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 Health & Beauty | May 2008 
Addict: Can Get Meth From 'Ice Cream Trucks
 KCRA.com
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| | Meth cookers have gone south of the border to get drugs. | | |
Every day 110,000 people cross the border into the U.S. from Mexico in San Ysirdo, Calif., and anyone of them could be smuggling in illegal drugs.
Right now, the federal government considers Mexico to be ground zero in the war on methamphetamine.
"We're not surprised to see more meth," said Vincent Bond of customs and border protection.
San Ysirdo is the world's busiest land port, and the amount of meth seized there has more than tripled during the past four years.
In 2004, 757 pounds of meth was seized by officials, 1,606 pounds was seized in 2005 and more than 2,700 pounds was taken in 2006.
The increases coincide with the enforcement of the U.S. Combat Meth Act in 2005. The Combat Meth Act forced the drug pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth, to be placed behind store counters in the U.S..
The Act also forced meth cookers to go south of the border to obtain pseudoephedrine, where the drug isn't regulated.
When the U.S. began talks of regulating pseudoephedrine in 2004, Mexican drug cartels began to horde the key ingredient for making meth by importing it from countries like China and India.
Mexican stockpiles of pseudoephedrine hit their high point in '04, as the country had more than 226 metric tons of the drug, double what the country needs for allergy and cold sufferers.
In response, the U.S. began to turn up the heat on the Mexican government to do something about the excess importation of pseudoephedrine by cartels. By 2006, the amount of pseudoephedrine in Mexico fell to just over 43 metric tons.
Now, with meth traveling farther and smaller amounts being produced, street prices have skyrocketed, according to Eric Holley, a 23-year-old meth addict from Ceres.
"An 8-ball used to cost a $100 … now it's $200," Holley said.
And Holley said that despite the efforts of the government both domestically and in Mexico, meth is just as easy as to find as it was during the meth "boom days" of the early 2000s.
"You can get it in ice cream trucks," he said. "You can just go across the street to get it."
Fight Against Meth Includes 'Sniffer Rig'
KCRA.com
go to originalStanislaus County, Calif. - Stanislaus County law enforcement agents hope a device called the sniffer rig will bring the meth crisis to its knees.
The sniffer rig shoots an invisible beam at a suspected meth lab from as far as a mile away and can determine if the lab is in operation.
"The person could essentially be cooking meth right then and be being scanned and not have a clue," said Sgt. Robert Hunt of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department.
Based on military technology, the sniffer rig is also used to check Iraqi factories for chemical and biological weapons.
The sniffer rig has not been court tested and cannot currently be used to obtain a warrant.
The federal government, meanwhile, is close to developing new software that links all pseudoephedrine purchases at stores to a central database. |
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