Reviewed by: The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition by Jason Pine William Garriott Jason Pine. The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 203 pp. Jason Pine. The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. 203 pp. I have been looking forward to The Alchemy of Meth for some time. Having read Pine's earlier work on methamphetamine and "narcocapitalism" (Pine 2007), I was excited to read his book-length treatment of the topic. What I found surprised me. It is not a conventional academic text. The introduction, for instance, provides only a brief overview of the book's main theme: home methamphetamine production and its place within the "late industrial" United States. There is no literature review, no index, and the bibliography is spartan at best. Instead, the book is organized as a series of vignettes, observations, and artefacts. Some are stories of people, whose lives are caught up in methamphetamine and unfold over the course of the text. Some are excerpts from other sources, ranging from the Bible to the writings of medieval and Renaissance alchemists. And some detail natural changes taking place in the Missouri landscape—a reminder, in Pine's words, that "there's an ordinary seasonal world just outside the often claustrophobic worlds of meth making" (xix). So written, the book is "a decomposition" that traces the entwinement of people, things, and lives in the context of methamphetamine. The Alchemy of Meth defies easy summary. It is a book about methamphetamine production in the midwestern US. Methamphetamine is a strong central nervous system stimulant that has risen in popularity over the past two decades. It is unique in that it is one of the few illicit drugs that can be manufactured domestically. The production process can take several forms but relies on toxic ingredients such as battery acid and [End Page 825] anhydrous ammonia that, when combined, are always at high risk of exploding. Meth's association with white, rural populations has helped spur the racial and spatial reconfiguration of the "drug problem" in the US in the 21st century, from an urban black problem to a rural white one. It has had a particularly significant impact on the midwestern US, where The Alchemy of Meth is set. The book centers on a northeastern Missouri county that Pine calls St. Jude. For most of two decades it held the national record for most meth lab busts, leading some to call it the "meth capital" of the United States. Pine goes to great lengths to normalize rather than fetishize meth production, situating it "as one craft within a repertoire of local material cultural practices" (xvi). To this end, he is quick to note that everyday life in the county of 200,000 people is not dominated by methamphetamine. But the fact that meth has thrived here tells us something about the town's place in the spacetime of late industrialism and its hallmarks of "deteriorating infrastructures, wasted landscapes, climate change, knowledge production, and governance laced with commercial interests, and the persistent desire for toxic consumer goods that continues to motivate their mass manufacture" (xiv). Pine does not detail his methods, but he does mention spending a lot of time doing the kinds of things ethnographers typically do. He interviewed meth users and cooks, and he explored the remains of over 200 former meth labs. He also spent time doing less meth-centered activities. He hung out in local bars, restaurants, churches, and libraries; he participated in Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Lions Club social events, and gatherings of the Photography Club and Paranormal Society; and he spent time speaking with lots of different kinds of people—from federal police and drug-treatment specialists to farmers and dentists. More so than most ethnographers, Pine focused on things—from the ephemera at flea markets to those things left behind at the sites of former meth labs. This focus on things ties into his interest in alchemy, which serves as an allegory throughout, both for meth manufacturing and for the kind of decompositional approach he takes. The book centers on a small group of people that Pine groups into ten "dramatis persona." Four...
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Nov 15, 2020
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