NCJ Number
180548
Date Published
1998
Length
42 pages
Annotation
This paper provides an overview of the use, production, and trafficking of methamphetamine in the United States from a public health, safety and environmental, and law enforcement perspective in the context of U.S.-Mexico relations.
Abstract
The pivotal issue around which the methamphetamine situation in the United States revolves is the symbiotic nature of the U.S. demand for and Mexican supply of methamphetamine in the context of U.S.-Mexico economic relations. The United States is one of the leading drug-consuming countries in the world, and Mexico is one of the world's most significant methamphetamine-producing countries. Accordingly, Mexican nationals stand poised to supply the easily produced and profitable methamphetamine throughout the United States in response to any increases in demand by Americans. The methamphetamine situation in the United States presents at least three paradoxes for U.S. policymakers in the context of U.S.-Mexican relations. First, most of the methamphetamine laboratories in the United States are operated by Americans, not Mexican nationals; yet, the United States, with its strong criminal justice and public health infrastructure, cannot stem the escalating number of these laboratories. Second, many of the methamphetamine laboratories operated by Mexican polydrug trafficking organizations are on U.S. soil, not in Mexico; yet, the United States is unable to eradicate the laboratories. Third, a national market for methamphetamine does not yet exist in the United States; yet, instead of harnessing this rare opportunity in the case of an illegal drug by targeting the majority of its resources for domestic demand prevention, the United States continues to focus on bi-national supply reduction. 164 notes and 45 references