The Unrecognized Lesson of " Meth Crisis 2.0 "

On February 21, Charles Fain Lehman wrote an important  column in the Wall Street Journal alerting the public to the alarming rise in methamphetamine-related deaths in recent years. This has been occurring under our noses while the press and lawmakers focus their attention on overdoses related to opioids. He correctly tells readers that the recrudescent meth crisis, which I like to call “Meth Crisis 2.0: The Mexican Connection,” came about after lawmakers addressed “Meth Crisis 1.0” in 2005 with the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act. That Act made it much harder for allergy sufferers to get the effective decongestant Sudafed by restricting its sales and making it “behin d-the-counter” (in Oregon and Mississippi it was made prescription-only) and conducting a military-like crackdown on homegrown meth labs that had organically sprung up in neighborhoods across the country. Lehman then describes how the Mexican cartels quickly stepped in to fill the void and now su pply meth users at record levels.The US pressured Mexico into restricting domestic Sudafed sales, but the cartels quickly shifted to phenyl-2-propanone ( “P2P”) to make their meth.As I read his column, I kept thinking “he is about to explain that this is an example of why prohibition never works—it just drives the prohibited activity underground and makes it more dangerous.” Unfortunately, rather than indicting prohibition, he calls for toughening border security and surveillance and beefi...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs