• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Those Mexican Imports

Mike

Well-known member
AP IMPACT: Cartels flood US with cheap meth

Posted: Oct 11, 2012 2:20 AM CDT
Updated: Oct 11, 2012 11:08 AM CDT
AP NATIONAL NEWS VIDEOmore>>
Chicago police find about 1,500 pot plants in city
Voter response after first debate
Romney: 'Victory is in sight' after first debate
FACT CHECK: Presidential debate missteps
Obama, Romney clash on economy in first debate

By JIM SALTER
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Mexican drug cartels are quietly filling the void in the nation's drug market created by the long effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factory-like "superlabs."

Although Mexican meth is not new to the U.S. drug trade, it now accounts for as much as 80% of the meth sold here, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is as much as 90% pure, a level that offers users a faster, more intense and longer-lasting high.

"These are sophisticated, high-tech operations in Mexico that are operating with extreme precision," said Jim Shroba, a DEA agent in St. Louis. "They're moving it out the door as fast as they can manufacture it."

The cartels are expanding into the U.S. meth market just as they did with heroin: developing an inexpensive, highly addictive form of the drug and sending it through the same pipeline already used to funnel marijuana and cocaine, authorities said.

Seizures of meth along the Southwest border have more than quadrupled during the last several years. DEA records reviewed by The Associated Press show that the amount of seized meth jumped from slightly more than 4,000 pounds in 2007 to more than 16,000 pounds in 2011.

During that same period, the purity of Mexican meth shot up too, from 39% in 2007 to 88% by 2011, according to DEA documents. The price fell 69%, tumbling from $290 per pure gram to less than $90.

Mexican meth has a clearer, glassier appearance than more crudely produced formulas and often resembles ice fragments, usually with a clear or bluish-white color. It often has a smell people compare to ammonia, cat urine or even burning plastic.

"You can look at it and see it has a much more pure look," said Paul Roach, a DEA agent in Denver.

The rise of Mexican meth doesn't mean American labs have disappeared. The number of U.S. meth labs continues to rise even as federal, state and local laws place heavy restrictions on the purchase of cold and allergy pills containing pseudoephedrine, a major component in the most common meth recipe.

The crackdowns that began a decade ago have made it more difficult to prepare large batches, so many American meth users have turned to a simpler method that uses a 2-liter soda bottle filled with just enough ingredients to produce a small amount of the drug for personal use.

But south of the border, meth is being made on an industrial scale. Sophisticated factories put out tons of the drug using formulas developed by professional chemists. The final product often is smuggled into the U.S. taped beneath tractor-trailers or hidden inside packages of other drugs.

While clandestine U.S. labs generally supply rural areas, Mexican meth is mostly targeted to urban and suburban users. Increasingly large quantities are turning up in dozens of American cities, including Dallas, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis and Salt Lake City, according to the DEA.

The marketing format follows a well-established pattern. By simultaneously increasing the purity and cutting the price, the cartels get people hooked and create a new customer base.

"They're marketing geniuses," said Jack Riley, the agent in charge of the DEA office in Chicago.

When Illinois authorities recently confiscated 1,000 pounds of Mexican marijuana, they found 10 pounds of meth hidden among the pot - essentially a free sample for the distributor to give out to drug users, Riley said.

Until recently, meth was seldom seen in major urban areas, except in biker gangs and parts of the gay community, Riley said.

"We've never really seen it on the street like we've seen cocaine and heroin," Riley said. He worries that if the estimated 180,000 members of street gangs in Chicago get involved in meth trafficking, violence could follow.

Like the U.S., Mexico has tightened laws and regulations on pseudoephedrine, though some labs still are able to obtain large amounts from China and India. To fill the void, cartel chemists have turned to an old recipe known as P2P that first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in some parts of the western U.S.

That recipe uses the organic compound phenylacetone. Because of its use in meth, the U.S. government made it a controlled substance in 1980, essentially stopping that form of meth in the U.S. But in Mexico, the cartels can get phenylacetone from other countries, DEA experts said.

In the third quarter of 2011, 85% of lab samples taken from U.S. meth seizures came from the P2P process - up from 50% a little more than a year earlier, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said.

Federal agents say the influx of meth from Mexico illustrates the difficulty of waging a two-front war on the drug in neighboring countries. When one source of the drug is dealt a setback, other suppliers step in to satisfy relentless demand.

Considering the relatively untapped market of bigger American cities, the rise of Mexican meth is not surprising, said Illinois State University criminologist Ralph Weisheit, a meth expert.

"It's something that was inevitable," Weisheit said. "This wasn't hard to predict."

