Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you buy a CD the best songs on it don’t get any radio play?

An OK song gets played over and over again, but everyone you talk to who owns the album agrees that there are much better tunes that get ignored.

Then you discover some band that blows away the competition but for some reason can’t get on a major label, and nobody hears about them.

You begin to wonder if record companies are giving people what the people want or if they’re giving people what the record companies want.

That’s how I feel about living in Iowa. When I left in 1992, it seemed like a pretty nice place to be.

Upon my return in 1996, I found that the Des Moines Register had magically transformed from a newspaper into the “Anti-meth Journal.”

It took me a while to figure out what exactly meth was and why it was so much worse than any other drug.

According to Thursday’s Anti-meth Journal, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature backed off their life without parole for drug dealers proposal, in favor of a “moderate” plan that calls for 99 years in the slammer for people who deal methamphetamine to minors.

If you rat on higher level dealers you can get the sentence reduced so you can be back on the streets to get murdered by the people you finked on in five years.

Not to be outdone, John Cacciatior, the governor’s policy director, said “if you sell the drug to Iowa kids it will be the last thing you do.”

I guess what makes meth so bad is that the village idiot can make it out of stuff from the grocery store.

Because it has Clorox in it, there are a lot of nasty chemicals that don’t contribute to the euphoria that do a number on your body. Worst of all, it is one of the most addictive drugs around, more so than cocaine or nicotine.

Despite all of the hoopla, I refuse to concede that Iowa has a meth problem. I have never seen or heard of anyone using meth, and I know my share of drug aficionados.

Besides, the drug use of others has never affected me beyond tax and insurance dollars.

If I suspect my next door neighbor is making meth, all I have to do is tip off the police and head for the mall.

The police, sheriff and state patrol will race to be the first ones on the scene, and by the time I’ve blown all my quarters at the arcade, the problem will be resolved.

Law enforcement agencies will step over their own mothers to rack up the meth stats.

If you want to get rid of the French foreign exchange student that’s closing in on your girlfriend, make up some story about his herbal, alpine meth, and he’ll be back in France before he can say “due process.”

Anything that can be fixed in half an hour is not a problem.

It’s a sitcom.

So why would there be all of this hubbub about methamphetamines? It’s a facade, an attempt to distract us all from Iowa’s real problem.

Last year, I flew out of the Des Moines airport. When we got north of Des Moines, I looked out the window only to be stunned by the incredible number of hog confinement buildings coating the landscape.

I also noticed that they are always at least a mile from the interstate so that people from cities and other states don’t find out about Iowa’s dark secret.

At first glance there isn’t a problem. Hog confinements are a more efficient method of pork production.

But this is precisely the problem. Pork production is big money, and just like the record companies, the interests of the public are pushed to the wayside.

Many of the facts surrounding confinement buildings are either ignored or not investigated.

Why do you think Republicans cut funding to the National Swine Research Center here at Iowa State?

Was it puny pork barrel spending, or were they afraid what they might find out.

The fact of the matter is that hog confinement buildings have an overpowering stench.

Ironically, it’s this stench that makes them ideal places for meth labs, as it masks the smell of the ether which is used in the manufacture of meth.

It is not just a bad smell; there is also ammonia and dust that causes respiratory problems in confinement building workers.

Neighbors of confinements report headaches and can’t sit in their own living rooms without the stench of hogs they don’t own.

Not to mention the huge amounts of crap that has to go somewhere. Lagoons full of manure are breeding grounds for disease, poisonous gasses and stench.

When these lagoons burst, they can kill entire streams for miles down stream.

There is also price fixing that goes on in the pork industry, making it difficult to make it unless you’re on the top.

If I’m worried about the hog confinement next door there is no one I can call. The state legislature took the power to regulate hog confinements away from the counties.

I have always thought that you shouldn’t attack drug use but rather take away the reasons behind it.

While the state legislature plays hero handing out 99 year jail terms for drugs, a much greater problem is being ignored and allowed to grow because someone is making a lot of money.

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Erik Hoversten is a senior in math and physics from Eagan, Minn. He has large amounts of ether hidden in his closet.