Throughout the book Methland by Nick Reding continues to explain the struggle of Oelwein, Iowa. What was used to be thought only as a district problem was now a national problem. The capital of America; Washington DC was noticing more about small meth towns and determined to do take actions. The State wondered what to do about the meth and wealth economies because if one started to rise the other started to fall. This was the start of the "war on meth". The government went from ignoring the problem to being very alarmed. The Combat Methamphetamine Act was passed in September 2006 (Reding, P. 67). This was to attempt decreasing the supplies, so the meth would be harder to produce but it did the opposite. It created a new formula for meth that …show more content…
With this small town labs went up 300%. In the late 1950's and early 60's, it is thought that Oelwein was a location for Chicago Mobsters to reside. With Mobsters; no one would step out of line and there was practically no trouble what so ever, but a lot has changed since that time. The economy has gotten worse and inferior, in March of 2006 Tyson Meat Factory closed losing hundreds of jobs and leaving people in Oelwein without a job. Larry Murphy had a plan to get Oelwein on a better pathway. He set up a two phase method. He was tired of having nearby towns using Oelwein as its ghetto. Phase one of the plan was just to prepare in 2005, but Phase two was a revitalization plan- tearing down almost all of Oelwein and restoring and renovating it. Reding discusses Nathan Lein's life and how he was having some complications, his brother just passed away and lately he has not been getting along with his parents. Nathan's girlfriend that he has been dating for a while moved to Waterloo, the relationship was not working out so he let it slide away. Later Nathan found another girl named Jamie, they moved in together but because he did not tell his parents as they would not