REEFER MADNESS!!!!!!

[Requia ☣]

While I agree you can't blame the increase on the laws, this does strongly suggest that the laws are ineffectual except as a pay raise for the prison industry.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Other factors are at play, too, such as meth trafficking by Mexican cartels and new methods for making small amounts of meth.

Given the other factors, and the Mexican cartels are a significant factor and contributor to the meth trade in America, I argue that one cannot definitively state the cause in the increase of meth busts and meth use is due to the cited policy. 

True, correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation... and there are always many factors to consider.

However, if the law had not been put into place, its unlikely that the drug cartels would have had a market for 'black market sudafed'... meaning that while some people would still be cooking up meth, the money wouldn't be lining the pockets of the mexican drug cartels... the people making it wouldn't be dealing with the mexican drug cartels and overall there wouldn't be a smell of fried onions.

It seems to me that there is a recurring pattern with drug laws.
X is made illegal.
Criminals begin selling X.
Market for X increases.

Is it due to the law, or the marketing practices of the criminals, or is it completely unrelated and the market would have increased anyway?

If its due to the law, then we need to rethink our drug laws. If its due to the criminals then, again, we need to revisit the laws... if its completely unrelated to the law and this spike would have happened anyway... then what exactly is the law accomplishing?

I know you and I disagree on the philosophy here... but so far, it doesn't seem that making something illegal does much beyond landing more people in the judicial system*.



*I admit that the sudafed issue may help control some DIY kids from making their own meth... but I think we can both agree that likely means they're just buying from someone else now.

[AFK]

No, just no, if you read the actual article, the whole article, you get more of the story.  The fact is that initially the new tracking system was effective, very effective in the first couple of years.  But, here's the thing, criminals are criminals, because that is what they are good at.  They found a way to game the system, but this is not unique to this particular criminal code.  You see criminals gaming all kinds of laws on our books.  

The other piece is that busts are up because the tracking system give police better access to information about meth operations.  These operations are tripping the system when they go over the limit and then the police go in and make the busts.  So the rise in busts isn't because of more meth production, it is because of better information to catch more criminals.  

But if you just read the hatchet job by Boing Boing, you don't get that side of the story, that is cleverly left out because it doesn't fit the anti-Law Enforcement narrative.  

[Telarus]

Yeah, that Boing Boing blurb was awful, and I almost regret posting it before digging down to the original source.

It even misquotes the statistics (well, it quotes the random blog, which misquotes the statistics in the original source).

Here's the sections and actual numbers that jumped out at me (rearranged to cut some of the biased commentary, broken by subject matter):

Bust/LEO activity statistics (only quoting the highlevel statistics here, so they're not confused with the next section):

The AP reviewed DEA data spanning nearly a decade, from 2000 to 2009, and conducted interviews with a wide array of police and government officials.

Since tracking laws were enacted beginning in 2006, the number of meth busts nationwide has started climbing again.

Meth-related activity is on the rise again nationally, up 34 percent in 2009, the year with the most recent figures. That number includes arrests, seizures of the drug and the discovery of abandoned meth-production sites.

Use Statistics

Meth arrests and lab busts are not the only indicator that use of the drug is on the rise. In September, the annual report from the federal government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration showed a 60 percent one-year increase in the number of meth users.

Prescription Only/Multinational drug corp stuff:

The pharmaceutical industry has spent several million dollars to fund the tracking systems. For drug makers, that is far cheaper than one alternative — making the medication available only by prescription.

Oregon began requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine products in 2006. Mississippi became the second state to do so in July, and Missouri's governor is asking lawmakers to follow suit in 2011.

If more states do the same, it could be devastating for makers of cold and sinus pills. The pseudoephedrine market is estimated at more than $550 million annually.

The state (of Oregon) had 191 meth incidents in 2005, the year before the prescription-only law. By 2009, it had 12.   <--- an LEO activity statistic, not a use statistic

Missouri led the nation in meth incidents in 2009 for the seventh straight year. The state is in the early stages of electronic tracking, but its meth problem is so bad that more than a dozen communities have passed their own prescription laws.

Very telling blurb:

"Where else can you make a 750 percent profit in 45 minutes?" asked Grellner, former president of the Missouri Narcotics Officers Association.

And, finally, some HAHA-Only-Serious editing:

Boggs, the DEA agent, didn't take a stand on prescription laws, but said the pill brokers are out of control: "They've We've created this whole other effort for law enforcement."

[AFK]

Again, the problem with looking at an increase in the number of busts is you don't actually know why there is an increase.  As the article notes, one reason could be as I mentioned that this data tracking system, well, gives police more data for tracking criminals.  So it could very well be you have the same number of criminals but police have better tools to catch them, and so, are catching more of them. 

And if that's the case, then the tracking system isn't a failure, it's a success.  Because that was the point of the tracking system, to set a ceiling for how much cold medicine you could buy at a whack and to put in to place a mechanism that tips off pharmacists, and then the authorities, when people are going over that max, and likely hoarding for the purposes of meth production.

Now, as I said, criminals are criminals because that is what they are good at, so yes we see this smurfing thing where criminals are banding together to subvert the system.  But that will happen with any kind of system.  So it means you need to adjust the system to try to close that loophole. 

But in the end there is nothing in this data that provides a clear-cut indictment of law enforcement or this data tracking policy.   

[Telarus]

Oh, I'm totally with you there.

