'Humphrey's addiction with Wallot has not stirred any controversy, so
far. He has always campaigned like a rat in heat, and the only
difference now is that he is able to do it eighteen hours a day instead
of ten. The main change in his public style, since '68, is that he no
longer seems aware that his gibberish is not taken seriously by anyone
except Labor Leaders and middle-class Blacks.
At least half the reporters assigned to the Humphrey campaign are convinced that he's senile. When he ran for president four years ago he was a hack and a fool, but at least he was consistent.
Now he talks like an eighty-year old woman who just discovered speed. He will call a press conference to announce that if elected he will "have all our boys out of Vietnam within ninety days" - then rush across town, weeping and jabbering the whole way, to appear on a network TV show and make a fist-shaking emotional appeal for every good American to stand behind the president and "applaud" his recent decision to resume heavy bombing in North Vietnam.
- The Campaign Trail: More Late News from Bleak House, May 11, 1972, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
At least half the reporters assigned to the Humphrey campaign are convinced that he's senile. When he ran for president four years ago he was a hack and a fool, but at least he was consistent.
Now he talks like an eighty-year old woman who just discovered speed. He will call a press conference to announce that if elected he will "have all our boys out of Vietnam within ninety days" - then rush across town, weeping and jabbering the whole way, to appear on a network TV show and make a fist-shaking emotional appeal for every good American to stand behind the president and "applaud" his recent decision to resume heavy bombing in North Vietnam.
- The Campaign Trail: More Late News from Bleak House, May 11, 1972, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'“The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths
fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said
Anne Milgram, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive
drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before...DEA is focusing resources on taking
down the violent drug traffickers causing the greatest harm and posing
the greatest threat to the safety and health of Americans. Today, we are
alerting the public to this danger so that people have the information
they need to protect themselves and their children.”
These counterfeit pills have been seized by DEA in every U.S. state in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, which is more than the last two years combined...
Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors.'
These counterfeit pills have been seized by DEA in every U.S. state in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, which is more than the last two years combined...
Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors.'
- US DEA
“The Biden-Harris Administration will build on this progress by investing historic amounts in public health strategies at home to reduce drug use and demand. Working with Mexico, we look forward to building on this success to address the production and trafficking of fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine.”'
- Acting Director of National Drug Control Policy Regina LaBelle, US White House Briefing
- Acting Director of National Drug Control Policy Regina LaBelle, US White House Briefing
'While the DEA says their “Domestic Cannabis Suppression / Eradication
Program” strives to “halt the spread of cannabis cultivation in the
United States” and “targets Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO)
involved in cannabis cultivation,” McPheeters said DEA funded operations
in the Casper area help target more than only marijuana.
“In that operation we are just as likely to come across methamphetamine and the impacts of methamphetamine and the tentacles of methamphetamine than we are marijuana,” McPheeters said. “But everybody wants to focus on the marijuana and claim that this is a waste of money when in fact we are absolutely improving traffic safety, we are reducing crashes, we are reducing crime.”'
“In that operation we are just as likely to come across methamphetamine and the impacts of methamphetamine and the tentacles of methamphetamine than we are marijuana,” McPheeters said. “But everybody wants to focus on the marijuana and claim that this is a waste of money when in fact we are absolutely improving traffic safety, we are reducing crashes, we are reducing crime.”'
- Oil City News
Sipping on a cup of stimulating home grown and home made black coffee, I continue to ponder over the role of stimulants in stimulating the rich to get richer, and how the rich stimulate the rest of the world to work for them in their pursuit of material wealth and power. Having removed cannabis - the stimulant par excellence that was widely available to all the people of the world, from the scene - and having cornered the coca plant for cocaine and the opium plant for heroin to meet their own needs, the rich were then presented with the problem of how to ensure that the rest of the world were stimulated enough to work unquestioningly and tirelessly for them. Cocaine, from the coca plant endemic to South and Central America and heroin from the opium plant, which is in great demand across the world, were too precious and rare as stimulants for the rich to share with the rest of the world. As discussed in the topic on Cannabis and Cocaine, the rich discovered that methamphetamine provided the solution to the problem.
Methamphetamine, or crystal meth, is one of the replacements that has
been provided by governments and policy makers to the people of the
world in place of the natural medicinal recreational herb cannabis.
Methamphetamine belongs to the amphetamine class of drugs, known as uppers, and is a
stimulant that provide the user with tremendous energy. Once its
effect wears out, a person feels so low that he or she longs to be back
in that state of high energy or at least normal once again. Many people
sell all they have, hit the streets and become homeless to feed their
meth habits. If this is not bad enough, as the ability to buy reduces,
the quality of meth that a person obtains rapidly deteriorates, and more
and more adulterated meth enters the body.
Methamphetamine, initially manufactured from the precursor ephedrine sourced from the widely available and relatively unrestricted ephedra plant, could be manufactured cheaply across geographies to meet the needs of those who did not belong in the category of the rich and elites across the world with access to abundant cocaine. However, as the popularity for methamphetamine grew, and the tightening of access to, and the reliance on, the ephedra plant was not sufficient, new precursors needed to be found. These precursors ideally needed to be from abundant raw materials that were cheaply available, or cheap to manufacture in simple settings. Sodium cyanide and benzyl cyanide were found to be suitable for this purpose. These substances could be used for synthesizing P-2-P, which was then used to manufacture either amphetamine or methamphetamine. With this discovery, the methamphetamine market took off like never before. From starting off as small scale manufacture in home laboratories, the manufacture of methamphetamine took on an industrial scale. From being manufactured in a few places, close to the markets with high demand for stimulants, the manufacture diversified across the globe. Localized manufacture has reached such levels that there is a large supply of high purity, low cost methamphetamine that manufacturers are exporting to not just the traditional high demand stimulant markets, but they are also flooding local and neighbouring markets with the product. This problem has grown so much that in the last two decades methamphetamine has quickly risen to the status of the drug of most concern globally. While opioids continue to dominate global drug related deaths, the pervasiveness of methamphetamine, along with its popularity and increasing demand, means that it will most likely become the leading cause of drug related deaths in the near future. The legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco, are something I am not considering here.
Methamphetamine has taken center stage, along with heroin and cocaine,
in the recent past. One of the prime reasons for its rise in popularity
is the increasing demand for stimulants across the world - North America, Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, South East Asia and Oceania. This has been coupled with increasing difficulties
in procuring heroin and cocaine from the traditional suppliers in South
America (for heroin and cocaine), and the Near and Far East for
heroin. Countries, such as Mexico, Iran, Afghanistan, China, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand,
etc., who traditionally had drug cartels dealing in cocaine or heroin or both, have
emerged as key suppliers of methamphetamine. The ease of procuring the
raw materials, as well as the ability to synthesize the drug in small
manufacturing units, has turned the meth trade from a small scale
industry to a large scale industry controlled by global drug cartels working in conjunction with
governments, drug enforcement and law enforcement.
The money from methamphetamine is said to fuel gun running and
extortion. Deaths from methamphetamine worldwide is comparable with
heroin. The US is the world's leading methamphetamine consumer today.
Let us look at the rise of methamphetamine globally. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in its World Drug Report 2020, states that 'The quantity of ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized at the global level has increased over the past two decades, in particular over the period 2009–2018, when the quantity of ATS seized quadrupled. The increase was primarily due to the increasingly large quantities of methamphetamine being seized, as seizures increased sevenfold over the period 2009–2018.' In the Russian Federation, UNODC reports that - 'quantities of stimulants seized rose twentyfold over the period 2008–2018, in particular seizures of ATS, which rose to almost 33 times the initial level. Moreover, according to seizure data, a variety of substances (internationally controlled or not) are now present in the synthetic drugs market: methamphetamine and various cathinones, including mephedrone and alpha-PVP.' UNODC, in the same report, said that 'Quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia increased eightfold over the period 2009–2018, to close to 100 tons, and preliminary data for 2019 show further strong increases in the quantities of methamphetamine seized, in particular in South-East Asia, with increases reported in 2019 by, among other countries, Brunei Daraussalam, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam. In most years in the past decade the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia were reported by China. In 2018, by contrast, 66 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in that subregion was seized in Thailand, followed by Indonesia (8 per cent) and Malaysia (8 per cent).' In North America, UNODC reports that - ''The quantities of methamphetamine seized in North America rose sixfold between 2009 and 2018, to 117 tons. North American methamphetamine seizures accounted for more than 99 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in the Americas in 2018. Methamphetamine seizures in the subregion were dominated by those reported by the United States (71 per cent of the total in 2018), followed by Mexico (29 per cent), while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in Canada (0.4 per cent) remained more limited.' In the Middle East, UNODC reports that 'Methamphetamine appears to have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia as the main ATS used in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2009– 2018) as well as in Iraq (2016 and 2017), Lebanon (2014–2017), Bahrein (2016), Afghanistan (2015 and 2016), Israel (2014 and 2015) and Kuwait (2003, 2009, 2013)'
Initially the countries that led to the rise of methamphetamine appear to have been the US, Iran and China, possibly due to a shortage of cocaine and heroin in their local markets needed to meet increasing demand. But gradually, these countries seem to have outsourced manufacture to neighboring countries, who seem to have gladly stepped in to take up manufacturing on industrial scales, as against the numerous small-scale operations that dominated manufacture earlier. This appears to be a concerted move by those involved, in order to bring in efficiencies of cost, scale and distribution in the methamphetamine market. The US outsourced its methamphetamine manufacture to primarily Mexico, China to primarily Thailand and Myanmar, and Iran to primarily Afghanistan. The US, however, with its gluttony for stimulants, appears to have continued with its own manufacturing, in addition to outsourcing to Mexico. UNODC reports that 'The largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in 2018 were the quantities seized in the United States, followed by Thailand and Mexico. Marked increases in the quantities seized from 2017 to 2018 were reported by the United States and Thailand, while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in China declined, in line with reports of wastewater analysis that showed a significant decline in methamphetamine consumption in that country.' UNODC also states that 'Similar to the situation in the United States, where the manufacture of methamphetamine declined while increasing in neighbouring Mexico, both China and Iran (Islamic Republic of) reported declining domestic production, reflected in the decreasing numbers of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in recent years, going hand in hand with the expansion of methamphetamine manufacture in their neighbouring countries. Indeed, by 2018 the Islamic Republic of Iran reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its territory originated in Afghanistan and was trafficked either from there directly or via Pakistan. Similarly, China reported that methamphetamine seized in recent years has originated primarily in Myanmar. In contrast to many other countries, however, the marked declines in the domestic manufacture of methamphetamine in China appear to have more than outweighed any increase in clandestine manufacture and imports from neighbouring countries. This is revealed in the decline in methamphetamine found in the wastewater in cities across China, with wastewater-based estimates suggesting a fall in methamphetamine consumption amounts of 26 per cent over the period 2014 –2018.' UNODC further states 'This shift from China as the main location of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking to other countries in East and South-East Asia is also indirectly reflected in trafficking data reported by Australia. China and Hong Kong, China, were the two main embarkation points for methamphetamine trafficked to Australia in 2015, whereas in the fiscal years 2016/17 and 2017/18 the most important embarkation points were the United States, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. In fact, in 2018, the Australian authorities reported that the importance of China as a source country for methamphetamine had declined while there has been an emerging trend in the growth of quantities of seized methamphetamine originating in South-East Asia, mainly in the Mekong region, including the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand.' Regarding Iran, UNODC says 'Most of the clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia has traditionally been in the Islamic Republic of Iran, being manufactured both for the local market and for export to countries in East and South-East Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) as well as for export to Central Asia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan) and to Europe (including Bulgaria, France, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Kingdom). However, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not the main source of the methamphetamine found in other countries in the Near and Middle East/SouthWest Asia (with the exception of Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic). The main source countries for other countries in this subregion seem to continue to be countries in East and South-East Asia. The extent of clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Islamic Republic of Iran actually appears to be declining, while manufacturing is rapidly increasing in neighbouring Afghanistan.' Summarizing, UNODC states 'Nonetheless, seizures of methamphetamine remain highly concentrated: the three countries responsible for most of the methamphetamine seized worldwide in 2018 (the United States, Thailand and Mexico) accounted for 80 per cent of the global total'
