secluded area. No one has any business on it unless they live here, & we're the last house--out of 3 houses TOTAL & in fact the "traffic" (if you want to call it that) reflects that. On top of that, the landowners have made it clear that anyone who comes through, which would be the utility companies reading the meters, are to realize where they are & not go barreling through here wildly.
And still, people tell me I shouldn't let my kids play there. Gee whiz, if they can't play there, where CAN they play?
The old line, there's nothing to do, has been around forever. Used by city and country kids. There's nothing they want to do, is more accurate. Drinking is common for kids and some adults in small towns, or maybe drugs have replaced it to some degree. Teens in Dowagiac have it better than those in more isolated small towns. With South Bend nearby, that gives them more options than a rural town with not much more than the super Walmart and a McDonalds.
I see part of Illinois is still having problems with meth heads. Quincy still is having trouble with those types. At least they are staying after them. As far as trash and putting them somewhere else. One could say the same thing about the gang punks that shoot and run, often hitting innocent people. That type should be dropped off a ship in the middle of the ocean, not housed at the taxpayers expense with perks of health care and a/c. One person commented, how about a law that says if convicted of manufacturing or dealing drugs, you can't receive public aid or disabilty. I like that idea.
I know meth is being made and there are users where I live. I know this because the house next door, slated eventually for demolation if not bought and fixed, was demolished in a hurry after every night someone called the cops seeing unfamiliar people trying to get in. They couldn't because after the front door had been busted a neighbor scared some people off, checked inside and reported boxes of sudafed and such inside. So all the windows and door was securey nailed shut. Nobody else got in but hangers on came by and the cops drove by a lot. So out came the city and cleared the inside and them smashed it to bits. No hangers on have been seen since.
And a relative lives in a different part of town and knows who all the druggies are. Yes, there is a drug problem here. Does it impact me daily? No. You don't see wasted people hanging out on the street corner. The population is offically 9k but in town is more like 4k, as they count the prison and the farms and ranches all around us. The main driver of the economy is oil. Most of the people who work it stay only during the week, and relatives had to make reservations here to get a motel room.
Overall, I do not feel unsafe. My neighbors keep watch for anything questionable and my dog is loud and big and when you see his head looking out the window the garden variety of bad sorts will move on.
There has been a few murders, but no big crime wave.
But I came from Riverside California. Riding the bus there is an exercise in ignoreing the methheads who are yelling out a conversation. The bus station is their favorite spot. Go downtown after five when the city closes up and they are everywhere. The cops ignore them unless they are actually buying or selling and they are smart enough to not do that so they are a part of the landscape.
The house across from where I used to live there was a major methlab. I personally wouldn't live in it since it was busted before they discovered how much poison it leaves behind. I knew people there who were 'recovered' users who tried and tried but ended up on the street. One was HIV positive and she just quit taking her meds. She's surely dead by now.
Where would I prefer, where the users are sporatic and the city is on the ball about the houses or where they out of necessity just ignore the problem? Where the sky is blue and the air breathable and I know my neighbors or where I didn't want to and the sky was goopy grey with smog most of the year? Where I feel a whole lot safer than there?
It's all relative. I didn't look for Mayberry. I knew there were problems. But its got open space around it and the air is good and I like the people. Yes, drugs are around and I'm sure if you want marajuana you can find it even if it is illegal. But in relative terms, I'm very glad I came.
I don't think the Mayberry seekers are ever going to find what they want, but a lot of people are not and come from places where the drug problem isn't one since everyone has pretty much thrown in the towel and all they do is 'manage'.
I'll chime in from Upstate New York. I live in the largest city (30,000) in a predominantly rural county in the far southwestern corner of the state, and my family is from the next county east which is even more rural. Meth labs and marijuana farms are major problems here, and have been for 30+ years.
Every summer, the State Police do aerial hunts via helicopters for marijuana farms which are usually planted in the middle of the woods on somebody else's property. Some of them are even planted in remote areas of the numerous state forests around our area. It's not unusual for hikers stumble across them or for hunters to find the remains of them in the fall. There have also been some notorious cases where "entrepreneurs" have set up pot farms inside factories.
