U.S. manufacturers just cannot catch a break: Mexican meth, heroin, coke and mj

[No Elephants]

Oct 11, 3:12 AM EDT

AP IMPACT: Cartels flood US with cheap meth

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 factorylike "superlabs."

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

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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.

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The rise of Mexican meth doesn't mean that 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.

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

much, much more at
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MEXICAN_METH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-11-03-12-38

It's a very long article. If you are a drug user, you really should read the entire thing--and please buy local!

[Enthusiast]

1. Rather than invade Iraq, we should have invaded Mexico.

There was actually more justification for invading Mexico than Iraq. If the U.S. was serious about disrupting the drug supply, that is. Mexico was doing tangible harm to our nation. Iraq, not so much.

But drug profit is a huge motivating force and powerful U.S. citizens with political influence are making a fortune from drug profit.

We keep hearing rumors that the C.I.A. has been involved with drug smuggling historically. What I have found about the right wing U.S. intelligence services is always believe the worst for the most accurate assessment.

The drug war is an utter failure. All it serves to accomplish is keeping the drugs scarce enough to keep values artificially elevated. Is that the real reason for the drug war?

[No Elephants]

2. The War on Drugs It was the first of our fake wars.

Then, we had the War on Poverty. Good programs, but we surrendered. Apparently, poverty was just too difficult for the richest country in the world to defeat.

Then, we had the War on Terror. This was the first fake war in which Presidents actually used their war powers. And, it will probably last forever.