The scaling up of methamphetamine manufacture in outsourced countries has the active involvement of drug cartels who traditionally trafficked cocaine and heroin. These drug cartels found methamphetamine to be an ideal addition to their portfolio as it can be manufactured easily locally with easy to procure raw materials, and it can be distributed globally at lucrative prices because it is so difficult to detect. UNODC reports that 'Practically all the major transnational criminal organizations in Mexico seem to be involved in the smuggling of methamphetamine to the United States. They include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Los Zetas Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization. In parallel, outlaw motorcycle gangs continue to be involved in the distribution of methamphetamine within the United States. The increased involvement of Mexican organized crime groups in the trafficking of drugs other than cocaine has contributed to the spread of methamphetamine trafficking from the western United States to the whole country over the past decade, including states in the eastern part of the country that had previously been spared from the large-scale harmful use of methamphetamine.' It further states that 'The decline in the domestic supply of methamphetamine, indicated by the falling number of manufacturing facilities dismantled in the United States, going hand in hand with increasing use and an overall increase in the supply of the drug, can be explained by the increasing importance of rapidly growing illegal methamphetamine imports from clandestine manufacture sites in neighbouring Mexico. According to the United States authorities, the latter phenomenon appears to have resulted from attempts by Mexican organized crime groups to diversify their drug portfolio as they attempted to reduce their dependence on cocaine produced in countries in South America, preferring instead to source the required chemicals from China and produce methamphetamine themselves. Methamphetamine shipments intercepted along the south-western border of the United States increased almost fourfold between 2013 and 2018.' The report states 'Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine traffickers have varied routes and continue to develop new trading patterns. For example, the manufacture of methamphetamine was traditionally carried out in small-scale laboratories in the United States to serve the domestic market. But this kind of production seems now to be dwarfed by industrial-size laboratories in Mexico. The methamphetamine seized in the United States over the past few years is increasingly imported, with the trade controlled by Mexican cartels'
One of the factors that triggered the outsourcing was the large scale dismantling of the home laboratories in the original countries, i.e. US, China and Iran. UNODC reports that 'The United States reported the dismantling of 1,607 methamphetamine laboratories in 2018, accounting for 78 per cent of all methamphetamine laboratories dismantled worldwide that year. However, the overall output of domestic methamphetamine manufacture in the United States now appears to be considerably smaller than the potential output produced by several of the large, industrial-scale laboratories found in other parts of the world, such as Mexico and East and South-East Asia, in recent years. Over the past few years, the United States has reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its market has been smuggled into the country from abroad, most notably from Mexico. Most of the clandestine production and smuggling seems to be controlled by various Mexican drug cartels.' The report states that 'The vast majority of the methamphetamine production facilities dismantled in the United States were “kitchen laboratories” (1,426), which typically produce two ounces or less per production cycle for local demand, although the overall figure also included the dismantling of 11 industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratories in the United States in 2018. Nevertheless, the overall number of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories detected in the United States fell by about 90 per cent over the period 2010–2018 and by 93 per cent since the peak in 2004. According to the United States authorities, the initial decline after 2004 resulted from improved precursor control, notably through the regulation of over-the-counter sales of methamphetamine precursor chemicals such as ephedrine preparations and pseudoephedrine, and ongoing efforts to dismantle laboratories, which acted as a deterrent to domestic methamphetamine manufacture.' Similar action was initiated in China and Iran as well. UNODC reports that 'The region with the next largest number of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled was Asia, accounting for 6 per cent of the global total in the period 2014–2018. Most of these facilities were dismantled in China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which together accounted for 94 per cent of all reported laboratories dismantled in Asia, while some clandestine methamphetamine laboratories were also dismantled, in descending order of importance, in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the Republic of Korea, Myanmar and Hong Kong, China. In addition, the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine has been reported in recent years by Afghanistan and Iraq.'
Not only have the primary manufacturers of methamphetamine outsourced it to their neighbouring countries, the overall popularity of methamphetamine, its ease of manufacture, and abundant availability of raw materials have meant that the number of countries involved in its manufacture has increased greatly. UNODC says 'Those reporting seizures of methamphetamine increased by more than 50 per cent, from 69 to 105 countries, which suggests that there has been a significant increase in the geographical spread of methamphetamine trafficking at the global level'
The geographical spread has been driven by the availability of raw materials as stated earlier. UNODC reports that 'Countries identified as significant source countries for methamphetamine shipments in Asia in the period 2014–2018 included Myanmar, followed by China, Thailand, India and Iran (Islamic Republic of). Clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in Asia seems to be still largely based on the use of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as precursors, although reports from Afghanistan suggest that ephedrine is extracted from ephedra plant material and used as a precursor for methamphetamine. The authorities in Myanmar and Thailand have reported the seizure of increasing quantities of sodium cyanide and benzyl cyanide in recent years. These substances can be used for synthesizing P-2-P, which is then used to manufacture either amphetamine or methamphetamine.' It also states that 'While the quantities of methamphetamine seized have increased rapidly over the past decade, seizures of internationally controlled chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine have fluctuated over the years and showed a clear increase only in 2018, when methamphetamine precursor seizures almost tripled compared with 2017. The marked increase was the result of record quantities of P-2-P linked to methamphetamine manufacture in North America being seized – an almost ninefold increase – and the global quantities of ephedrine seized increasing almost fivefold. By contrast, the reported number of dismantled laboratories continued to decline, from 10,600 methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in 2010 to close to 3,700 in 2017 and less than 2,100 in 2018. A possible explanation of the phenomenon of an expanding market going hand in hand with fewer and fewer laboratories being dismantled could be a shift towards operating fewer but larger laboratories in parallel with a general shift in production to countries with comparatively limited interdiction capacities.' It further states that 'In contrast to previous decades, when methamphetamine was primarily manufactured from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, nowadays more than half of seized precursor chemicals linked to the manufacture of methamphetamine are P-2-P and/or its precursor chemicals. There is, however, a significant geographical divide. Most methamphetamine production in Asia, Oceania and Africa – and possibly some in Europe – continues to be based primarily on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as the key precursor chemicals, while manufacture of methamphetamine in North America is now primarily based on P-2-P and its precursor chemicals. In some instances, precursor chemicals for the manufacture of P-2-P also seem to have been used in the manufacture of methamphetamine in Western Europe.' The report says ''Regarding precursor chemicals, it has to be taken into account that increasing quantities of methamphetamine are now being produced from pre-precursors that are not under international control; for example, substances such as benzaldehyde and nitroethane are used in the clandestine manufacture of P-2-P, in both North America and Europe. Similarly, benzyl chloride and sodium cyanide are used in the clandestine manufacture of phenylacetic acid, which is also used to manufacture P-2-P, the main precursor used in methamphetamine manufacture in North America.' Citing INCB, UNODC reports 'In this context, INCB raised concerns over large-scale exports of pseudoephedrine preparations from Jordan to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While the officially reported estimate of pseudoephedrine used in Iraq in 2018 was approximately 10 tons, notified shipments of pseudoephedrine preparations sent through the Pre-Export Notification Online system were three times that amount. Those shipments took place even though the national authorities objected.' As the traditional precursors have been gradually brought under international control, manufacturers have innovated to create new precursors in the lab which do not fall under international control. Regarding this, UNODC reports that 'Many of the chemicals most commonly used as precursors to synthesize drugs such as amphetamine, methamphetamine and “ecstasy” have been placed under international control. Traffickers and manufacturers have sought alternatives – not only less well-controlled substances but also chemicals specifically designed to circumvent controls, known as “designer precursors”.'
So the movement of methamphetamine manufacture from the initial source countries - US, Iran and China - to first the neighbouring countries - Mexico, Afghanistan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand - was enabled by the dismantling of small manufacturing facilities and the creation of large scale manufacturing in the neighbouring countries. The involvement of the drug cartels and the easy availability of alternate precursors further enabled this expansion to an increasing number of countries.
The result of this large scale expansion is the availability in the market of high purity methamphetamine and relatively low costs, indicating the glut of supply that exists. Regarding the high levels of purity in the market, UNODC says 'The average purity of crystalline methamphetamine in East and South-East Asia continues to remain very high, again suggesting an abundant supply of the drug. The average purity of samples analysed in China reached 95 per cent in 2018 and other countries in the subregion (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Viet Nam) reported purity levels of between 70 and 90 per cent. While purity has remained high, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have decreased in several countries in the subregion in recent years, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia and Myanmar, pointing to an increase in the availability of crystalline methamphetamine in the subregion. In Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have actually more than halved over the past decade. At the same time, the average purity of crystalline methamphetamine rose in Thailand from 90 per cent in 2011 to around 95 per cent in 2019, with almost all (99 per cent) of the crystalline methamphetamine samples analysed in 2019 showing purity levels of over 90 per cent.' It states that - 'While the typical purity of methamphetamine tablets encountered in East and South-East Asia has remained relatively stable in recent years (mostly within a range of 15 to 25 per cent), retail prices of methamphetamine tablets have decreased sharply in several countries in the subregion, which, when combined with the increases in quantities seized, suggests that the supply of methamphetamine may have outstripped demand in East and South-East Asia.' The report further states 'By contrast, the decline in the number of dismantled laboratories after 2010 was no longer in line with the upward trend in a number of other indicators, which had been clearly pointing to an expansion of the methamphetamine market, both in terms of supply (rising seizures, falling purity adjusted prices) and demand (rising prevalence rates, positive tests among the general workforce, treatment admissions and deaths). The purity of methamphetamine rose from 95 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 to 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, while the potency of methamphetamine increased from 85 to 97 per cent over the same period. This indicates an improvement in the know-how of organized crime groups manufacturing methamphetamine from various (non-scheduled) P-2-P precursors in neighbouring Mexico, an overall increase in the supply of methamphetamine in the United States and the emergence of a potentially even more problematic substance, showing everhigher levels of purity and potency, thus increasing the risk of overdose.' Further explaining the factors contributing to the rising methamphetamine menace, UNODC says 'In 2018, methamphetamine use declined among young adults (aged 18–25), but increased significantly among adults aged 26 and older. This excludes institutionalized and homeless populations, however, both of which may be affected by disproportionately higher rates of drug use. In recent years, reported methamphetamine per gram purity levels in the United States have averaged more than 90 per cent, while prices have declined by a further 18 per cent over the past year to $56 per pure gram.'