I would say that there are probably at least 1 meth lab a week discovered somewhere in these two counties, either because they've blown up or because the cops found them.
Is it an "epidemic"? Probably not. I think it's more like a "cash crop" in this area.
I think it depends where one lives and the amount of land and kind of house you are talking about. I don't think it is always a more expensive proposition. If it were, I couldn't afford it. In the towns you have an extra layer of taxes, and have to pay for water and sewer. 20 miles to a town, one may have to drive that far from a suburb to the city.
I've looked at the crime figures of towns near the KS-MO border and they are very high. Small town population and bigger town crime stats. I had hoped to move far away from where I am in Iowa, but now I'm wondering where I'd even go for sure. I'd like to see more trees and less cornfields.
This is an interesting article about the law tracking the purchase of pseudoephedrine. They say that now most meth in Iowa now comes from the southwestern United States. I've noticed recently people being busted in SE Iowa, and also a couple of incidents in NW Iowa.
Wisconsin smaller towns in the southern half of the state are better options compared to just about any area of the Lower Midwest. Although they have some issues, the problematic percentage of the population tends to be lower and most people have solidly middle class median household incomes.
... Unemployment has been high for years, maybe even a couple decades. The kids do meth because there is nothing for them to do. Sadly, some of the parents of those kids deal meth. There is no jobs, no future, and no hope as far as these people are concerned ...
I think that statement is quite true. The knee-jerk reaction is to say there was nothing to do in small-town America for the first 200 years of this nation, either. But in fact, there were jobs. People worked hard and they went to bed at night and slept because there was money to be made tomorrow. But in recent decades so many employers have pulled out of small town America — from fishing to textile mills to steel mills to cotton growing to clothing and shoe making to every other kind of manufacturing you can think of. Even farming requires fewer people than it used to, thanks to big agribusiness. The jobs didn't just leave town — they left the country. So where were the people to go? The smart ones went to the large metros and got different kind of jobs than their parents had. But not everyone has the wherewithal for that.
And now thousands of young people are sitting around small-town and rural America, un- or under-employed and depressed as hell because their lives aren't like the Kardashians, they aren't rappers or sports stars, and they know they never will be. It's the same from Northern Minnesota to Southern Arizona and from the hills of Kentucky to the farm country of California. Woody Guthrie could write a sad, sad song.
Addiction, furthermore, has always been a problem in small towns. I was raised in a steel town and the fathers of my peers pounded down drinks every night in the local taverns. Some of them could stop when they had to, but many, many were full-blown alcoholics. Where'd they get that idea? Their ancestors in Ireland and Sweden and Poland did the same thing. They drank in the summer because it was hot and in the winter because it was cold. It's not as if they eschewed other ways to get high — there were no other ways. My late father and I were talking about crack once at the beginning of that epidemic and he said to me, "Honestly, I told you kids not to do drugs but if stuff like that had been around when I was young, I probably would have done it."
And now that it is around, people ARE doing it. In droves. Meth is just popular because it's cheap and easy to make, it doesn't have to be imported, avoiding the risk of arrest at many points, and manufacturers love it because the users get hooked. Yes, it's a terrible drug and it destroys lives, families, and towns. But when people are hopeless they do the closest stupid thing.
Yes, it's destroyed my cousin's life at a young age. She's made every wrong decision because of drugs and meth. And the guys think they're men with it, she goes to them and they steal and she steals, they're all thieve and going to jail and have broken their family's trust. Their respect and dignity is gone and they're a ***** to the drug and I believe its nationwide too, probably with the exception of large cities and suburbs where there are more distractions and hoops to jump.
It seems the scourge of affluent suburbs is heroin. Since rural areas lack access thereto or the money to buy it, meth is an easy substitute.
Really? I heard that there is a rash of overdoses in Texas because of a cheap heroin called "black tar" that is almost pure. Nope, I would say the scourge of affluent suburbs is cocaine. Which isn't nearly so deadly as either of the aforementioned concoctions.
20yrsinBranson
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