Policing methamphetamine : narcopolitics in rural America /

This case study traces the growing alarm about the problem of methamphetamine manufacture and use in five rural West Virginia counties. Citizens and social service professionals deferred to criminal justice officials as the experts on methamphetamine, which resulted in a pervading "narco-politics" designed to monitor and influence use patterns among the population and built on the assumption that drug use and criminality are inextricably linked. Law enforcement promoted drug testing as a key prevention strategy. Parents asked authorities to test their children, and students used school-based prevention programs to be tested and thus demonstrate their abstinence to parents. Law enforcement officials also held community presentations providing tips on how to recognize the methamphetamine user. Garriott (justice studies, James Madison Univ.) also provides discussions of how narco-politics affects individual citizens, providing in-depth accounts of their use histories and experiences within the criminal justice system, where the emphasis was on evaluating one's personal potential for methamphetamine use versus punishment for a particular legal offense. Although the author makes important theoretical insights, especially drawing on Michel Foucault, these are forgotten in the too brief and unsatisfying conclusion. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. B. J. Goetz Western Michigan University