Thanks Barack!

Wow what a President Senator Barack Obama is going to be!

Methamphetamine production and distribution trends are undergoing significant strategic shifts, resulting in new challenges to law enforcement and public health agencies. For example, marked success in decreasing domestic methamphetamine production through law enforcement pressure and strong precursor chemical sales restrictions has enabled Mexican DTOs to rapidly expand their control over methamphetamine distribution–even in eastern states–as users and distributors who previously produced the drug have sought new, consistent sources.

I suppose the good news is that this will mean more and better paying jobs in Mexico so perhaps it will help with the illegal immigration problem. That Senator Obama…he sure is a shrewd guy.

But wait, the news gets even better!

These Mexican methamphetamine distribution groups (supported by increased methamphetamine production in Mexico) are often more difficult for local law enforcement agencies to identify, investigate, and dismantle because they typically are much more organized and experienced than local independent producers and distributors. Moreover, these Mexican criminal groups typically produce and distribute high purity ice methamphetamine that usually is smoked, potentially resulting in a more rapid onset of addiction to the drug.

So, not only do we have more meth, we have better meth as well.

How, one might ask, is this all traced back in part to Senator Obama? Right here.

Senator Obama cosponsored the Combat Meth Act, which provides more money for fighting methamphetamine (meth), tightens controls on the sale of meth ingredients, and provides assistance to the children of meth abusers. The legislation would limit access to cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, the primary ingredient used to make methamphetamine. This bill passed the Senate and became law in the 109th Congress.

In other words, we have to have special permission to get cold medicines (i.e., you are treated like a potential cirminal), we have better quality meth on the streets resulting in faster addictions, and we have given over greater control to Mexican drug organizations.

It is this kind of un-thinking progressive nonsense that we can do without. Frankly I doubt Senator Obama would have the character to admit that his support for the Combat Meth Act was a bad decision. In fact, I imagine it will be one of his positive talking points during his campaign for the Democratic nomination. Hopefully Senator Obama will lose. Of course there is still the fact that Senators Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden also co-sponsored the bill.

Via Reason’s Hit & Run.

FILED UNDER: 2008 Election, Congress, Health, Law and the Courts, US Politics, , , , , , , ,
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. Dave Schuler says:

    As the late Mayor Daley put it, no matter what things look like now, somebody will win the election.

  2. Steve Verdon says:

    Unfortunately, that is too true.

  3. Mark Jaquith says:

    I’m not thrilled about how hard and invasive it has gotten to get cold medicine, but I have no problem with giving Mexicans control of meth. Meth is a dangerous drug to manufacture. The risk of fire or explosion means that creating it in urban American environments poses a huge public safety issue. Short of legalizing it and moving its manufacture to controlled environments that can minimize the risk to innocent lives, moving it to Mexico sounds good to me.

  4. NoZe says:

    Isn’t this true of the criminalization of any narcotic? Production and distribution comes under the control of criminal operations, potency increases, and drug supplies are unaffected?

  5. Steve Verdon says:

    Actually Mark, according to the link to the National Drug Threat Assesment, some Mexican gangs are moving to rural U.S. areas. I guess it just cuts down on the problems getting it back into the U.S.

    Many of these laboratories–primarily operated by Mexican criminal groups–relocated to Mexico, where bulk quantities of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are more available. However, some Mexican criminal groups have remained in the United States to produce methamphetamine in superlabs, particularly in California, that accounted for 30 of 35 reported superlab seizures in 2005.

    NoZe,

    Isn’t this true of the criminalization of any narcotic? Production and distribution comes under the control of criminal operations, potency increases, and drug supplies are unaffected?

    That sounds about right, but you’d have to ask somebody like Mark Kleiman.

  6. anjin-san says:

    Tell me, are you as outraged by the fact that Afghanistan is supplying the lion’s share of the world’s opium? Probably not, no political hay to be made from that information…

  7. Anderson says:

    Feel-good anti-drug b.s., as usual. Not only can I not get Sudafed over the counter, but the drugstores have quit carrying (at my guesstimate) more than half of the medicines it came in.

    I was trying to get my kids plain Sudafed liquid last night, but no good — all they had was the combo w/ antihistamine etc.

  8. Steven Plunk says:

    The law of unintended consequences at work. Every piece of legislation or rule making carries the risk of worsening things rather than making things better. The sooner politicians learn and understand this the better we will all be.