The wide availability of methamphetamine manufacturing regions, and the increasing demand for the drug, has led to a bewildering criss-crossing of methamphetamine flows across the world. About a decade back, methamphetamine flows were mainly intra-regional as UNODC reports 'The information available globally on methamphetamine points to a market expansion over the past two decades, in particular since 2009. Qualitative information on methamphetamine trafficking trends reported by Member States, data on drug treatment facilities, prevalence data in countries based on survey data, and prices all suggest that the methamphetamine market has been expanding, particularly in the two subregions where demand for the drug is highest, South-East Asia and North America, while most trafficking in methamphetamine continues to be intraregional. Methamphetamine continues to be seized mainly in North America and in East and South-East Asia which accounted for, respectively, 50 per cent and 42 per cent of the global quantities of methamphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018, while the quantities of the drug seized in Oceania (4 per cent), the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia (2 per cent), South Asia and Europe (1 per cent each) continued to be far smaller.' Even though Mexico primarily caters to North America, Afghanistan to the Middle East, and Thailand/Myanmar/Laos to the Far East and Oceania, we are starting to see expansions across regions. For example Mexican drug cartels now supply to Oceania as well, the US and Mexico supply Europe, Iran and Afghanistan supply the Middle East, Europe and South East Asia, while Thailand/Myanmar/Laos supply South East Asia, Europe, the Far East and Oceania. UNODC reports that 'While methamphetamine trafficking flows from East and South-East Asia to countries outside the subregion remain modest, some smuggling to destinations around the world was reported, mainly smuggling from Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar in 2018 or, when the period is extended to the past five years, mainly from China and Thailand. Destinations outside the subregion included countries in South Asia, the Near and Middle East (Saudi Arabia as well as Israel), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), North America (the United States as well as Canada), Western Europe (notably Switzerland as well as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland), Eastern Europe (notably the Russian Federation) and Africa (notably South Africa) over the period 2014–2018.' It reports that 'Most of the methamphetamine available in East and South-East Asia is sourced within the subregion. The dynamics of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking within that subregion are, however, less well understood than in others as the available indicators show partly contradictory patterns. Although in previous years, China and Myanmar were identified as the most frequently identified countries of “origin”, “departure” and “transit” in East and South-East Asia, manufacture of methamphetamine may now be more widely spread across the subregion, although it is not clear whether frequently mentioned departure countries, such as Malaysia or Thailand, are also the countries of origin or mainly transit countries for methamphetamine manufactured in Myanmar. In fact, Myanmar reported Thailand and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic as main destination countries for methamphetamine shipments in 2018, while Malaysia reported Thailand as the main departure country' UNODC says regarding Oceania 'Methamphetamine found in Australia and New Zealand is both locally manufactured and, to a larger extent, imported from North America and Asia. In the fiscal year 2017/18, methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into Australia from the United States, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, China (including Hong Kong, China), Mexico, Lebanon, Viet Nam and India. The United States was also the main source country of the methamphetamine found in New Zealand in 2018, followed by Canada and, in SouthEast Asia, by Malaysia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic'. It says that 'The United States, for example, has been reported by other countries as a country of departure of methamphetamine for Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), Asia (Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) and Europe (Ireland). Moreover, methamphetamine trafficking has been reported not only from Mexico or from Canada into the United States but also from the United States to those two countries, suggesting a number of two-way trafficking flows across the countries of North America. Methamphetamine trafficked from Canada has been reported in the United States, South America (Chile), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and a few countries in Europe (Iceland and Latvia).' Regarding the expansion into Europe, UNODC further reports that 'More recently, methamphetamine shipments have also been intercepted en route from Mexico to the Netherlands for distribution in Europe; moreover, Mexican “methamphetamine cooks”, linked to Mexican organized crime groups, were arrested in Europe, after being detected in large-scale methamphetamine manufacture in Western Europe.' Regarding the Middle East, UNODC reports that 'In the past few years, the manufacture and use of methamphetamine have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, subregions that until recently were dominated by use of “captagon”. Methamphetamine manufacture and consumption used to be largely unknown in those subregions. Initially reported by only one country in the subregion (Israel), the number of countries reporting seizures of methamphetamine has increased in subsequent years. Overall, eight countries in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia reported seizures of methamphetamine in the period 2000–2009, rising to 14 countries in the period 2010–2018. The bulk of the methamphetamine seized, however, continued to be seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran.' In India, The Hindu reports that 'With meth steadily becoming the ‘recreational drug of choice’ in the country, because it was easier, faster, and cheaper to produce than heroin or marijuana, the demand for and availability of its main component, ephedrine, in the black market had increased, investigators said.'
The increased distribution of methamphetamine from source countries to new markets indicates a global linking of organizations involved in its manufacture and trade. The availability of sophisticated technology, and difficulties in detection have further aided this growth and expansion. UNODC reports that 'The emergence of “new drugs” in the Russian Federation seems to be supply-driven as it may be, at least partly, linked to the rapid spread of the darknet in the Russian Federation. Data collected among a convenience sample of Internet users suggest that the Russian Federation may have the highest proportion worldwide of Internet users who use the darknet for purchasing drugs; those who purchased drugs on the darknet represented 46 per cent of the drug users among the survey respondents in January 2018, rising to 86 per cent in January 2020.' Regarding the sophisticated methods employed to move methamphetamine between Mexico and the US, UNODC reports that 'As cross-border methamphetamine trafficking in North America consists mainly of trafficking from Mexico to the United States, the south-western border thus remains the main entry point for illegal imports of methamphetamine into the United States: in 2018, 95 per cent of the methamphetamine seizures made by United States customs authorities were effected at or near the country’s south-western border. Quantities of methamphetamine seized in the United States as a whole almost tripled between 2013 and 2018, whereas those intercepted along the south-western border quadrupled during the same period. Trafficking modi operandi include concealment by human couriers on commercial flights, the use of parcel delivery services, and the use of pick-up trucks and commercial buses, as well as unusual goods deliveries such as concealment in metal collars, cargo stabilizers, electric transformers and industrial drill bits, reflecting the increasing sophistication of methamphetamine smuggling activities. Another emerging trend over the past few years has been the use of drones, which easily fly over physical barriers on the border while the operators remain at a safe distance from where the drugs are dropped, thereby reducing the risk of arrest.'
In order to achieve greater market penetration, methamphetamine is not sold to the user as methamphetamine, but is often disguised under other names, often as other drugs. UNODC reports that 'In the United States, most methamphetamine is sold as methamphetamine. However, there have also been reports of tablets sold as “ecstasy” that contained methamphetamine instead (notably in Missouri). The sale of methamphetamine in the form of falsified Adderall tablets is a new phenomenon, with laboratories manufacturing such falsified medicaments found in a number of states, in particular Georgia and California.' It further states that 'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”. In many countries in South and Central America, especially those that have reported recent survey data, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants is more common than the use of other amphetamines. The non-medical use of weight loss pills is reportedly more prevalent among women than among men, with pills such as sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate (sold under the brand names Aderan and Ipomex) and phentermine (sold under the brand names Duromine and Suprenza), along with methylphenidate and amphetamine, reported to be the most commonly misused pharmaceutical stimulants in those subregions' In the Middle East, UNODC says 'In the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, the quantities of methamphetamine seized increased markedly in 2018. However, the marked decline in the reported quantities of amphetamine seized in recent years (-37 per cent in 2017 and -80 per cent in 2018) seems to be largely a statistical artefact. Some of this decline may have been related to changes in the categorization of stimulants seized, for example, “prescription stimulants” instead of “amphetamine”. Even more important has been the hiatus in the reporting of seizures to UNODC by some countries known to be affected by major amphetamine trafficking activities. There is plenty of evidence that trafficking in amphetamine, in particular of “captagon” tablets, has also continued in the Near and Middle East in recent years. INCB, for example, in its most recent annual report noted the following: The manufacture and trafficking of counterfeit “captagon” continued to seriously affect the countries of the Middle East, which not only are destination markets for those drugs but are also increasingly becoming a source of counterfeit “captagon”…Political instability and unresolved conflicts, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in some parts of the subregion have contributed to increased trafficking in…“captagon”' There is the likelihood that many persons seeking cocaine, and paying for cocaine, receive methamphetamine or at least cocaine laced with methamphetamine, is my guess.
Despite the abundance of raw material, and the high purity of methamphetamine manufactured, there is the practice of mixing this already dangerous drug, having small margins for overdose, with other equally dangerous drugs. The objective of mixing appears to be to negate the amplified effects of one drug with another. Stimulants are typically combined with sedatives, i.e. uppers with downers, so as to blunt the effect of one with the other. This makes me wonder why take either anyway, when in the end the user wants to normalize things. Hunter Thompson writes in the 70s about the practice of mixing speed with opium to create "speedball'. William S Burroughs talks about taking the edge off cocaine by shooting morphine to balance it out. It appears that these sort of practices have not gone away, but have replaced the older ingredients with even more dangerous new ones that have even less margins for error. A lot of the overdose deaths involve the mixing of multiple drugs. UNODC in its World Drug Report 2020 says 'The expansion of methamphetamine trafficking has also gone hand in hand with the increasingly common practice of mixing methamphetamine with fentanyls. This practice has proved to be particularly harmful and has contributed to the rapid rise in methamphetamine-related deaths in recent years. A general problem with fentanyls is dosing by nonprofessional “pharmacists”, where small mistakes can lead to lethal results. Furthermore, as the overdose death data suggest, even people using cocaine and psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, are also exposed – probably unintentionally – to fentanyls or other potent synthetic opioids mixed with those substances' UNODC further reports that 'While the annual prevalence of methamphetamine use more than doubled from 0.3 to 0.7 per cent of the population aged 12 and older in the United States over the period 2008–2018, the number of psychostimulants involved in drug poisoning deaths in the United States rose from 1,302 to 12,676 deaths over the same period, equivalent to an almost 10-fold increase. This increase may have been inflated by an increasing number of contaminations of psychostimulants with opioids (such as fentanyl and its analogues); however, psychostimulant-related deaths excluding any involvement of opioids still showed an eightfold increase, from 807 deaths in 2008 to 6,271 deaths in 2018.'