American authorities are not the only ones taking notice. The sharp spike in meth activity also is evident from the other side of the border. Seizures of labs and chemicals have increased nearly 1,000% in the past two years.

Last year, Mexican authorities made two major busts in the quiet central state of Queretaro, seizing nearly 500 tons of precursor chemicals and 3.4 tons of pure meth with a street value of more than $100 million. In Sinaloa, investigators found a sophisticated underground lab equipped with an elevator and ventilation systems as well as cooking and sleeping facilities. The facility was reachable only by a nearly 100-foot tunnel with its opening concealed under a tractor shed.

And in February, soldiers in western Mexico made a historic seizure: 15 tons of pure methamphetamine, a haul that could have supplied 13 million doses worth more than $4 billion.

The meth problem is spilling into other parts of Latin America too. In December and January, Mexican authorities seized nearly 900 tons of precursor chemicals at Mexican ports, almost all of it bound for Guatemala, which seized about 1,600 tons of meth precursors in 2011 - four times the 400 tons seized there a year earlier.

For now, cocaine remains far and away the cartels' most profitable drug. The RAND Corp. estimates the annual street value of cocaine is about $30 billion, heroin about $20 billion and meth about $5 billion.

But cocaine is getting more expensive and less pure. According to the DEA, the price per pure gram of cocaine rose 59% from 2007 through September 2011. At the same time, the purity level dropped 25%.

Cocaine also typically comes from Colombia, meaning Mexican cartels serve as middle men who compete against each other to smuggle it into the U.S. That marginalizes their profits.

Because methamphetamine is a synthetic drug the cartels can make for themselves, the profit potential is enormous.

"It's not plant-based," Weisheit said. "It can be completely produced in Mexico. It's very compact, and that makes it easy to smuggle."

Associated Press writers Mark Stevenson in Mexico City and Christopher Sherman in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.
 

Traveler

Well-known member
Sure hope they remember to stop and pick up their Food Stamps after they've delivered the contraband. Good thing they've been provided with Fast and Furious weapons.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/01/obama-usda-met-30-times-with-mexican-govt-to-promote-food-stamp-use-among-mexican-immigrants
 

Steve

Well-known member
Federal agents say the influx of meth from Mexico illustrates the difficulty of waging a two-front war on the drug in neighboring countries. When one source of the drug is dealt a setback, other suppliers step in to satisfy relentless demand.

I am not for drug use,.. quite the opposite.. but,..

at a certain point we will realize prohibition hasn't worked..
 

Mike

Well-known member
Steve said:
Federal agents say the influx of meth from Mexico illustrates the difficulty of waging a two-front war on the drug in neighboring countries. When one source of the drug is dealt a setback, other suppliers step in to satisfy relentless demand.

I am not for drug use,.. quite the opposite.. but,..

at a certain point we will realize prohibition hasn't worked..

I have a solution. Make all the drug users move to California and let them have at it. Shouldn't be but a short while before they weed themselves out.
 

Larrry

Well-known member
Mike said:
Steve said:
Federal agents say the influx of meth from Mexico illustrates the difficulty of waging a two-front war on the drug in neighboring countries. When one source of the drug is dealt a setback, other suppliers step in to satisfy relentless demand.

I am not for drug use,.. quite the opposite.. but,..

at a certain point we will realize prohibition hasn't worked..

I have a solution. Make all the drug users move to California and let them have at it. Shouldn't be but a short while before they weed themselves out.

Maybe obama will move there after the Nov election
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Oldtimer said:
Legalising marijuana: most Americans get it, so when will our politicians?

Gary Johnson guardian.co.uk, Saturday 6 October 2012 08.00 EDT

Prohibition in the US was a huge, miserable failure. During its 13-year run, beginning in 1920, Prohibition caused a massive rise in organized crime and actually increased alcohol consumption instead of curtail it.

After Prohibition's repeal in 1933, kids didn't start drinking in record numbers. Society didn't collapse. Today, bathtub gin dealers don't run amok on playgrounds; microbreweries don't protect their turf with automatic weapons. Instead, a safe environment to drink was created when the government began regulating and taxing alcohol.

And yet, here we are in 2012, giving Prohibition another shot. For lack of a better word, that's just stupid.

Today, instead of alcohol prohibition, we've got the government's harmful attempt to prohibit marijuana use. With record federal deficits and states teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, why do we insist on dumping billions of tax dollars into another failed prohibition that is accomplishing nothing other than making criminals out of millions of regular citizens and fueling drug cartels that threaten our security?


