People think of the Midwest as the “Heartland of America." It’s where families raise strong, hard working people who provide the food for not only the country but the entire planet. It’s a place where people feel safe in their whitewashed farmhouses and rusty Ford trucks, where community is a thing that keeps people in line with biblical morality.  

These are the stereotypes. But the truth is more complicated and, in this case, more terrifying.  

The Midwest is also a place of secrets – of people whose existence depends on illusions of stability and never letting your neighbor know what you've got. It’s a place where the young learn hard labor early on the farm, the exciting world they see on MTV a universe away.

Just across the Missouri River from Omaha is Glenwood, Iowa, a successful farming community. On the surface, it seems like any other small Midwestern town. Siblings Brian and Sarah Sell, Glenwood natives from a family of upstanding community leaders, never dreamed that the methamphetamine epidemic starting in the mid-1990's would have an effect on their family.

No one imagines their mother could become a junkie.

But then, few people recognized what was coming. Uppers like “speed” date back more than half a century. However when the new, high-powered version called "crystal meth" came along, it was like nothing anyone had ever seen. Cooked in trailers and abandoned farmhouses, this cheap recipe is a hyper-addictive cocktail of stolen fertilizers and pseudoephedrine, an over-the-counter cold medicine. Few anticipated the new wave of meth that today is produced en masse in super labs in Mexico, flowing north over the border and moving along the U.S. interstate system into rural America. Who knew that this cheap, easy to make substance would be enough to turn ordinary folks into human wreckage?

Through interviews with sheriffs, judges, and congressmen, Methamerica reveals that while the country struggles with war in Iraq and the war on marijuana at home, the meth epidemic continues to claim lives. The true victims of meth are the children of users who suffer horrific abuse and neglect. Methamerica explores the new world of law enforcement, where cops, judges, and prison systems must deal with a revolving door of addiction, child endangerment, and heartbreaking abuse.

The film searches Glenwood and other rural towns for answers and investigates how the Heartland could descend into something so dark, sinister, and desperate. Through interviews with addicts and dealers, the underbelly of the drug culture is exposed, including the extreme measures many will go to while chasing the next high.

Dusted with dry Midwestern humor, these are the first hand stories of a broken America. Through both intimate portraits of crystal meth abuse and broad scope insight into the national meth epidemic, this sweeping feature documentary reveals that meth, the fast food of drugs, is eating America alive.