Ultimately, the prohibition of natural plants that served as stimulants - such as coca and cannabis, has created this new monster that now threatens to override the world because the need for a stimulant is a natural human need. With the usage of the stimulant producing plants in their natural form, we were able to control the threat of overdose, because the plants themselves took care to ensure that it was very difficult to overdose on them. By moving the manufacture of stimulants to laboratories using synthetic methods, we now have no way of knowing what goes into the stimulant, no way of knowing who is manufacturing how much, and who is consuming how much. Admitting to the difficulty in getting a clear picture of the problem, UNODC says 'Unlike with plant-based drugs such as cocaine or heroin, it is not possible to use rigorous methods to estimate the extent of ATS manufacture.' Regarding the size of the problem, UNODC says, 'Around 27 million people worldwide, corresponding to 0.5 per cent of the adult population, are estimated to have used amphetamines, including amphetamine, methamphetamine and pharmaceutical stimulants, in the past year. The past-year prevalence of the use of amphetamines is particularly high in North America (2.3 per cent of the population aged 15–64) and Australia and New Zealand (1.3 per cent). The past-year use of amphetamines in Asia, as a percentage of the population, is at a similar level (0.5 per cent) to the global average. Nearly half of the global estimate of past-year users of amphetamines (12.7 million people) reside in Asia, although the region is home to 60 per cent of the global population aged 15–64'. The UNODC report that I am referring to is dated 2020, and it cites data from 2018 i.e. data that is nearly six years old. I would estimate that given the rate of change in usage, the current usage levels may be more than double the numbers reported here.
The menace of methamphetamine is widespread. It locks a user in an endless cycle of wanting to get a high to do things and then to get a low to rest and relax. There seems to be a connection in many cases between opioid use and methamphetamine use. A paper published in Sage Publications says ''The economic life of lumpen drug users is made of daily expediencies, such as barter, repairing, collecting abandoned objects, selling minimal items, begging and resorting to charity. It is a diverse ecosystem which changes according to personal and structural conditions. The use of drugs is not mechanically experienced and driven by a deus ex machina called ‘addiction’. It is based on what I call ‘chemical calibration’, for instance in the use of shisheh (methamphetamine) as a productive drug to hustling and heroin as a tranquillizer and painkiller amid sheer destitution.' The rapidly falling prices of methamphetamine, and its increasing availability, mean that more and more vulnerable sections of society are starting to fall victim to it. These are the working and laboring classes that toil hard to make the rich richer, and who face the adverse effects of every action that the rich take. Having taken away the cannabis that kept these classes healthy and contented, society has created the hell called methamphetamine for them. Increasingly, the persons coming for treatment for drug use disorders are those related to methamphetamine. UNODC reports that 'All in all, tablet and crystalline methamphetamine prices in several countries in the region reached their lowest level over the past decade despite a record number of seizures being made every year during the same period. The decrease in prices also appears to have contributed to an increase in the use of methamphetamine and, subsequently, in more methamphetamine-related treatment demand. Thus, there have been sharp increases in methamphetamine-related treatment admissions reported in recent years by several countries in South-East Asia, including a more than 30-fold increase in the number of treatment admissions for the use of methamphetamine reported by Malaysia over the period 2011–2018.' UNODC further reports that 'In other countries in East and South-East Asia, the number of drug treatment admissions is the only indicator available to provide information on the extent of drug use. With the exception of Viet Nam, all countries in the subregion continued to report methamphetamine as the primary drug of concern in drug treatment admissions in 2018 (or the latest available year). While China does not report data on drug treatment admissions, the majority of registered drug users (nearly 60 per cent) in 2018 comprised users of synthetic drugs (mainly methamphetamine)' It is not just the working classes that are falling victim due to its low prices and abundant availability, it is also the younger age groups. UNODC reports 'As is the case with cannabis users, people who are in treatment for disorders related to the use of amphetamines tend to be younger – in their mid-twenties – than users of opioids in treatment, and the majority of them also tend to be first-time entrants. People receiving treatment for the use of methamphetamine account for more than three quarters of those in treatment in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand'
Both the manufacture and use of methamphetamine pose grave risks. NCBI published a paper that says ''The growth of methamphetamine consumption in the world as well as in Iran has become an important problem for the health sector at the individual and social levels. Ease of production, uncommon compounds, and different degrees of purity, low cost and high income, easy availability, simple and little needed equipment, the possibility of mass production, and difficulty in identifying laboratories make its trade very lucrative. However, it can cause a lot of dangers, such as explosion, burns, lung burns and even cancer, for manufacturers and those who are near the places of production and exposed to waste.'
Regarding the harms of methamphetamine use, the same NCBI paper says 'The regular methamphetamine use can lead to long-term harmful effects. Ahmad Hatim conducted a study on methamphetamine dependence in Malaysia, and the results showed that the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among these people was 54.4%, the prevalence of suicide was 12.1, and 47.9% of these people had high levels of methamphetamine-induced psychosis.' Even though I am yet to come across significant material regarding the association of methamphetamine with violence, I am positive that its contribution to violence is comparable to alcohol and cocaine. Being a powerful stimulant, and a lab synthesized one at that, I would expect its user to fly into uncontrollable fits of rage without the slightest provocation. Methamphetamine has been associated with violent crime, sexual violence and high levels of aggression. Belonging to the stimulant class, like cocaine, meth is associated with heart attacks and strokes. The high incidence of HIV among persons who inject drugs (PWID) is alarming. This is mostly prevalent in poorer societies where needle reuse and sharing is common, especially to inject methamphetamine. Another harm is that the adulteration of drugs increases the risk of death especially since many of these drugs originate from home labs and other crude manufacturing units where product purity is the least concern and maximizing profits is the most. Also the sections of society most prone to harm, due to it cheap pricing and high purity, are the poorest, the indigenous communities, the youth and the minorities.
Cannabis is medicine for methamphetamine abuse. A number of studies have been published which show how chronic methamphetamine addicts have been able to recover from their meth addictions through the introduction of cannabis in their rehabilitation processes. Cannabis is said to heal the brain damage caused by methamphetamine. A paper in Sage Publications says that 'Cannabidiol (80 mg/kg, but not 40 mg/kg, or 20 mg/kg) reduced the motivation to self-administer methamphetamine and attenuated methamphetamine-primed relapse to methamphetamine-seeking behavior after extinction'. A paper in PLOS ONE says 'In the present study, we showed that delta9-THC, the principal constituent of cannabis, attenuates the neurotoxic effect of METH by reducing two markers of neuronal damage, overexpression of nNOS and astrogliosis. Specifically, METH-induced astrogliosis and nNOS overexpression were reduced by pre- and post-treatment with delta9-THC in the CPu and PFC, respectively.' Science Direct published a study that said 'It was revealed that CBD (10 and 50 µg/5 µL) microinjection profoundly inhibited both phases of MET [Methamphetamine]-induced CPP [conditioned place preference] without any side effect on the locomotion in animals were treated by MET injection over conditioning phase. Also, CBD's inhibitory impact was more potent in the acquisition phase than the expression phase of MET-induced CPP.' Research Square reports 'Our findings demonstrated that CBD can induce neuroprotective effects by modulating neurogenesis. Therefore, it can provide a promising therapeutic approach to improve cognitive performance following chronic exposure to psychostimulant drugs, including meth.' But cannabis is prohibited worldwide and its cultivation, use and distribution results in imprisonment. Methamphetamine use goes mostly undetected until its almost too late. At these late stages of discovery, the person is almost invariably put into drug rehabilitation centers, many of which exist with very dubious intentions. Many of these centers receive funding from government and private sources, based on their patient count, so these centers have an added incentive to confine and restrain individuals, often in inhuman conditions, such as being chained to beds and subjected to powerful sedatives, that leave the individual incapacitated. Of course, the families of most of these individuals pay large sums of money to ensure that all this is done in the name of treatment to the methamphetamine addict. So you could say that besides the methamphetamine manufacturers and sellers, there are drug rehabilitation centers, pharmaceutical companies, and family members washing their hands of the addict, who stand to gain from the current state of affairs.
None of this needs to happen. Legalizing cannabis will serve the stimulant needs of the majority of the world. Growing and cultivating cannabis will eliminate the dangerous chemical laboratories that the manufacture of methamphetamine requires. Cannabis can be a vital source of income for cultivators and retailers. For buyers and users, cannabis provides the stimulation that methamphetamine provides, and the relaxation and pain relief that opium provides. Besides this, cannabis has a wide range of medicinal effects. Widespread cultivation of cannabis will make it affordable for even the poorest persons on earth. The re-introduction of cannabis will completely breakdown the methamphetamine menace, including its global illegal trafficking. Some of the key reasons why countries like the US and Mexico find it so hard to legalize cannabis, despite overwhelming public support, is the powerful drug cartels working hand in hand with government officials and businessmen. These entities profit immensely from the illicit trafficking of methamphetamine. I suspect that in many nations, there is implicit support for methamphetamine as it funds the dominant political parties there. We must stop the methamphetamine menace before it is too late. Cannabis is the solution to the menace. The narrative, however, continues to be that cannabis is a dangerous drug, more dangerous than methamphetamine. Law and drug enforcement action is overwhelmingly focused on cannabis rather than on methamphetamine. An example is this report from Oil City News which says ''While the DEA says their “Domestic Cannabis Suppression / Eradication Program” strives to “halt the spread of cannabis cultivation in the United States” and “targets Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) involved in cannabis cultivation,” McPheeters said DEA funded operations in the Casper area help target more than only marijuana. “In that operation we are just as likely to come across methamphetamine and the impacts of methamphetamine and the tentacles of methamphetamine than we are marijuana,” McPheeters said. “But everybody wants to focus on the marijuana and claim that this is a waste of money when in fact we are absolutely improving traffic safety, we are reducing crashes, we are reducing crime.”' UNODC reports that 'Data show that, after cannabis, the drug for which the most people are brought into contact with the criminal justice system is the drug that dominates the market in a particular region. In Asia in particular, ATS are the major drug group for which people are brought into contact with the criminal justice system, most likely as a result of the wide use and trafficking of methamphetamine in the region. For both males and females, offences related to ATS are predominant among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for possession for personal use. In the case of trafficking, the data show different patterns for men and women. Among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for drug trafficking in Asia, for those who are men, ATS, opioids and cannabis account for similar proportions of cases (each drug group accounts for about a third of cases), while for women, ATS account for 60 per cent of cases, followed by opioids (which account for a third).'
