U.S. manufacturers just cannot catch a break: Mexican meth, heroin, coke and mj

Oct 11, 3:12 AM EDT

AP IMPACT: Cartels flood US with cheap meth

By JIM SALTER
Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Mexican drug cartels are quietly filling the void in the nation's drug market created by the long effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factorylike "superlabs."

Although Mexican meth is not new to the U.S. drug trade, it now accounts for as much as 80 percent of the meth sold here, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is as much as 90 percent pure, a level that offers users a faster, more intense and longer-lasting high.

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The cartels are expanding into the U.S. meth market just as they did with heroin: developing an inexpensive, highly addictive form of the drug and sending it through the same pipeline already used to funnel marijuana and cocaine, authorities said.

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The rise of Mexican meth doesn't mean that American labs have disappeared. The number of U.S. meth labs continues to rise even as federal, state and local laws place heavy restrictions on the purchase of cold and allergy pills containing pseudoephedrine, a major component in the most common meth recipe.

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"They're marketing geniuses," said Jack Riley, the agent in charge of the DEA office in Chicago.