Last year, 800,000 people were arrested in the United States for crimes associated with marijuana – and marijuana alone. It's insane to arrest people for choosing to use a natural substance that is, by any objective standard, less harmful than alcohol, a drug that is advertised at every major sporting event. Think of the strain and costs to our law enforcement, court system and prisons. And for what? Is marijuana use decreasing? No. Are cartels any less powerful and violent? I'm afraid not. Is pot difficult for minors to obtain? Nope. In fact, when polled, kids say it's easier to get marijuana than it is to get alcohol. Why? It's simple. Black market dealers don't ID.

And yet we go around and around … trying the same methods and always getting the same terrible results. Isn't it time to try something different?

In 1999, when I was governor of New Mexico, I began advocating for marijuana legalization. At the time, there were precious few high-ranking elected officials willing to stick out their necks for this issue. It was considered political suicide.

Today, polls in the US show that at least 50% of Americans are now open to the idea or fully supportive of legalizing marijuana. My experience is that, the more people look at the drug issue, the more they recognize that the "war on drugs" is a dismal and expensive failure. It's costing more than an absurd sum of money; it's costing people their future.

In the US, 100 million people have themselves violated our drug laws at some time or another. In fact, President Obama has readily admitted his own youthful drug use. Had he been caught and arrested, would he be president today? How many promising young people's lives and ambitions are being derailed by senseless drug laws?

This November, voters in several states will have the opportunity to vote on marijuana legalization and medical marijuana laws. I hope the citizens of these states will carefully consider these initiatives. Once they do, I'm confident they'll give them their full support. They just make too much sense. And as more states begin to align their laws with common sense and reality, it is inevitable that the federal government will eventually follow.

I strongly believe the tide is turning on this issue, and it's because of education and thoughtful discussion. The more we learn about marijuana and our federal government's futile and ill-advised attempt to prohibit it, the more the solution becomes clear. America will be better-off when marijuana is managed like alcohol and tobacco. Our border with Mexico will be safer, and addiction will at last be treated as the health concern it is, rather than as a criminal justice issue.

It's truly unfortunate that President Obama doesn't see what's coming. Not only does he refuse to acknowledge the support this issue is gaining, more shockingly, he has blatantly gone back on his promise to allow states to administer their own marijuana laws. The Obama administration has shut down hundreds of state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries and is currently threatening to shut down many more.

It's odd: when it comes to marriage rights, President Obama is quick to cede the federal government's power to the states. But when it comes to states deciding for themselves how best to tackle the marijuana issue, Obama steps right in and insists that the federal government knows best.

I am confident American voters this November will send a signal that the time is long past that we stop putting people behind bars and forever labeling them as criminals for behavior that is personal, private, and no more "criminal" than drinking alcohol or taking legal pain medicine.

When that signal is sent, perhaps we can put an end to modern-day Prohibition, just as we did nearly 80 years ago.

This is Johnsons take on the lost War on Drugs...I agree we are just shoveling $$$ down the sewer....There has to be a better way- and prohibition was a good example of a nonworking system....

This reminded me of back in the 70's when the Federal Law Enforcement agencies -especially the FBI- was having trouble getting recruits to pass the background checks... They were requiring college degrees (law and accounting mostly)- but also rejecting anyone that had ever used or tried any illegal drug including marijuana ... They ended up having to change their requirements- and allow folks that had used pot and admitted it- in order to keep from losing so many top applicants....

Last year I was called as a juror on a District court case involving a fellow that had gave another person (police informant) a joint at a party... I didn't get to stay on the jury- but afterward I got to thinking of the huge cost of calling in 60 potential jurors- tying up a Judge, court attendents, several law enforcement, and several attorneys (both Prosecutors and Public defender paid for by tax dollars) for at least 3 days (attorneys even longer) ????....

I also believe like Johnson does that our money could well better be spent in addiction treatment and education-- much like the Montana Meth Project:
http://montana.methproject.org/
 

Mike

Well-known member
Marijuana and Meth are two entirely different subjects. I don't think pot is addictive nor nearly as life changing as Meth.

Your story is irrelevant. So is Johnson.
 

ranch hand

Well-known member
You legalize one drug you have to do them all or we will still be fighting drug wars. Would you like a bunch of
Meth heads living next door? How about all the
Money spent on other illegal acts, rape, murder ? Do we make them legal to save money? Think how many would be on welfare because their money went for buying drugs and would be too drugged up to work. Oh that is right, occupy movement does that now.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Mike said:
Marijuana and Meth are two entirely different subjects. I don't think pot is addictive nor nearly as life changing as Meth.