That's why I separated out the Use statistics, and contrasted national LE 'incidents' with the Oregon LE 'incidents'. I believe those were jumbled in the article on purpose (look how the blog quoted on Boing Boing totally misconstrued them, it cited the 34% number as an increase in use).

This indicates to me that if States or Agencies continue to push "behind the counter" over "prescription only", then pandering to the people who stand to make a profit (drug companies, and those who profit from incarcerating the lower class tempted by "750% profit in 45 minutes") is more important than resolving the social harm caused by the substance. Profits > People.

What will be truly telling is how state agencies and law-making bodies deal with this inconsistency. They have the option of dismantling this black market that the law created, OR using it as a further excuse to increase funding for certain groups (yours not traditionally included, which pisses me off RWHN).

[AFK]

Well, I'm federally funded, so, technically speaking, I am part of the Man. 

[Cain]

"Where else can you make a 750 percent profit in 45 minutes?"

The banking industry.  And you don't even have to actually do anything profitable either.  In fact, if you become extremely unprofitable, it's probably better.

Ironically, the banking industry in late 2008 was propped up almost entirely by an influx of drug profits.  A good, if fictional account of this can be found in John le Carre's latest book (he signed mine for me, because I'm special.  And knew people working at the store and so was allowed in before it was opened).  And both banks and drugs tend to be involved in illegal activities involving governments, at some point or another, if those behind them are successful enough, or even not in the case of one R. Allen Stanford.

[East Coast Hustle]

Other factors are at play, too, such as meth trafficking by Mexican cartels and new methods for making small amounts of meth.

Given the other factors, and the Mexican cartels are a significant factor and contributor to the meth trade in America, I argue that one cannot definitively state the cause in the increase of meth busts and meth use is due to the cited policy.  

You don't think it's likely that that the increased involvement of the Mexican Cartels is directly linked to efforts to make the precursor chemicals more difficult to obtain in the US?

Also...it should be pointed out that the very concept of "DIY Meth Labs", while not unreal, is laughable. And the idea that a high school kid could just go to the drug store and get all the supplies to make meth and then get a recipe off the internet, well, you'd know who that kid was pretty quickly because he'd either blow himself up or poison himself. There are NO reliable meth recipes on the internet. None. At all. And it's a more complicated and dangerous process that people who have no experience with it seem to think.

[Cain]

Good point from ECH.  The Mexican Cartels are likely filling the market left void by US crackdown efforts.  Across the border, after all, those protections are not in place, and as American groups dealing meth go under, it seems rather obvious they would take over.  And pursuing those new markets quite aggressively.  There is a phenomenon, quite well noted in criminology, where organized gangs are often replaced by gangs who are even more violent and aggressive in their activities than their predecessors, for obvious reasons.  It seems quite likely this particular dynamic is at play in this situation.

[AFK]

Other factors are at play, too, such as meth trafficking by Mexican cartels and new methods for making small amounts of meth.

Given the other factors, and the Mexican cartels are a significant factor and contributor to the meth trade in America, I argue that one cannot definitively state the cause in the increase of meth busts and meth use is due to the cited policy.  

You don't think it's likely that that the increased involvement of the Mexican Cartels is directly linked to efforts to make the precursor chemicals more difficult to obtain in the US?

No.  I think it's due to increased demand. 

Also...it should be pointed out that the very concept of "DIY Meth Labs", while not unreal, is laughable. And the idea that a high school kid could just go to the drug store and get all the supplies to make meth and then get a recipe off the internet, well, you'd know who that kid was pretty quickly because he'd either blow himself up or poison himself. There are NO reliable meth recipes on the internet. None. At all. And it's a more complicated and dangerous process that people who have no experience with it seem to think.

Sorry, I've seen these labs in my community.  Including one that got caught because it did blow up and catch fire.  I have first hand knowledge from my police partners that these labs do exist.   

[Disco Pickle]

got a chemist friend of mine who got caught up with some bad sorts in his 30's and started cooking for them.  The sorts that will just put a bullet in your brain if they show up to collect and the weight is too light for the amount of ingredients they delivered to him.

He said the thing they always seemed to have the hardest time acquiring was red phospherous. Of course, this was in the early 90's so things may have changed on that front.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Other factors are at play, too, such as meth trafficking by Mexican cartels and new methods for making small amounts of meth.

Given the other factors, and the Mexican cartels are a significant factor and contributor to the meth trade in America, I argue that one cannot definitively state the cause in the increase of meth busts and meth use is due to the cited policy.  

You don't think it's likely that that the increased involvement of the Mexican Cartels is directly linked to efforts to make the precursor chemicals more difficult to obtain in the US?

No.  I think it's due to increased demand. 

But wouldn't that increase in demand be a result of the decrease of supply? 

[AFK]

Yeah, the supply from Mexico.  You guys are trying to put the cart before the horse here.  The meth trade in the U.S. has historically and largely come out of Mexico and it has basically spread across the U.S. from SouthWest to NorthEast, though it has been somewhat slow to get a big foothold in New England.  But that's only because the cost/benefit ratio of getting the drugs all the way up here from Mexico isn't quite worth it yet, but that will not last long.  The tracking system really is more about the domestic operations, not the operations originating from Mexico. 

[East Coast Hustle]

But you're wrong. The meth trade in the US has historically and largely been overwhelmingly comprised of domestically-produced product. It's only been recently, contemporaneous to the regulations on pseudoephedrine and other precursor chemicals, that the Mexican cartels have gotten involved in the US meth trade.