Methland: the Death and Life of an American Small Town, by Nick Reding, narrated by Mark Boyett, produced by Audible Inc., downloaded from audible.com.

Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Journalist Nick Reding, originally from Iowa with his family still there, becomes enmeshed in the story of Crystal Meth and its effect on the Midwestern small towns. He chooses one of the hardest hit towns, Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other small towns across the country, has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy, and an out-migration of people.
Because of the economic vacuum left by loss of jobs and foreclosure of small farms, an incredibly cheap, long lasting, and highly addictive drug has become the production of choice. Over a period of four years, Nick Reding brings us into the heart of Oelwein through a cast of characters, including the mayor, the chief of police, the town doctor, the prosecutor, and a meth addict who has tried to kick the habit for 20 years. Reding compares the takeover of small town by meth to an epidemic caused for example by a retro virus that keeps changing shape. The dealers of this drug have also changed with the times. While agriculture has become consolidated into a few large farms owned by the grain elevators where they unload the grain, meth now comes strictly out of Mexico. The small dealers and the mom and pop meth labs can generally be shut down, but the Mexican mafia is a very different problem. Small towns struggle to survive this meth epidemic, and whether or not they will succeed remains to be seen.