Your story is irrelevant. So is Johnson.

I think its very relevant when the Billions $ being spent on marijuana interdiction and eradication along with all the court cases and jail and prison costs could be spent fighting heroin, coke, and meth..There are now around 100 Federal Prisons in the country- and the population of prisoners convicted of drug crimes has increase 15 times over since 1980...Additional tax revenues from "legal" marijuana could help pay the cost of dealing with the hard drugs....

And with all types of drugs- we can never beat the drug cartels by policing- and locking folks up...We can only beat them by education, treatment, and taking away the demand in this country...
 

Mike

Well-known member
ranch hand said:
You legalize one drug you have to do them all or we will still be fighting drug wars.

When I was in Alaska in the early 1970's, pot was legal. You could not legally buy it, but could grow it inside your home.

If caught driving under the influence of pot, it was the same as driving drunk.

Don't know when they changed the rule but it seemed that since it was no longer taboo, the consumption of pot went down during the time I was there.

One of the bigggest problems in the U.S. now is prescription drugs (and the ensuing addictions) and they are totally legal and controlled. Yet out of hand.
 

Steve

Well-known member
ranch hand said:
You legalize one drug you have to do them all or we will still be fighting drug wars. Would you like a bunch of
Meth heads living next door? How about all the
Money spent on other illegal acts, rape, murder ? Do we make them legal to save money? Think how many would be on welfare because their money went for buying drugs and would be too drugged up to work. Oh that is right, occupy movement does that now.

they are already spending welfare money on meth.. crack, heroin booze and pot..

by decriminalizing drugs,.. with the exception of heroin.. we could set dosage standards and ID requirements.. and even require a "test" before getting an ID...

and exclude welfare to the users..

right now we have NO control.. with laws and regulations we have control..
 

Mike

Well-known member
Steve said:
ranch hand said:
You legalize one drug you have to do them all or we will still be fighting drug wars. Would you like a bunch of
Meth heads living next door? How about all the
Money spent on other illegal acts, rape, murder ? Do we make them legal to save money? Think how many would be on welfare because their money went for buying drugs and would be too drugged up to work. Oh that is right, occupy movement does that now.

they are already spending welfare money on meth.. crack, heroin booze and pot..

by decriminalizing drugs,.. with the exception of heroin.. we could set dosage standards and ID requirements.. and even require a "test" before getting an ID...



and exclude welfare to the users..

right now we have NO control.. with laws and regulations we have control..

How do you expect to control illegal drugs when we can't even control the legal ones?
 

okfarmer

Well-known member
I don't have any experience with it personally, but I know that if there is an addixction there will still be a demand creating a black market if you try to limit what an addict can buy. Try that with alcohol and watch boot legging come back.

Secondly, if marijuana can be grown cheaply- what are you going to gain by taxing it? If the tax is very steep at all- again, you will create a black market. If it is legal, a lot of people will grow there own- you will have to still police that requiring money, or lose the taxes you think you will gain. It is way easier to grow a olant than make and run a distillery. This is not black and white. I think you will see production decrease across the board. You ever worked with a pot head? Gosh, I hate explaining something multiple times because their short term memory was short circuited when they went home. I like the fact that I can cull them by a positive test.
 

okfarmer

Well-known member
I have a really dumb smart phone and a large thumb, it is hard to read much of what I type so try overlook the extra letters my thumb sometimes adds.
 

Steve

Well-known member
Mike said:
Steve said:
ranch hand said:
You legalize one drug you have to do them all or we will still be fighting drug wars. Would you like a bunch of
Meth heads living next door? How about all the
Money spent on other illegal acts, rape, murder ? Do we make them legal to save money? Think how many would be on welfare because their money went for buying drugs and would be too drugged up to work. Oh that is right, occupy movement does that now.

they are already spending welfare money on meth.. crack, heroin booze and pot..

by decriminalizing drugs,.. with the exception of heroin.. we could set dosage standards and ID requirements.. and even require a "test" before getting an ID...



and exclude welfare to the users..

right now we have NO control.. with laws and regulations we have control..

How do you expect to control illegal drugs when we can't even control the legal ones?

there are modest controls on legal drugs that are abused, even cigarettes are bootlegged..

we will never stop crime.. or abuse...

but like alcohol, few addicts actuality put any real effort into distilling or bootlegging..

it still happens but it is rare.. and few distilling gangs roam the country...

right now drug addicts are funding gangs and terrorists. ... and they are spreading violence..

even in countries with draconian drug laws that hang drug offenders still have drug use..
 
Top