There is no shortage of lip service regarding efforts to curb methamphetamine. Here are a couple of examples of statements issued by the US White House:
The US is at the epicenter of the methamphetamine crisis. It, along with China and Iran, created the methamphetamine menace. I suspect that this has something to do with the obsession of all three countries with stimulants and sedatives, cocaine and opium. Maybe methamphetamine was envisaged as a means of stimulating further opium usage, or vice versa. Ultimately, the booming opioid and methamphetamine markets contribute significantly to the funding of the governments of the US, China, Iran, and now increasingly the other countries that have been traditional opium and cocaine consuming countries - Russia, UK, India, Australia, the Middle East, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, etc, etc. This may not be through the explicit involvement of the heads of states of these countries, but through their support, and their parties support, for the masterminds behind the global expansion of opium, cocaine and now methamphetamine. All these countries are staunch opponents of cannabis legalization.
Let us look at the rise of methamphetamine globally. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in its World Drug Report 2020, states that 'The quantity of ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized at the global level has increased over the past two decades, in particular over the period 2009–2018, when the quantity of ATS seized quadrupled. The increase was primarily due to the increasingly large quantities of methamphetamine being seized, as seizures increased sevenfold over the period 2009–2018.' In the Russian Federation, UNODC reports that - 'quantities of stimulants seized rose twentyfold over the period 2008–2018, in particular seizures of ATS, which rose to almost 33 times the initial level. Moreover, according to seizure data, a variety of substances (internationally controlled or not) are now present in the synthetic drugs market: methamphetamine and various cathinones, including mephedrone and alpha-PVP.' UNODC, in the same report, said that 'Quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia increased eightfold over the period 2009–2018, to close to 100 tons, and preliminary data for 2019 show further strong increases in the quantities of methamphetamine seized, in particular in South-East Asia, with increases reported in 2019 by, among other countries, Brunei Daraussalam, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam. In most years in the past decade the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia were reported by China. In 2018, by contrast, 66 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in that subregion was seized in Thailand, followed by Indonesia (8 per cent) and Malaysia (8 per cent).' In North America, UNODC reports that - ''The quantities of methamphetamine seized in North America rose sixfold between 2009 and 2018, to 117 tons. North American methamphetamine seizures accounted for more than 99 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in the Americas in 2018. Methamphetamine seizures in the subregion were dominated by those reported by the United States (71 per cent of the total in 2018), followed by Mexico (29 per cent), while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in Canada (0.4 per cent) remained more limited.' In the Middle East, UNODC reports that 'Methamphetamine appears to have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia as the main ATS used in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2009– 2018) as well as in Iraq (2016 and 2017), Lebanon (2014–2017), Bahrein (2016), Afghanistan (2015 and 2016), Israel (2014 and 2015) and Kuwait (2003, 2009, 2013)'
Initially the countries that led to the rise of methamphetamine appear to have been the US, Iran and China, possibly due to a shortage of cocaine and heroin in their local markets needed to meet increasing demand. But gradually, these countries seem to have outsourced manufacture to neighboring countries, who seem to have gladly stepped in to take up manufacturing on industrial scales, as against the numerous small-scale operations that dominated manufacture earlier. This appears to be a concerted move by those involved, in order to bring in efficiencies of cost, scale and distribution in the methamphetamine market. The US outsourced its methamphetamine manufacture to primarily Mexico, China to primarily Thailand and Myanmar, and Iran to primarily Afghanistan. The US, however, with its gluttony for stimulants, appears to have continued with its own manufacturing, in addition to outsourcing to Mexico. UNODC reports that 'The largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in 2018 were the quantities seized in the United States, followed by Thailand and Mexico. Marked increases in the quantities seized from 2017 to 2018 were reported by the United States and Thailand, while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in China declined, in line with reports of wastewater analysis that showed a significant decline in methamphetamine consumption in that country.' UNODC also states that 'Similar to the situation in the United States, where the manufacture of methamphetamine declined while increasing in neighbouring Mexico, both China and Iran (Islamic Republic of) reported declining domestic production, reflected in the decreasing numbers of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in recent years, going hand in hand with the expansion of methamphetamine manufacture in their neighbouring countries. Indeed, by 2018 the Islamic Republic of Iran reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its territory originated in Afghanistan and was trafficked either from there directly or via Pakistan. Similarly, China reported that methamphetamine seized in recent years has originated primarily in Myanmar. In contrast to many other countries, however, the marked declines in the domestic manufacture of methamphetamine in China appear to have more than outweighed any increase in clandestine manufacture and imports from neighbouring countries. This is revealed in the decline in methamphetamine found in the wastewater in cities across China, with wastewater-based estimates suggesting a fall in methamphetamine consumption amounts of 26 per cent over the period 2014 –2018.' UNODC further states 'This shift from China as the main location of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking to other countries in East and South-East Asia is also indirectly reflected in trafficking data reported by Australia. China and Hong Kong, China, were the two main embarkation points for methamphetamine trafficked to Australia in 2015, whereas in the fiscal years 2016/17 and 2017/18 the most important embarkation points were the United States, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. In fact, in 2018, the Australian authorities reported that the importance of China as a source country for methamphetamine had declined while there has been an emerging trend in the growth of quantities of seized methamphetamine originating in South-East Asia, mainly in the Mekong region, including the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand.' Regarding Iran, UNODC says 'Most of the clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia has traditionally been in the Islamic Republic of Iran, being manufactured both for the local market and for export to countries in East and South-East Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) as well as for export to Central Asia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan) and to Europe (including Bulgaria, France, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Kingdom). However, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not the main source of the methamphetamine found in other countries in the Near and Middle East/SouthWest Asia (with the exception of Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic). The main source countries for other countries in this subregion seem to continue to be countries in East and South-East Asia. The extent of clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Islamic Republic of Iran actually appears to be declining, while manufacturing is rapidly increasing in neighbouring Afghanistan.' Summarizing, UNODC states 'Nonetheless, seizures of methamphetamine remain highly concentrated: the three countries responsible for most of the methamphetamine seized worldwide in 2018 (the United States, Thailand and Mexico) accounted for 80 per cent of the global total'
The scaling up of methamphetamine manufacture in outsourced countries has the active involvement of drug cartels who traditionally trafficked cocaine and heroin. These drug cartels found methamphetamine to be an ideal addition to their portfolio as it can be manufactured easily locally with easy to procure raw materials, and it can be distributed globally at lucrative prices because it is so difficult to detect. UNODC reports that 'Practically all the major transnational criminal organizations in Mexico seem to be involved in the smuggling of methamphetamine to the United States. They include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Los Zetas Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization. In parallel, outlaw motorcycle gangs continue to be involved in the distribution of methamphetamine within the United States. The increased involvement of Mexican organized crime groups in the trafficking of drugs other than cocaine has contributed to the spread of methamphetamine trafficking from the western United States to the whole country over the past decade, including states in the eastern part of the country that had previously been spared from the large-scale harmful use of methamphetamine.' It further states that 'The decline in the domestic supply of methamphetamine, indicated by the falling number of manufacturing facilities dismantled in the United States, going hand in hand with increasing use and an overall increase in the supply of the drug, can be explained by the increasing importance of rapidly growing illegal methamphetamine imports from clandestine manufacture sites in neighbouring Mexico. According to the United States authorities, the latter phenomenon appears to have resulted from attempts by Mexican organized crime groups to diversify their drug portfolio as they attempted to reduce their dependence on cocaine produced in countries in South America, preferring instead to source the required chemicals from China and produce methamphetamine themselves. Methamphetamine shipments intercepted along the south-western border of the United States increased almost fourfold between 2013 and 2018.' The report states 'Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine traffickers have varied routes and continue to develop new trading patterns. For example, the manufacture of methamphetamine was traditionally carried out in small-scale laboratories in the United States to serve the domestic market. But this kind of production seems now to be dwarfed by industrial-size laboratories in Mexico. The methamphetamine seized in the United States over the past few years is increasingly imported, with the trade controlled by Mexican cartels'
One of the factors that triggered the outsourcing was the large scale dismantling of the home laboratories in the original countries, i.e. US, China and Iran. UNODC reports that 'The United States reported the dismantling of 1,607 methamphetamine laboratories in 2018, accounting for 78 per cent of all methamphetamine laboratories dismantled worldwide that year. However, the overall output of domestic methamphetamine manufacture in the United States now appears to be considerably smaller than the potential output produced by several of the large, industrial-scale laboratories found in other parts of the world, such as Mexico and East and South-East Asia, in recent years. Over the past few years, the United States has reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its market has been smuggled into the country from abroad, most notably from Mexico. Most of the clandestine production and smuggling seems to be controlled by various Mexican drug cartels.' The report states that 'The vast majority of the methamphetamine production facilities dismantled in the United States were “kitchen laboratories” (1,426), which typically produce two ounces or less per production cycle for local demand, although the overall figure also included the dismantling of 11 industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratories in the United States in 2018. Nevertheless, the overall number of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories detected in the United States fell by about 90 per cent over the period 2010–2018 and by 93 per cent since the peak in 2004. According to the United States authorities, the initial decline after 2004 resulted from improved precursor control, notably through the regulation of over-the-counter sales of methamphetamine precursor chemicals such as ephedrine preparations and pseudoephedrine, and ongoing efforts to dismantle laboratories, which acted as a deterrent to domestic methamphetamine manufacture.' Similar action was initiated in China and Iran as well. UNODC reports that 'The region with the next largest number of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled was Asia, accounting for 6 per cent of the global total in the period 2014–2018. Most of these facilities were dismantled in China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which together accounted for 94 per cent of all reported laboratories dismantled in Asia, while some clandestine methamphetamine laboratories were also dismantled, in descending order of importance, in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the Republic of Korea, Myanmar and Hong Kong, China. In addition, the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine has been reported in recent years by Afghanistan and Iraq.'
