Meth In Perspective

In the Introduction To Meth, we mentioned a few things about methamphetamine that distinguish it from other drugs. And we think as a part of our examination of methamphetamine, it's important that we thoroughly put it in perspective among other illicit drugs because this goes a long way to explaining how and why methamphetamine can so easily infect any region or community, and be so hard to address. As we said, we wouldn't be presenting a true picture of meth, nor would it be an accurate statement about meth, if we simply described it as "the number one drug problem in North America," because as we hoped we explained, it isn't - at least not everywhere in North America, and at least not yet.

Yet in certain areas of North America, meth is absolutely the number one drug problem, and when it is a problem, it's a huge problem. Despite how much or how little credence you give to surveys, by any estimation the numbers are rather compelling. Two surveys of sheriffs and service-agency officials released in July of 2005 by the National Association of Counties in the United States identified methamphetamine as the number one illegal drug problem in every area of the nation except the Northeast. And even in the Northeast now, as we go further into 2007, the picture is changing. Meth has reached coast to coast in both Canada and the U.S., and making its way in to several other countries.

And if you've been reading the many comments and quotes featured in the side-bars to the left of all previous pages in this meth examination thus far, you're not reading the results of some old surveys about meth. These are current comments directly from the people who are in the middle of it. It makes it vividly clear that once entrenched in a community, methamphetamine eats up massive amounts of time and resources - short and long-term. Like we said in an earlier section, "meth plays out big."

And in regions where meth has become entrenched, law enforcement will invariably report that most of the crime in their community is in some way, meth-related. So the point isn't that we should be concerned about meth because it's "the number one problem" everywhere. The real point is that we should be concerned about meth because it has the potential to become the number one problem anywhere.

So we'd like to put methamphetamine in a proper perspective for you, and show you why meth has the potential to go from being the number one drug problem in some places, to being the number one drug problem in most places. And the easiest way to do this is to quickly look at meth from five perspectives. And actually, this criteria can be used to put any illicit drug in its proper context. We think you just might find this to be a real eye opener. We begin with meth, from the perspective of supply.

Meth is fairly simply to manufacture on a small scale domestically. It's a synthetic drug, so it doesn't have to be "grown" like opium or other "crop" drugs. If you have a recipe and access to the required precursor chemicals, you can make it yourself. And unlike a "crop-based" drug like opium, which takes months to mature and harvest, most methods of meth "cooking" work on a 24 hour cycle or less. Making small amounts of meth is also profitable - a one hundred dollar investment in supplies will produce at least ten times that in revenues when the finished product is sold. In fact, a seasoned meth cook who's got refinement down pat can can turn twenty-five dollars in pseudoephedrine into one thousand dollars on the street for high grade crystal or ice. And if you're not picky about quality (or safety) it can be manufactured almost anywhere, even "mobile" meth labs are not uncommon.

If you don't want to produce meth yourself, there's a significant amount of meth being produced by "superlabs" within North America. And while for obvious reasons, no one knows exactly how much meth is being produced by superlabs within the U.S. or Canada, usually when there's a bust, you're talking about extremely large quantities confiscated at a time. One superlab producing 100 pounds per week can get over 21,000 meth users high 3 times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. When you're talking about superlabs, the numbers become staggering.

If every superlab in North America was shut down tomorrow, any slack in the supply line would be picked up by those countries already actively importing meth into North America. Foreign superlabs don't produce ounces and pounds of meth, they produce tons. Methamphetamine is manufactured in several countries and exported all over the world and North America is a prime consumer. Right now Mexico is getting most of the attention, but there's every indication that in 2007, several countries will be competing for the North American market. We here in Canada are what some describe as, "the perfect conduit" for mass quantities of precursor chemicals because of our lax laws governing such chemicals.

Methamphetamine is relatively easy to move from place to place when compared to say, marijuana. Smugglers are constantly coming up with more and more ways to get it across borders, and obviously the most successful techniques for smuggling meth are the ones nobody knows about. What we do know however, is that there's no shortage of imported methamphetamine, particularly in those areas in close proximity to borders or the west coast of Canada or the U.S. We happen to be among those that believe that over the next 24 months, nothing less than a "tidal wave" of methamphetamine will be hitting the shores of North America from, and routed through, several different countries, certainly not just Mexico.

On the next page, we'll examine meth issues from the perspective of demand. Here again, meth's "resume" is powerful and it includes a variety of factors that make it particularly hard to monitor and control.