Newsweek—Anytown, USA, can be turned into a meth den almost overnight. Take Bradford County in northeast Pennsylvania, a place law-enforcement officials nationwide now refer to as “Meth Valley.” Five years ago a meth cooker from Iowa named Les Molyneaux set up shop in Towanda, a town of 3,000 along the Susquehanna River. Hardly anyone in Towanda had heard of the drug, but by the time Molyneaux was arrested and pleaded guilty in 2001 to conspiracy to manufacture meth, he’d shared his recipe with at least two apprentices. From there, “it just spread like wildfire,” says Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Casey. Today police have identified at least 500 people who are using or cooking the drug in Bradford County, and the actual tally is probably “significantly worse” than that, Casey says. The drug has seduced whole families and turned them into “zombies,” says Randy Epler, a police officer in Towanda. “I see walking death.”