    The other problem is our loss of even the simple liberties like taking medicine to heal ourselves. Rather than accept the fact that there are not cures to all the world’s problems lawmakers took away an effective medicine popular with the public. Sure, it’s back there behind the counter but the inconvenience results in fewer sales and a pharmacy that may choose not to carry it any longer since it doesn’t sell very well.

    In order to punish a few our leaders have punished many.

  9. carpeicthus says:

    OK, so you’re voting for Ron Paul, right? Which candidates are anti-Drug War? This is a stupid of the body politic, not one guy.

  10. Steve Verdon says:

    Tell me, are you as outraged by the fact that Afghanistan is supplying the lion’s share of the world’s opium? Probably not, no political hay to be made from that information…

    You know anjin-san that is just stupid. What, am I supposed to blog about everything every single time. I was vaguely aware of Afghanistan and the poppy farming there. The difference is I don’t think Bush went into Afghanistan with the express purpose of increasing the amount of heroin available for consumption. He might have been aware of it, but my guess is he considered going after the Club Med for terrorists was more important. Definitely a trade off.

    So I don’t see the two situations as all that analogous. There were plenty of warnings that making ephedrine and psuedoephedrine harder to get legally would do little to the meth supply, would likely hand over more control of the meth market to large drug organizations which would improve both distribution and the quality of meth and make average U.S. citizens less able to treat their cold and allergies and in some cases turn them into criminals.

    OK, so you’re voting for Ron Paul, right?

    Probably…or Lyndon LaRouche for shits and giggles.

  11. anjin-san says:

    Steve,

    Can you try replying to a post without name calling? The name calling thing is something that most of us outgrow by the time we are 20, so if you are going to post on a major blog, you might want to think about growing up a bit.

    > I was vaguely aware of Afghanistan and the poppy farming there.

    This suggests that you really don’t know much about how the manufacturing & distribution of illegal drugs works, you are just copy and pasting the meth story because it makes some prominent Democrats look bad. Your concern about drug abuse is touching…

    As for Afghanistan, perhaps if Bush had FINISHED THE JOB there, instead of rushing headlong into Iraq, which was not, but is now, a terrorist state, this huge supply of opium could have been curtailed. Of course, you won’t cop to this, because it would make Bush look bad. Once again, your concern about drug abuse is touching.

  12. Steve Verdon says:

    anjin-san,

    You are one of the most vitriolic commenters on OTB, so your complaints about name calling simply amuse me.

    This suggests that you really don’t know much about how the manufacturing & distribution of illegal drugs works, you are just copy and pasting the meth story because it makes some prominent Democrats look bad. Your concern about drug abuse is touching…

    As for Afghanistan, perhaps if Bush had FINISHED THE JOB there, instead of rushing headlong into Iraq, which was not, but is now, a terrorist state, this huge supply of opium could have been curtailed. Of course, you won’t cop to this, because it would make Bush look bad. Once again, your concern about drug abuse is touching.

    This is just a load of Bravo Sierra. Your implication that Bush wants an increase in the supply of heroin doesn’t even pass the giggle test.

    With Obama and psuedoephedrine there was plenty of evidence/warnings suggesting that the Combat Meth Act would do damn little save accomplish the things I’ve already noted. So I repeat myself, the two situations are not analogous and thus not a valid criticism.

    Do I want Barack Obama to look bad? Yes, yes I do. Not simply because he is a Democrat, but because he sponsors idiotic legislation like this.

  13. anjin-san says:

    Steve,

    Where exactly did I imply that “Bush wanted to raise the heroin supply”? Actually I did no such thing, but it is easy to see why you are ducking the issue of Bush not finishing the job in Afghanistan and rushing into Iraq. Oh well, if you can’t respond, evade.

    Both the consequences of meth legislation and those ensuing from the lack of follow thru in Afghanistan are examples of the law of unintended consequences, something that has been repeated over and over in the realm of illegal drugs and the effort to control them

    When Nixon essentially sealed the Mexican border against pot smuggling in the early 70s, the unintended consequence was the cocaine boom of the 70s.

    You might want to do a bit more reading on this important subject instead of viewing it simply as a vehicle to move your own agenda forward.

    Oh yea, the “amused” thing makes you sound like a bit of a stuffed shirt…