Editorial, Commercial and Advertising Photographer Edward Linsmier is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From his personal project ‘Methamphetamines’. To see Edward’s body of work click on any image.
I began working on this story in 2001 during my first attempt at a photo essay while studying Photojournalism. The subject I was working with went to get some cocaine. After snorting it with some friends, he said they knew it was actually crank by the high that it gave them. I had no idea what crank was at the time or the devastating ways in which it would touch so many lives. Little did I know that was part of the upswing of the methamphetamine culture that would move in and take many in the Midwest into an iron grip of addiction in the mid 2000’s. It has been many years since I worked on this story and so much has changed – instead of it being made by users, it is mostly trafficked in now resulting in addicts in every corner of the country. Although the severity of the meth epidemic seems overshadowed by the current opioid crisis, it continues to rip apart lives and families. My sobering conclusion is that searching for a solution to the meth epidemic is the same as searching for a solution to evil itself.
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By Edward Linsmier
