The Associated Press has a report on how drugs are taking over communities in the Rust Belt region of the United States as the communities struggle to adapt to a new economic landscape.

Amid the bleak, run-down brick buildings, drug dealers drive around in shiny SUVs, Cadillacs and convertibles, the sun glinting off their chrome-plated spinning hubs.

Drugs and money are exchanged on street corners. Addicts crash in crack houses, some of them right downtown. Gunfights erupt between drug dealers jealously guarding their territory. Rival gangs — the L’s and the G’s — deal the crack that flows into this riverfront town from New Jersey, New York, Detroit and Washington.

In Rust Belt cities like Aliquippa, drugs moved in after steel moved out.

In 10 of 14 Rust Belt towns in six states surveyed by The Associated Press, all with populations of 30,000 or less, drug-related arrests more than doubled in the past 15 to 20 years, even as the number of residents declined in every community.

The United States Drug Market is estimated to be valued at $65 billion.