Consequences of Prohibition
Drug War Issues
Mexican army troops seized an astounding 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in the western state of Jalisco, the Mexican military announced last Wednesdayt. That's an amount equal to half of all the meth seized worldwide in 2009 and would have supplied some 13 million individual doses worth over $4 billion on the street in the US.
clandestine Mexican meth lab in Jalisco (SEDENA)
The army called the seizure "historic," and it appears to be the largest meth bust in Mexican history by far. The previous record bust by the army came in June 2010, when soldiers seized 3.4 tons of pure meth in the central state of Queretaro. During that bust, soldiers also seized hundreds of tons of precursor chemicals.
Meth manufacture is a big business for Mexico's drug cartels. The US National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that 80% of the meth in the US comes from Mexico. After a downward blip five years ago, the supply of meth has been on the increase, and so have seizures. On the US-Mexico border, meth seizures jumped 87% between 2007 and 2009, according to the 2011 UN World Drug Report.
Experts interviewed by the Associated Press reeled at the size of the seizure.
"Seizures of this size... could mean one of two things," said Antonio Mazzitelli, the regional representative of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. "On one hand, it may be a product that hasn't been able to be sold, and like any business, when the market is depressed, stockpiles build up," he said. "Or such large-scale production could suggest an expansion, an attempt by some Mexican groups, the most business-oriented I would say, to move into Latin American and Asian markets."
"I have never seen quantity in that range," said Steve Preisler, an industrial chemist who adopted the nom de plume Uncle Fester to author the book "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture," and who is seen by some as the father of modern meth-making. But, he added: "The amounts of precursors they were importing would produce multi-tons of product."
Guadalajara is Sinaloa cartel territory, and an unnamed "senior US law enforcement official in Mexico" told the AP this week's bust was "probably Sinaloa."
The Mexican army in the area might want to watch its back for the next few days because the cartels are known to seek reprisals. Earlier this week, in fact, cartel gunmen in Coahuila attacked an army patrol hours after soldiers seized eight tons of marijuana, leaving two or three dead.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
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Tweekers all over the world
LOL, stop the drug war,
LOL, stop the drug war, sounds like we should send in special forces. Maybe if we just sent in a bunch of wet ops teams and killed everyone that would help get the point across. BTW, I'm all for giving the go ahead on the wet ops.
Public Relations Campaign
Anytime someone leaves this much stash just laying around , it shows that demand can`t keep up with supply . The 40 year old drug war bears fruit again . The Tax-Payers of the US funded drug war are the suckers .
They finally found one of the
They finally found one of the labs you set up in Mexico.... Huh, Gloria? All that hard work back in the 90's teaching everyone your DEA and CIA could on how to set up a meth lab has finally produced some kind of result.... after 13 years... Huh, Gloria? Your probably smoking up some of this batch right now... Huh, Gloria?
I moved to California when I was 18 years and three months old back in September of 1984. I was introduced to both the drug culture and economy in San Diego that was moving the drugs there. These people weren’t lowlifes, they were upper middle class kids and young adults from all kinds of families including the military. These people did, sold, smuggled and manufactured drugs. They owned clubs and businesses, ran rave parties and drug houses. The drug houses were throughout the communities of San Diego, seemingly out in the open, on busy streets where they kept garbage bags full of drugs and distributed them with what seemed impunity. Their one purpose seemed to be to spread the usage of drugs to as many people as they could, while showing those people how easy it all was to get away with it. They were basically teaching kids how to deal. You might think to yourself that that is what illegal drug dealers do for financial gain... True, but there was a difference. That difference was that the biggest dealers that were around the longest were not seriously concern about the ramifications of doing felonies all day long. In fact they sure all seemed to be above the law. And by the end of this letter hopefully you will understand, they were the law.
By 1999, I was living down in Playa La Mision, Mexico. My old friend of ten years, Kevin Fields, brought me down there and introduced me to all the locals
In reply to They finally found one of the by Chris Vopatek (not verified)
Stay off the internet your
Stay off the internet your damaging your privacy
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