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It is no surprise, then, that this is the domain in which the political focus on narcotics has had its deepest impact. The response to methamphetamine has involved the repetition of old patterns of enforcement but also the introduction of new trajectories. Chapter 2 explores one of those new trajectories, an assemblage of policing practices made possible by the fact that methamphetamine can be produced domestically using everyday household items. The focus of politicians, lawmakers, and criminal justice officials on stopping this form of domestic production has introduced new avenues for the exercise of police power, including its extension beyond the formal domains of law enforcement.

The shrinking of the licit market created opportunities and demand for more extensive illicit production and distribution (Miller 1997). Thus methamphetamine is the product of the process Anne Lovell has called “pharmaceutical leakage” (Lovell 2006). As Lovell demonstrates in the case of high-dose buprenorphine, the licit development and sale of pharmaceuticals is always shadowed by the creation of an illicit market in which the drug simultaneously circulates. The interdependence of the two markets makes it extremely difficult to regulate either in isolation.

Moreover, the same percentage stated that the drug war could not succeed, agreeing with the statement, “Demand is so high we will never stop drug use” (PEW 2001, 1). My fieldwork gave me no reason to suggest that attitudes have changed. And yet, despite this pessimism, there was little interest expressed in stopping the drug war or even considering alternative strategies (such as the establishment of more drug-treatment programs for drug users or the decriminalization of drugs). Indeed, even the de-escalation of certain components of the drug war (such as the rolling back of mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders) received only tepid endorsement from those surveyed (only 45% thought it was “a good idea”).