Reding views Oelwein as a proxy for any small town in America, particularly in the Iowa region. Its industries, fragile economy, and drug problems make it analogous to many other towns its size. This framing allows Reding to hypothesize that any small town could be susceptible to the same dangers as Oelwein. Oelwein is a symbol of unstable small-town life, and the fragility of rural economies.

Reding defines mirror imaging as “a process whereby a chemical’s molecular structure is reversed, moving, for example, electrons from the bottom of a certain ring to the top, and vice versa” (117). In Methland, mirror imaging refers to the ways in which various precursors for the manufacture of methamphetamine can be altered to include or exclude various side effects. There are several points in Chapter 6 outlining how chemists could have altered substances used to make meth in ways that would make them effective as decongestants or cold medications, but that would render them incapable of being used to produce meth.

Pharmaceutical lobbyists were able to block the mirror imaging initiatives, guaranteeing that the drug trafficking organizations had access to vast amounts of chemicals they could use to make meth. Reding estimates that two specific mirror imaged drugs, had they been approved and produced, “could have effectively accomplished what Gene Haislip and DEA had five times been unable to achieve between 1984 and 1996” (118).