Methland The Death And Life Of An American Small Town post 3

The Next part of the book we come across a very interesting character Ronald Jarvis.  Roland Jarvis, a former meatpacking worker who burned his house down in 2001. Jarvis, who had a methamphetamine lab inside, was hallucinating that he saw black helicopters hovering overhead and, in a panic, dumped chemicals down the drain. The home went up in flames, and Jarvis was burned so badly that he begged the police to shoot him. Jarvis had third-degree burns over 78 percent of his body and spent three months in the burn unit in Iowa City, Iowa.  Even though he burned his hands off he still found a way to smoke meth which is amazing.  He taught himself how to light a lighter with what was left of his hands and hold a pipe in his mouth.  When i read that i stopped and said holy shit this is the most addictive drug.  The guy fuckin almost killed himself and still couldn't stop smoking meth.  Jarvis' addiction encapsulates what has happened to many small towns in America. Meth is a drug of the American working class, because it gives people "inordinate amounts of energy."  The story's in this book were just incredible like this next one about Lori Arnold.  She is the sister of actor Tom Arnold.  Laurie Arnold, a woman in Oelwein who turned meth dealing into a highly profitable enterprise, capitalizing on what Reding referred to as a culture of "vocational" meth use. As Reding chronicled, Arnold dropped out of high school her freshman year and experienced her first divorce by the age of 16. She went back to high school after her divorce, but quickly dropped out and re-married by age 18. Her second husband was an alcoholic and cocaine user who beat her whenever he drank. Furthermore, Arnold's husband was unable to take care of their kids because of his alcohol and drug problem, leaving the responsibility solely with Arnold.With her marital troubles, Arnold turned to meth use, and later to selling meth. Originally, she began dealing meth in small quantities. Over time, she made much larger sums of money, eventually reaching thousands of dollars for her routine sales. Arnold hired a dozen "runners" who frequently traveled to Long Beach, Calif., to transport the drugs and then ended up buying a car dealership so she had access to a variety of cars and dealership tags, making it harder for the authorities to keep tabs on her operation. While Arnold's meth enterprise was going on, the Drug Enforcement Agency was primarily concerned with cocaine use, and was not rapidly investigating meth operations. This allowed Arnold to hide her meth operation for many years without people ever becoming aware of the situation.She was eventually arrested and sent to jail were she later got out and got back into the business.