Not only have the primary manufacturers of methamphetamine outsourced it to their neighbouring countries, the overall popularity of methamphetamine, its ease of manufacture, and abundant availability of raw materials have meant that the number of countries involved in its manufacture has increased greatly. UNODC says 'Those reporting seizures of methamphetamine increased by more than 50 per cent, from 69 to 105 countries, which suggests that there has been a significant increase in the geographical spread of methamphetamine trafficking at the global level'
The geographical spread has been driven by the availability of raw materials as stated earlier. UNODC reports that 'Countries identified as significant source countries for methamphetamine shipments in Asia in the period 2014–2018 included Myanmar, followed by China, Thailand, India and Iran (Islamic Republic of). Clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in Asia seems to be still largely based on the use of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as precursors, although reports from Afghanistan suggest that ephedrine is extracted from ephedra plant material and used as a precursor for methamphetamine. The authorities in Myanmar and Thailand have reported the seizure of increasing quantities of sodium cyanide and benzyl cyanide in recent years. These substances can be used for synthesizing P-2-P, which is then used to manufacture either amphetamine or methamphetamine.' It also states that 'While the quantities of methamphetamine seized have increased rapidly over the past decade, seizures of internationally controlled chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine have fluctuated over the years and showed a clear increase only in 2018, when methamphetamine precursor seizures almost tripled compared with 2017. The marked increase was the result of record quantities of P-2-P linked to methamphetamine manufacture in North America being seized – an almost ninefold increase – and the global quantities of ephedrine seized increasing almost fivefold. By contrast, the reported number of dismantled laboratories continued to decline, from 10,600 methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in 2010 to close to 3,700 in 2017 and less than 2,100 in 2018. A possible explanation of the phenomenon of an expanding market going hand in hand with fewer and fewer laboratories being dismantled could be a shift towards operating fewer but larger laboratories in parallel with a general shift in production to countries with comparatively limited interdiction capacities.' It further states that 'In contrast to previous decades, when methamphetamine was primarily manufactured from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, nowadays more than half of seized precursor chemicals linked to the manufacture of methamphetamine are P-2-P and/or its precursor chemicals. There is, however, a significant geographical divide. Most methamphetamine production in Asia, Oceania and Africa – and possibly some in Europe – continues to be based primarily on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as the key precursor chemicals, while manufacture of methamphetamine in North America is now primarily based on P-2-P and its precursor chemicals. In some instances, precursor chemicals for the manufacture of P-2-P also seem to have been used in the manufacture of methamphetamine in Western Europe.' The report says ''Regarding precursor chemicals, it has to be taken into account that increasing quantities of methamphetamine are now being produced from pre-precursors that are not under international control; for example, substances such as benzaldehyde and nitroethane are used in the clandestine manufacture of P-2-P, in both North America and Europe. Similarly, benzyl chloride and sodium cyanide are used in the clandestine manufacture of phenylacetic acid, which is also used to manufacture P-2-P, the main precursor used in methamphetamine manufacture in North America.' Citing INCB, UNODC reports 'In this context, INCB raised concerns over large-scale exports of pseudoephedrine preparations from Jordan to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While the officially reported estimate of pseudoephedrine used in Iraq in 2018 was approximately 10 tons, notified shipments of pseudoephedrine preparations sent through the Pre-Export Notification Online system were three times that amount. Those shipments took place even though the national authorities objected.' As the traditional precursors have been gradually brought under international control, manufacturers have innovated to create new precursors in the lab which do not fall under international control. Regarding this, UNODC reports that 'Many of the chemicals most commonly used as precursors to synthesize drugs such as amphetamine, methamphetamine and “ecstasy” have been placed under international control. Traffickers and manufacturers have sought alternatives – not only less well-controlled substances but also chemicals specifically designed to circumvent controls, known as “designer precursors”.'
So the movement of methamphetamine manufacture from the initial source countries - US, Iran and China - to first the neighbouring countries - Mexico, Afghanistan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand - was enabled by the dismantling of small manufacturing facilities and the creation of large scale manufacturing in the neighbouring countries. The involvement of the drug cartels and the easy availability of alternate precursors further enabled this expansion to an increasing number of countries.
The result of this large scale expansion is the availability in the market of high purity methamphetamine and relatively low costs, indicating the glut of supply that exists. Regarding the high levels of purity in the market, UNODC says 'The average purity of crystalline methamphetamine in East and South-East Asia continues to remain very high, again suggesting an abundant supply of the drug. The average purity of samples analysed in China reached 95 per cent in 2018 and other countries in the subregion (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Viet Nam) reported purity levels of between 70 and 90 per cent. While purity has remained high, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have decreased in several countries in the subregion in recent years, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia and Myanmar, pointing to an increase in the availability of crystalline methamphetamine in the subregion. In Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have actually more than halved over the past decade. At the same time, the average purity of crystalline methamphetamine rose in Thailand from 90 per cent in 2011 to around 95 per cent in 2019, with almost all (99 per cent) of the crystalline methamphetamine samples analysed in 2019 showing purity levels of over 90 per cent.' It states that - 'While the typical purity of methamphetamine tablets encountered in East and South-East Asia has remained relatively stable in recent years (mostly within a range of 15 to 25 per cent), retail prices of methamphetamine tablets have decreased sharply in several countries in the subregion, which, when combined with the increases in quantities seized, suggests that the supply of methamphetamine may have outstripped demand in East and South-East Asia.' The report further states 'By contrast, the decline in the number of dismantled laboratories after 2010 was no longer in line with the upward trend in a number of other indicators, which had been clearly pointing to an expansion of the methamphetamine market, both in terms of supply (rising seizures, falling purity adjusted prices) and demand (rising prevalence rates, positive tests among the general workforce, treatment admissions and deaths). The purity of methamphetamine rose from 95 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 to 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, while the potency of methamphetamine increased from 85 to 97 per cent over the same period. This indicates an improvement in the know-how of organized crime groups manufacturing methamphetamine from various (non-scheduled) P-2-P precursors in neighbouring Mexico, an overall increase in the supply of methamphetamine in the United States and the emergence of a potentially even more problematic substance, showing everhigher levels of purity and potency, thus increasing the risk of overdose.' Further explaining the factors contributing to the rising methamphetamine menace, UNODC says 'In 2018, methamphetamine use declined among young adults (aged 18–25), but increased significantly among adults aged 26 and older. This excludes institutionalized and homeless populations, however, both of which may be affected by disproportionately higher rates of drug use. In recent years, reported methamphetamine per gram purity levels in the United States have averaged more than 90 per cent, while prices have declined by a further 18 per cent over the past year to $56 per pure gram.'
The wide availability of methamphetamine manufacturing regions, and the increasing demand for the drug, has led to a bewildering criss-crossing of methamphetamine flows across the world. About a decade back, methamphetamine flows were mainly intra-regional as UNODC reports 'The information available globally on methamphetamine points to a market expansion over the past two decades, in particular since 2009. Qualitative information on methamphetamine trafficking trends reported by Member States, data on drug treatment facilities, prevalence data in countries based on survey data, and prices all suggest that the methamphetamine market has been expanding, particularly in the two subregions where demand for the drug is highest, South-East Asia and North America, while most trafficking in methamphetamine continues to be intraregional. Methamphetamine continues to be seized mainly in North America and in East and South-East Asia which accounted for, respectively, 50 per cent and 42 per cent of the global quantities of methamphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018, while the quantities of the drug seized in Oceania (4 per cent), the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia (2 per cent), South Asia and Europe (1 per cent each) continued to be far smaller.' Even though Mexico primarily caters to North America, Afghanistan to the Middle East, and Thailand/Myanmar/Laos to the Far East and Oceania, we are starting to see expansions across regions. For example Mexican drug cartels now supply to Oceania as well, the US and Mexico supply Europe, Iran and Afghanistan supply the Middle East, Europe and South East Asia, while Thailand/Myanmar/Laos supply South East Asia, Europe, the Far East and Oceania. UNODC reports that 'While methamphetamine trafficking flows from East and South-East Asia to countries outside the subregion remain modest, some smuggling to destinations around the world was reported, mainly smuggling from Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar in 2018 or, when the period is extended to the past five years, mainly from China and Thailand. Destinations outside the subregion included countries in South Asia, the Near and Middle East (Saudi Arabia as well as Israel), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), North America (the United States as well as Canada), Western Europe (notably Switzerland as well as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland), Eastern Europe (notably the Russian Federation) and Africa (notably South Africa) over the period 2014–2018.' It reports that 'Most of the methamphetamine available in East and South-East Asia is sourced within the subregion. The dynamics of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking within that subregion are, however, less well understood than in others as the available indicators show partly contradictory patterns. Although in previous years, China and Myanmar were identified as the most frequently identified countries of “origin”, “departure” and “transit” in East and South-East Asia, manufacture of methamphetamine may now be more widely spread across the subregion, although it is not clear whether frequently mentioned departure countries, such as Malaysia or Thailand, are also the countries of origin or mainly transit countries for methamphetamine manufactured in Myanmar. In fact, Myanmar reported Thailand and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic as main destination countries for methamphetamine shipments in 2018, while Malaysia reported Thailand as the main departure country' UNODC says regarding Oceania 'Methamphetamine found in Australia and New Zealand is both locally manufactured and, to a larger extent, imported from North America and Asia. In the fiscal year 2017/18, methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into Australia from the United States, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, China (including Hong Kong, China), Mexico, Lebanon, Viet Nam and India. The United States was also the main source country of the methamphetamine found in New Zealand in 2018, followed by Canada and, in SouthEast Asia, by Malaysia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic'. It says that 'The United States, for example, has been reported by other countries as a country of departure of methamphetamine for Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), Asia (Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) and Europe (Ireland). Moreover, methamphetamine trafficking has been reported not only from Mexico or from Canada into the United States but also from the United States to those two countries, suggesting a number of two-way trafficking flows across the countries of North America. Methamphetamine trafficked from Canada has been reported in the United States, South America (Chile), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and a few countries in Europe (Iceland and Latvia).' Regarding the expansion into Europe, UNODC further reports that 'More recently, methamphetamine shipments have also been intercepted en route from Mexico to the Netherlands for distribution in Europe; moreover, Mexican “methamphetamine cooks”, linked to Mexican organized crime groups, were arrested in Europe, after being detected in large-scale methamphetamine manufacture in Western Europe.' Regarding the Middle East, UNODC reports that 'In the past few years, the manufacture and use of methamphetamine have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, subregions that until recently were dominated by use of “captagon”. Methamphetamine manufacture and consumption used to be largely unknown in those subregions. Initially reported by only one country in the subregion (Israel), the number of countries reporting seizures of methamphetamine has increased in subsequent years. Overall, eight countries in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia reported seizures of methamphetamine in the period 2000–2009, rising to 14 countries in the period 2010–2018. The bulk of the methamphetamine seized, however, continued to be seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran.' In India, The Hindu reports that 'With meth steadily becoming the ‘recreational drug of choice’ in the country, because it was easier, faster, and cheaper to produce than heroin or marijuana, the demand for and availability of its main component, ephedrine, in the black market had increased, investigators said.'
