Photo courtesy of DEA.
Meth remains a growth industry with heavy demand across the country that has required increasing law enforcement resources to handle, according to Scripps Howard News Service report.
The number of meth lab incidents rose 39% from 2008 to 2011, according to Special Agent Jeffrey Scott of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The public has it wrong if it thinks the meth threat has disappeared just because we aren't hearing about "trailers catching fire or hotel rooms exploding," Scott told the media outlet.
About 80% of the meth on American streets comes from Mexico, smuggled over the Southwest border dissolved in water, windshield wiper fluid or beer or hiding in fruit or produce, according to the report.
In August, the DEA gave $12 million to Mexican federal police to secure clan labs, gather evidence, and destroy chemical precursors.
In 2011, U.S. seizures of meth within 75 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border reached 7,338 kilograms—more than twice the amount seized (3,064 kilos) in 2009.
The increasing popularity of meth's cheap, euphoric high appears to be replacing more pricey street drugs such as cocaine and heroin, according to the Department of Justice's October report "Monitoring Drug Epidemics and the Markets that Sustain Them." Marijuana remains widely popular as well.
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