Proof That Mexicans Are Taking American Jobs!

Nick Gillespie | May 22, 2006

The giant sucking sound that robbed Ross Perot of sleep in the early '90s has finally revealed itself. Mexicans are shutting down...good ol' American meth labs. Via CBS News:

Mexican Meth Floods U.S.

...Raids [of U.S. meth labs] don't happen as frequently anymore--not since most states and the federal government put severe restrictions on the sale of over-the-counter medications containing pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in methamphetamine, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker.

Drug enforcement agents report the number of meth labs in the U.S. has plummeted....

"Yes, drastically down, in fact," says John Fernandes of the Drug Enforcement Administration....

This deadly drug is now a growth industry for Mexico's deadly drug cartels. They're replacing small U.S. kitchen labs with Mexican super labs. The cartels are smuggling ephedrine from China, India and Europe and cooking up huge quantities of cheap meth--including an especially potent variety, Mexican Ice. Then the cartels smuggle it north to U.S. users....

By some estimates, as much at 80 percent of the meth on U.S. streets comes from Mexico.

More here. Thanks to Manny Klausner.

Reasons not to worry about the "meth epidemic" here and here.

Comments

|5.22.06 @ 3:37PM|#

Wait....you mean forcing people to produce their papers to buy cold medicine didn't stop the Scourge of Meth? Whoddathunkit?

dhex|5.22.06 @ 4:02PM|#

"mexican ice"
ice, baby.

|5.22.06 @ 4:21PM|#

Did "Meth" take a holiday when they protested?

|5.22.06 @ 5:05PM|#

The Losertarians are drooling!

|5.22.06 @ 5:08PM|#

Ties in nicely with that "Illigal drugs are vital to the inner-city economy" argument in Bagge's latest cartoon.

This is why we need a protective meth tarrif!

Half Sigma|5.22.06 @ 5:56PM|#

Does this mean that CVS is going to start selling Sudafed again?

|5.22.06 @ 6:11PM|#

See? Those eeeevil Mexicans are daring to supply yet another market demand! They must all be closet capitalists or something!

Honest-to-god, people, if we can't keep drugs out of jails, howinhell are we going to keep them out of the country?

|5.22.06 @ 6:15PM|#

Does anyone have a video of that Saturday Night Live skit from the 70's?

The one where American pot farmers pleaded with customers to buy American and Look For The Union Label on their Wacky Tabacky.

|5.22.06 @ 6:28PM|#

Those were high paying American maunfacturing jobs too. What was Bush thinking? Let's get Lou Dobbs on this right away.

|5.22.06 @ 6:51PM|#

OK, now I see why Bush is so big on border enforcement all of a sudden. This is about protecting the domestic meth industry!

|5.22.06 @ 7:19PM|#

Yes, I am old,

.. I recall seeing that episode live (yes, I am old, too) and have never seen it in syndication .. I would guess that the Content Censors have squashed that skit ..

.. Hobbit

|5.22.06 @ 7:24PM|#

Given an option, I'd rather have low-cost meth from a nice, clean "superlab" than the high-priced domestic blend that's typically brewed in filthy, decrepit trailers.

Warren|5.22.06 @ 7:58PM|#

Well I for one am outraged at how the multi-nationals and their mass-produced sweatshop meth has displaced thousands of once thriving boutique meth labs. Sure there was a great deal of variation in potency and purity, but that's what gave each batch it's own special flavor. Now we have the same high quality stuff everywhere. You can't even tell Miami ice from KC ice anymore.

|5.23.06 @ 12:32AM|#

Good to see someody capturing the economies of scale.

|5.23.06 @ 12:48AM|#

Hey, you dumb eastcoast Randoids can pretend there's no meth epidemic, but come to an Arizona jail and you'll piss yourselves.

|5.23.06 @ 1:18AM|#

No question there's a lot of meth here in AZ, but what to do about it? Locking people up for bad descisions just doesn't seem very productive to me. Don't get me wrong, if you hurt someone, or destroy or steal property, etc, you should go to jail, whether you are in an altered state or not. But to be incarcerated for simply being in an altered state is bullshit.

Besides, I've seen users get real messed up on meth, get themselves into a bad spot, but eventually get out of the downward spiral and get their act back together. I've also seen people stop using the meth, but still have mental issues. Those people I think already had some sort of pychological issues that perhaps were just lying dormant, waiting for the right trigger. That's no reason to ban a substance that does have some utility from being used by everybody.

And yes, some folks really mess themselves up or even die. But people have been doing that forever, even without meth.

|5.23.06 @ 1:36AM|#

To lowdogs comments I would add:

1) Putting someone in prison to be raped and otherwise traumatized and socially stigmatized (have fun trying to get a job when you get out, assuming you are not in for life) for the crime of hurting himself defies logic. If you simply must be a paternalistic would be do gooder, then lock him up in a drug rehab treatment center. I'm not sure that would help, but his chances of getting drugs in the treatment center are certainly less than in prison anyway.

2) Prohibition does not work, regardless of whether it is alcohol that is the baddie drug or meth. A better approach in my opinion would be to make it legal for adults, thus radically changing the risk/reward ratio for selling to minors. There is no real profit incentive to be an alcohol dealer or tobacco dealer to minors. The same could be true for currently illegal drugs if only we legalized them for adults. Then anyone who makes money selling to adults would jeopardize that profitable business if he sold to minors. Since most forms of drug abuse, such as alcohol abuse or tobacco abuse (or topical MA supreme court decision, tobacco use) begins as a minor, such an approach would surely reduce harm much more than our idiotic approach towards trying to ban the law of supply and demand.