The increased distribution of methamphetamine from source countries to new markets indicates a global linking of organizations involved in its manufacture and trade. The availability of sophisticated technology, and difficulties in detection have further aided this growth and expansion. UNODC reports that 'The emergence of “new drugs” in the Russian Federation seems to be supply-driven as it may be, at least partly, linked to the rapid spread of the darknet in the Russian Federation. Data collected among a convenience sample of Internet users suggest that the Russian Federation may have the highest proportion worldwide of Internet users who use the darknet for purchasing drugs; those who purchased drugs on the darknet represented 46 per cent of the drug users among the survey respondents in January 2018, rising to 86 per cent in January 2020.' Regarding the sophisticated methods employed to move methamphetamine between Mexico and the US, UNODC reports that 'As cross-border methamphetamine trafficking in North America consists mainly of trafficking from Mexico to the United States, the south-western border thus remains the main entry point for illegal imports of methamphetamine into the United States: in 2018, 95 per cent of the methamphetamine seizures made by United States customs authorities were effected at or near the country’s south-western border. Quantities of methamphetamine seized in the United States as a whole almost tripled between 2013 and 2018, whereas those intercepted along the south-western border quadrupled during the same period. Trafficking modi operandi include concealment by human couriers on commercial flights, the use of parcel delivery services, and the use of pick-up trucks and commercial buses, as well as unusual goods deliveries such as concealment in metal collars, cargo stabilizers, electric transformers and industrial drill bits, reflecting the increasing sophistication of methamphetamine smuggling activities. Another emerging trend over the past few years has been the use of drones, which easily fly over physical barriers on the border while the operators remain at a safe distance from where the drugs are dropped, thereby reducing the risk of arrest.'
In order to achieve greater market penetration, methamphetamine is not sold to the user as methamphetamine, but is often disguised under other names, often as other drugs. UNODC reports that 'In the United States, most methamphetamine is sold as methamphetamine. However, there have also been reports of tablets sold as “ecstasy” that contained methamphetamine instead (notably in Missouri). The sale of methamphetamine in the form of falsified Adderall tablets is a new phenomenon, with laboratories manufacturing such falsified medicaments found in a number of states, in particular Georgia and California.' It further states that 'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”. In many countries in South and Central America, especially those that have reported recent survey data, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants is more common than the use of other amphetamines. The non-medical use of weight loss pills is reportedly more prevalent among women than among men, with pills such as sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate (sold under the brand names Aderan and Ipomex) and phentermine (sold under the brand names Duromine and Suprenza), along with methylphenidate and amphetamine, reported to be the most commonly misused pharmaceutical stimulants in those subregions' In the Middle East, UNODC says 'In the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, the quantities of methamphetamine seized increased markedly in 2018. However, the marked decline in the reported quantities of amphetamine seized in recent years (-37 per cent in 2017 and -80 per cent in 2018) seems to be largely a statistical artefact. Some of this decline may have been related to changes in the categorization of stimulants seized, for example, “prescription stimulants” instead of “amphetamine”. Even more important has been the hiatus in the reporting of seizures to UNODC by some countries known to be affected by major amphetamine trafficking activities. There is plenty of evidence that trafficking in amphetamine, in particular of “captagon” tablets, has also continued in the Near and Middle East in recent years. INCB, for example, in its most recent annual report noted the following: The manufacture and trafficking of counterfeit “captagon” continued to seriously affect the countries of the Middle East, which not only are destination markets for those drugs but are also increasingly becoming a source of counterfeit “captagon”…Political instability and unresolved conflicts, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in some parts of the subregion have contributed to increased trafficking in…“captagon”' There is the likelihood that many persons seeking cocaine, and paying for cocaine, receive methamphetamine or at least cocaine laced with methamphetamine, is my guess.
Despite the abundance of raw material, and the high purity of methamphetamine manufactured, there is the practice of mixing this already dangerous drug, having small margins for overdose, with other equally dangerous drugs. The objective of mixing appears to be to negate the amplified effects of one drug with another. Stimulants are typically combined with sedatives, i.e. uppers with downers, so as to blunt the effect of one with the other. This makes me wonder why take either anyway, when in the end the user wants to normalize things. Hunter Thompson writes in the 70s about the practice of mixing speed with opium to create "speedball'. William S Burroughs talks about taking the edge off cocaine by shooting morphine to balance it out. It appears that these sort of practices have not gone away, but have replaced the older ingredients with even more dangerous new ones that have even less margins for error. A lot of the overdose deaths involve the mixing of multiple drugs. UNODC in its World Drug Report 2020 says 'The expansion of methamphetamine trafficking has also gone hand in hand with the increasingly common practice of mixing methamphetamine with fentanyls. This practice has proved to be particularly harmful and has contributed to the rapid rise in methamphetamine-related deaths in recent years. A general problem with fentanyls is dosing by nonprofessional “pharmacists”, where small mistakes can lead to lethal results. Furthermore, as the overdose death data suggest, even people using cocaine and psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, are also exposed – probably unintentionally – to fentanyls or other potent synthetic opioids mixed with those substances' UNODC further reports that 'While the annual prevalence of methamphetamine use more than doubled from 0.3 to 0.7 per cent of the population aged 12 and older in the United States over the period 2008–2018, the number of psychostimulants involved in drug poisoning deaths in the United States rose from 1,302 to 12,676 deaths over the same period, equivalent to an almost 10-fold increase. This increase may have been inflated by an increasing number of contaminations of psychostimulants with opioids (such as fentanyl and its analogues); however, psychostimulant-related deaths excluding any involvement of opioids still showed an eightfold increase, from 807 deaths in 2008 to 6,271 deaths in 2018.'
Ultimately, the prohibition of natural plants that served as stimulants - such as coca and cannabis, has created this new monster that now threatens to override the world because the need for a stimulant is a natural human need. With the usage of the stimulant producing plants in their natural form, we were able to control the threat of overdose, because the plants themselves took care to ensure that it was very difficult to overdose on them. By moving the manufacture of stimulants to laboratories using synthetic methods, we now have no way of knowing what goes into the stimulant, no way of knowing who is manufacturing how much, and who is consuming how much. Admitting to the difficulty in getting a clear picture of the problem, UNODC says 'Unlike with plant-based drugs such as cocaine or heroin, it is not possible to use rigorous methods to estimate the extent of ATS manufacture.' Regarding the size of the problem, UNODC says, 'Around 27 million people worldwide, corresponding to 0.5 per cent of the adult population, are estimated to have used amphetamines, including amphetamine, methamphetamine and pharmaceutical stimulants, in the past year. The past-year prevalence of the use of amphetamines is particularly high in North America (2.3 per cent of the population aged 15–64) and Australia and New Zealand (1.3 per cent). The past-year use of amphetamines in Asia, as a percentage of the population, is at a similar level (0.5 per cent) to the global average. Nearly half of the global estimate of past-year users of amphetamines (12.7 million people) reside in Asia, although the region is home to 60 per cent of the global population aged 15–64'. The UNODC report that I am referring to is dated 2020, and it cites data from 2018 i.e. data that is nearly six years old. I would estimate that given the rate of change in usage, the current usage levels may be more than double the numbers reported here.
The menace of methamphetamine is widespread. It locks a user in an endless cycle of wanting to get a high to do things and then to get a low to rest and relax. There seems to be a connection in many cases between opioid use and methamphetamine use. A paper published in Sage Publications says ''The economic life of lumpen drug users is made of daily expediencies, such as barter, repairing, collecting abandoned objects, selling minimal items, begging and resorting to charity. It is a diverse ecosystem which changes according to personal and structural conditions. The use of drugs is not mechanically experienced and driven by a deus ex machina called ‘addiction’. It is based on what I call ‘chemical calibration’, for instance in the use of shisheh (methamphetamine) as a productive drug to hustling and heroin as a tranquillizer and painkiller amid sheer destitution.' The rapidly falling prices of methamphetamine, and its increasing availability, mean that more and more vulnerable sections of society are starting to fall victim to it. These are the working and laboring classes that toil hard to make the rich richer, and who face the adverse effects of every action that the rich take. Having taken away the cannabis that kept these classes healthy and contented, society has created the hell called methamphetamine for them. Increasingly, the persons coming for treatment for drug use disorders are those related to methamphetamine. UNODC reports that 'All in all, tablet and crystalline methamphetamine prices in several countries in the region reached their lowest level over the past decade despite a record number of seizures being made every year during the same period. The decrease in prices also appears to have contributed to an increase in the use of methamphetamine and, subsequently, in more methamphetamine-related treatment demand. Thus, there have been sharp increases in methamphetamine-related treatment admissions reported in recent years by several countries in South-East Asia, including a more than 30-fold increase in the number of treatment admissions for the use of methamphetamine reported by Malaysia over the period 2011–2018.' UNODC further reports that 'In other countries in East and South-East Asia, the number of drug treatment admissions is the only indicator available to provide information on the extent of drug use. With the exception of Viet Nam, all countries in the subregion continued to report methamphetamine as the primary drug of concern in drug treatment admissions in 2018 (or the latest available year). While China does not report data on drug treatment admissions, the majority of registered drug users (nearly 60 per cent) in 2018 comprised users of synthetic drugs (mainly methamphetamine)' It is not just the working classes that are falling victim due to its low prices and abundant availability, it is also the younger age groups. UNODC reports 'As is the case with cannabis users, people who are in treatment for disorders related to the use of amphetamines tend to be younger – in their mid-twenties – than users of opioids in treatment, and the majority of them also tend to be first-time entrants. People receiving treatment for the use of methamphetamine account for more than three quarters of those in treatment in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand'
Both the manufacture and use of methamphetamine pose grave risks. NCBI published a paper that says ''The growth of methamphetamine consumption in the world as well as in Iran has become an important problem for the health sector at the individual and social levels. Ease of production, uncommon compounds, and different degrees of purity, low cost and high income, easy availability, simple and little needed equipment, the possibility of mass production, and difficulty in identifying laboratories make its trade very lucrative. However, it can cause a lot of dangers, such as explosion, burns, lung burns and even cancer, for manufacturers and those who are near the places of production and exposed to waste.'
Regarding the harms of methamphetamine use, the same NCBI paper says 'The regular methamphetamine use can lead to long-term harmful effects. Ahmad Hatim conducted a study on methamphetamine dependence in Malaysia, and the results showed that the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among these people was 54.4%, the prevalence of suicide was 12.1, and 47.9% of these people had high levels of methamphetamine-induced psychosis.' Even though I am yet to come across significant material regarding the association of methamphetamine with violence, I am positive that its contribution to violence is comparable to alcohol and cocaine. Being a powerful stimulant, and a lab synthesized one at that, I would expect its user to fly into uncontrollable fits of rage without the slightest provocation. Methamphetamine has been associated with violent crime, sexual violence and high levels of aggression. Belonging to the stimulant class, like cocaine, meth is associated with heart attacks and strokes. The high incidence of HIV among persons who inject drugs (PWID) is alarming. This is mostly prevalent in poorer societies where needle reuse and sharing is common, especially to inject methamphetamine. Another harm is that the adulteration of drugs increases the risk of death especially since many of these drugs originate from home labs and other crude manufacturing units where product purity is the least concern and maximizing profits is the most. Also the sections of society most prone to harm, due to it cheap pricing and high purity, are the poorest, the indigenous communities, the youth and the minorities.
