Police warn meth on the rise in Austin, Central Texas counties

[TexasTowelie]

The number of clandestine methamphetamine labs in some Central Texas counties largely vanished, authorities say, after the federal government restricted how people could buy cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, an ingredient that has commonly been used to make meth.

But nearly eight years after then-president George W. Bush signed legislation aimed in part at combating the “methamphetamine epidemic,” the Austin Police Department and other local law enforcement agencies say they are seeing an increase in both the number of meth cases and how much of the drug they seize from suspects.

Though some meth is still being made locally, authorities say, most of it is coming from Mexico, where cartels are manufacturing the drug in bigger batches and sending it stateside. In Austin, the amount of meth police seized has surged from six pounds or less annually in 2009 through 2012 to about 32 pounds in 2013.

-snip-

According to the latest report on drug markets worldwide, published by the United Nations in May, the market for amphetamines like methamphetamine is expanding. Globally, seizures have risen to a new high of 123 tons in 2011, the most recent year included in the report. That’s a 66 percent increase compared with 2010, when 74 tons were seized across the world.

More at http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/crime-law/police-warn-meth-on-the-rise-in-austin-central-tex/nd3pT/?icmp=statesman_internallink_textlink_apr2013_statesmanstubtomystatesman_launch (subscription required).

[Warpy]

1. It's a great drug for people who are being driven to work beyond all reason

It allows them to keep their energy up for those sixteen hour days divided among two to four part time jobs and pay the rent.

Unfortunately the toll it takes on their bodies soon makes them incapable of working, at all.

Speed freaks have always been the best advertisement on why sensible people need to stay away from that drug.

Strict rationing on pseudoephedrine in the US drove the meth cookers into Mexico some years ago and is likely responsible for the extreme violence of the cartels there as they sample their own goods. Mexican cookers can order the stuff by the quarter tonne from India.