[robertpaulsen]

"The lion's-share of crystal-methamphetamine comes across the border from industrial-scale operations in Mexico."

It does now. Why? Because the government cracked down on OTC pseudoephedrine.

Look at the positive side -- at least we got rid of the meth labs that were blowing up, polluting the ground, and poisoning children.

[CowboyJay]

"Look at the positive side -- at least we got rid of the meth labs that were blowing up, polluting the ground, and poisoning children."

I'll give you that much. Thank you for pointing it out. It will cut down somewhat on those activities. Closing the border would help greatly with the other societal costs of meth use.

[TKDietz]

"Look at the positive side -- at least we got rid of the meth labs that were blowing up, polluting the ground, and poisoning children."

Not only that, but in my state where we already have these laws we're getting far fewer meth lab cases to clog up the courts and we're not having to send so many to prison to serve the kind of incredibly long prison sentences people were getting for being involved with meth labs, most of which were only producing relatively tiny batches supplying mostly just those cooking the dope and those that helped them. That saves us a lot of money. It's really working, I can see it in my job as a public defender where I've handled tons of meth lab cases. I think we'll see less addicts being created as well. There were an awful lot of people around here cooking dope before and there would always be several people involved with each lab. Most of the cooks were already addicted, but that wasn't necessarily the case for friends and family members who ended up providing places to cook, helping gather supplies and do the manual labor required in the process. Some were introduced to meth this way, others were in many cases just casual users who never would have been able to afford to buy enough meth to do it often enough to become addicted. The labs were enabling them to do huge amounts of dope on an almost continuous basis virtually ensuring that they would become addicted.

I just wish the feds had not gotten involved. States were already passing these laws on their own. There was no need for this legislation at the federal level. I'd much rather see states pass their own versions of these laws so in the end we could see what works and what doesn't, instead of having more one size fits all federal laws shoved down our throats.

[jmc813]

Look at the positive side -- at least we got rid of the meth labs that were blowing up, polluting the ground, and poisoning children.

Uhhh, last I heard, we haven't made much progress in stopping that at all.

[taxesareforever]

Look at the positive side -- at least we got rid of the meth labs that were blowing up, polluting the ground, and poisoning children.

Oh gee, that makes me feel so much better.