[US, Mexico] Governors to address Mexican meth traffic

A meeting that begins today of governors from both sides of the international border may provide some new methods of fighting the methamphetamine problem.

Gov. Janet Napolitano said some new laws in Mexico have altered the drug trade. Now, she said, the governors have to figure out how to deal with that.

What has led to the change, Napolitano said, is a decision by Mexico to limit the amount of pseudoephedrine that can be imported into that country.

That decongestant is the primary "precursor chemical'' in the making of methamphetamine. The White House had estimated more than 200 tons of pseudoephedrine was being imported each year before the restrictions, twice as much as could reasonably be used by the population.

"Now that Mexico has limited the amount of ephedrine that can be imported into Mexico, more ephedrine is being imported into the United States and then taken south across the border, manufactured into methamphetamine and then (brought) back into the United States,'' Napolitano said. "The trafficking pattern has changed.''

The governor said she hopes the meetings this week in Puerto Penasco -- more popularly known as Rocky Point -- enable the governors from both the seven Mexican and four U.S. states to work out new procedures to cut down that cross-border traffic.

She acknowledged most border issues are solely the province of the respective countries' federal governments. But Napolitano said that states can -- and have -- adopted their own laws dealing with meth and the precursor chemicals.

Some issues to be discussed, Napolitano acknowledged, are more exclusively the province of the federal governments, like immigration and border identification requirements. But she said the views of the governor will get the necessary attention from higher officials.

"We also have the relevant federal leaders there as well,'' she said, including Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

"It gives you some sense of the importance he puts on this meeting,'' Napolitano said. And U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also is scheduled to be at the conference.

If Mexico is really trying to limit the amount of pseudoephedrine that comes into their country that’s a good thing, because most of the meth on the market here is produced down there. I don’t know how successful they can be at reducing the amount of pseudoephedrine that makes it into that country though because a lot of it is just smuggled in and the more they tighten their laws the more will come into that country illegally.

The only way we’ll significantly reduce the meth supply is to get a handle on pseudoephedrine producers. There are really only a few factories in the world where they produce it. All the meth produced in the world is being produced from pseudoephedrine made at these few factories. I think with better controls from the point the pseudoephedrine leaves these factories until it gets to retail sales level we could significantly reduce the meth supply.

The phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) method was the only method used on a large scale to produce methamphetamine that did not require pseudoephedrine in the manufacturing process. Do you know why meth is rarely produced using the P2P method anymore? Part of the reason is that it was more difficult to produce methamphetamine using that method. It was especially difficult for them to convert all of their product into the most potent form of methamphetamine that way, so on average the pseudoephedrine based meth is “better” than the P2P stuff. The biggest reason though was that we have successfully controlled the chemicals necessary to produce it that way, especially phenyl-2-propanone. This was a worldwide effort. Since those chemicals were controlled, almost all large scale meth manufacturing shifted to methods that convert pseudoephedrine into methamphetamine. There are hardly any P2P labs operating anywhere in the world.

Meth has also in the past been produced from lesser amphetamines that are easily converted into methamphetamine, but it wasn’t done much on a large scale because it wasn’t cost effective. There was a type of amphetamines in old asthma inhalers for instance that could quite easily be converted into methamphetamine. They were too expensive to use in mass production, and since have been taken off the market so they aren’t even used in little tweaker labs either anymore. It is easy to produce meth from lesser amphetamines. It only involves some simple chemical conversion steps, but it just isn’t done on a large scale because it’s much cheaper to start with less expensive and far less controlled pseudoephedrine.

Normally I’m not one who champions more government regulation, but so far the greatest success we’ve had in dealing with the problem of methamphetamine has been through government regulation. Putting pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters drastically reduced the number of little tweaker labs in states like mine that passed those laws and it made it such that those few labs still operating are for the most part only able to produce tiny batches of meth and those cooking it cannot get enough pseudoephedrine to produce batches continuously like they were able to in the past. I’m a public defender and I used to get new meth lab cases or “possession of paraphernalia with intent to manufacture meth” cases all the time. I haven’t gotten any of those cases in a couple of years since the new laws went into effect.

We don’t have to ban pseudoephedrine. All we need to do is get some international cooperation in reducing the amount of pseudoephedrine that is diverted to organized crime who mass produce meth. These guys are buying tons of it at a time, tons of a product that is really only manufactured at a few factories throughout the world. From what I understand less than ten companies produce it. Meth is a problem in many countries around the world, including a lot of the countries where they produce pseudoephedrine. I think we should be able to get a substantial amount of international cooperation in controlling the product these few companies are producing. We’ll never arrest and incarcerate our way out of this predicament, but if we do a better job of reducing the amount of pseudoephedrine that makes it into the hands of organized crime we could reduce the problem significantly, without filling our prisons and blowing a fortune trying to stop tons and tons of finished product from finding its’ way into this country and eventually into the hands of end consumers of meth. Putting the pseudo behind pharmacy counters knocked out most of the little tweaker labs. Now we have to get the big labs and the way to do that is just about the same way we did it with the little tweaker labs. We need to cut out most of their pseudoephedrine supply so they can’t make meth, or at least not nearly as much as they make today. Then the price ion the street goes way up, purity goes down, the number of new addicts drops, the amount of heavy problem use subsides somewhat, and we have a much smaller meth problem that is far easier for us to manage.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.