I've seen the drugs impact our rural communities. Kind of makes sense, there's no jobs (not easily found), one must drive forever to the few jobs that they do find, etc. And I have heard (not seen) the impact of these drugs on the rural population. Way too much. And, to boot, renting or buying a place is so expensive in a city vs. the middle of nowhere, Missouri. I don't say this to mock the state, it's just that way.
COVID, in a lot of areas out in the rural areas, well, how often did you see your neighbors? Sometimes I'd go weeks before seeing them, so COVID spreading around a lot in the country, not so much. The drugs, yes. We had a big problem w/ drugs in the country. I don't speak for all, but we've seen enough of the drug issue.
The highway patrol would ask us / my parents if they could station their officers on our properties (these were mostly woods, so easy to hide, observe), so they can observe questionable neighbors across the road from us. Of course we didn't mind, and if anything, we were appreciative.
Apparently, these neighbors had numerous people stopping by (20 miles from the nearest town, on an isolated 2-lane highway?). There was some suspicion that drugs were being dealt w/. My parents and I were very cautious in dealing w/ these neighbors, didn't deal w/ them very often. We even found where they planted some pot in an isolated field of ours in the back (pretty far off the beaten path), and we never said anything, we were too afraid of what might happen if we had said anything.
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