Cannabis is medicine for methamphetamine abuse. A number of studies have been published which show how chronic methamphetamine addicts have been able to recover from their meth addictions through the introduction of cannabis in their rehabilitation processes. Cannabis is said to heal the brain damage caused by methamphetamine. A paper in Sage Publications says that 'Cannabidiol (80 mg/kg, but not 40 mg/kg, or 20 mg/kg) reduced the motivation to self-administer methamphetamine and attenuated methamphetamine-primed relapse to methamphetamine-seeking behavior after extinction'. A paper in PLOS ONE says 'In the present study, we showed that delta9-THC, the principal constituent of cannabis, attenuates the neurotoxic effect of METH by reducing two markers of neuronal damage, overexpression of nNOS and astrogliosis. Specifically, METH-induced astrogliosis and nNOS overexpression were reduced by pre- and post-treatment with delta9-THC in the CPu and PFC, respectively.' Science Direct published a study that said 'It was revealed that CBD (10 and 50 µg/5 µL) microinjection profoundly inhibited both phases of MET [Methamphetamine]-induced CPP [conditioned place preference] without any side effect on the locomotion in animals were treated by MET injection over conditioning phase. Also, CBD's inhibitory impact was more potent in the acquisition phase than the expression phase of MET-induced CPP.' Research Square reports 'Our findings demonstrated that CBD can induce neuroprotective effects by modulating neurogenesis. Therefore, it can provide a promising therapeutic approach to improve cognitive performance following chronic exposure to psychostimulant drugs, including meth.' But cannabis is prohibited worldwide and its cultivation, use and distribution results in imprisonment. Methamphetamine use goes mostly undetected until its almost too late. At these late stages of discovery, the person is almost invariably put into drug rehabilitation centers, many of which exist with very dubious intentions. Many of these centers receive funding from government and private sources, based on their patient count, so these centers have an added incentive to confine and restrain individuals, often in inhuman conditions, such as being chained to beds and subjected to powerful sedatives, that leave the individual incapacitated. Of course, the families of most of these individuals pay large sums of money to ensure that all this is done in the name of treatment to the methamphetamine addict. So you could say that besides the methamphetamine manufacturers and sellers, there are drug rehabilitation centers, pharmaceutical companies, and family members washing their hands of the addict, who stand to gain from the current state of affairs.
None of this needs to happen. Legalizing cannabis will serve the stimulant needs of the majority of the world. Growing and cultivating cannabis will eliminate the dangerous chemical laboratories that the manufacture of methamphetamine requires. Cannabis can be a vital source of income for cultivators and retailers. For buyers and users, cannabis provides the stimulation that methamphetamine provides, and the relaxation and pain relief that opium provides. Besides this, cannabis has a wide range of medicinal effects. Widespread cultivation of cannabis will make it affordable for even the poorest persons on earth. The re-introduction of cannabis will completely breakdown the methamphetamine menace, including its global illegal trafficking. Some of the key reasons why countries like the US and Mexico find it so hard to legalize cannabis, despite overwhelming public support, is the powerful drug cartels working hand in hand with government officials and businessmen. These entities profit immensely from the illicit trafficking of methamphetamine. I suspect that in many nations, there is implicit support for methamphetamine as it funds the dominant political parties there. We must stop the methamphetamine menace before it is too late. Cannabis is the solution to the menace. The narrative, however, continues to be that cannabis is a dangerous drug, more dangerous than methamphetamine. Law and drug enforcement action is overwhelmingly focused on cannabis rather than on methamphetamine. An example is this report from Oil City News which says ''While the DEA says their “Domestic Cannabis Suppression / Eradication Program” strives to “halt the spread of cannabis cultivation in the United States” and “targets Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) involved in cannabis cultivation,” McPheeters said DEA funded operations in the Casper area help target more than only marijuana. “In that operation we are just as likely to come across methamphetamine and the impacts of methamphetamine and the tentacles of methamphetamine than we are marijuana,” McPheeters said. “But everybody wants to focus on the marijuana and claim that this is a waste of money when in fact we are absolutely improving traffic safety, we are reducing crashes, we are reducing crime.”' UNODC reports that 'Data show that, after cannabis, the drug for which the most people are brought into contact with the criminal justice system is the drug that dominates the market in a particular region. In Asia in particular, ATS are the major drug group for which people are brought into contact with the criminal justice system, most likely as a result of the wide use and trafficking of methamphetamine in the region. For both males and females, offences related to ATS are predominant among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for possession for personal use. In the case of trafficking, the data show different patterns for men and women. Among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for drug trafficking in Asia, for those who are men, ATS, opioids and cannabis account for similar proportions of cases (each drug group accounts for about a third of cases), while for women, ATS account for 60 per cent of cases, followed by opioids (which account for a third).'
There is no shortage of lip service regarding efforts to curb methamphetamine. Here are a couple of examples of statements issued by the US White House:
- '“The sustained decrease in poppy cultivation and potential heroin production underlines the importance of maintaining strong United States-Mexico cooperation on drug policy,” said Acting Director of National Drug Control Policy Regina LaBelle. “The Biden-Harris Administration will build on this progress by investing historic amounts in public health strategies at home to reduce drug use and demand. Working with Mexico, we look forward to building on this success to address the production and trafficking of fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine.”' - White House
- 'The United States is committed to working together with the countries of the Western Hemisphere as neighbors and partners to meet our shared challenges of drug trafficking and use. My Administration will seek to expand cooperation with key partners, such as Mexico and Colombia, to shape a collective and comprehensive response and expand efforts to address the production and trafficking of dangerous synthetic drugs that are responsible for many of our overdose deaths, particularly fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine. In Mexico, we must continue to work together to intensify efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations and their networks, increase prosecutions of criminal leaders and facilitators, and strengthen efforts to seize illicit assets. In Bolivia, I encourage the government to take additional steps to safeguard the country’s licit coca markets from criminal exploitation and reduce illicit coca cultivation that continues to exceed legal limits under Bolivia’s domestic laws for medicinal and traditional use. In addition, the United States will look to expand cooperation with China, India, and other chemical source countries in order to disrupt the global flow of synthetic drugs and their precursor chemicals.' - White House
The US is at the epicenter of the methamphetamine crisis. It, along with China and Iran, created the methamphetamine menace. I suspect that this has something to do with the obsession of all three countries with stimulants and sedatives, cocaine and opium. Maybe methamphetamine was envisaged as a means of stimulating further opium usage, or vice versa. Ultimately, the booming opioid and methamphetamine markets contribute significantly to the funding of the governments of the US, China, Iran, and now increasingly the other countries that have been traditional opium and cocaine consuming countries - Russia, UK, India, Australia, the Middle East, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, etc, etc. This may not be through the explicit involvement of the heads of states of these countries, but through their support, and their parties support, for the masterminds behind the global expansion of opium, cocaine and now methamphetamine. All these countries are staunch opponents of cannabis legalization.
Cannabis grows in nearly all countries of the world. Its stimulant
properties are as effective as well as potentially much more harmless
and beneficial than the natural coca"s stimulant properties. The fact
that many musicians, sports persons,
and other persons performing physically and creatively demanding work
enjoy cannabis regularly is testimony to its stimulant properties. The
Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, in its report of 1895, says - '470. The use of these [hemp]drugs to give
staying-power under severe exertion or exposure or to alleviate fatigue
is very largely in evidence. Here it is ganja especially which is
credited with these beneficial effects. For ganja is far more
extensively used than bhang by the labouring classes. The latter is
mainly used by persons like the Chaubes of Mathra, who are very
frequently referred to, and professional wrestlers. Gymnasts, wrestlers
and musicians, palki-bearers and porters, divers and postal runners, are
examples of the classes who use the hemp drugs on occasions of
especially severe exertion. Fishermen and boatmen, singhara cultivators
working in tanks, dhobis and night watchmen, mendicants and pilgrims,
are named as among those who use them under severe exposure. All classes
of labourers, especially such as blacksmiths, miners, and coolies, are
said more or less generally to use the drugs as a rule in moderation to
alleviate fatigue.' Regarding its stimulating effects, the Commission reports that - 'As a result of several experiments on pupils at the Medical College,
Calcutta, [Dr. William] O'Shaughnessy observes: "The result of several trials was that
in as small doses as 1/4 of a grain the pulse was increased in fulness
and frequency; the surface of the body glowed; the appetite became
extraordinary; vivid ideas crowded the brain; unusual loquacity
occurred.' Quoting another witness, the Commission writes that - 'Dr. Russell (Bengal witness No. 105), in his note furnished to Dr.
Prain, gives the following effects of "doses pushed to produce a decided
effect": "Mental effects appear in from three to five minutes;
exhilaration and excitement of a pleasing nature: the subject talkative
and merry; laughs and gesticulates; plays on imaginary musical
instruments and sings; converses with imaginary persons; illusions and
delusions, usually of a pleasing nature; objective of these very
responsive to external impressions and suggestions; rarely quarrelsome
or combative'. Finally, in its summary on the immediate effects of cannabis usage, the Commission wrote that - '485. Judging from the replies of several
witnesses, the immediate effect of the moderate use of any of the hemp
drugs on the habitual consumer is refreshing and stimulating, and
alleviates fatigue, giving rise to pleasurable sensations all over the
nervous system, so that the consumer is "at peace with everybody"—in a
grand waking dream. He is able to concentrate his thoughts on one
subject: it affords him pleasure, vigour, ready wit, capacity for hard
work, and sharpness for business; it has a quieting effect on the
nervous system, and removes restlessness and induces forgetfulness of
mental troubles; all sorts of grotesque ideas rapidly pass through the
mind, with a tendency to talk; it brightens the eyes, and, like a good
cigar, gives content; the man feels jolly, sings songs, and tells good
stories; it causes bravery in the brave and cowardice in the timid, and,
like alcohol, brings out the real character of the man'
Ephedra (Ephedra sinica), also called ma huang, is a herb that has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for more than 5,000 years, primarily to treat asthma, bronchitis, and hay fever. Ephedra is also prescribed for symptoms of cold and flu, including nasal congestion, cough, fever, and chills. Ephedra has been banned by the US FDA since April 2004. The FDA banned dietary supplements containing ephedrine alkaloids because of their serious safety risks. The supplements were associated with cases of heart attack, seizure, stroke, and sudden death. The banning of the ephedra plant by the US FDA did nothing to curb the methamphetamine menace. Instead, it amplified the problem. For one thing, banning a plant is one of the most stupidest things to do, because it is nature that created the plant, not humans. Nature will continue to create the plant and no human can stop it. Banning the plant also serves to bring undue attention to it. So somebody suddenly discovers that the plant growing under his windowsill has something about it, which is why it has been banned. As a counter reaction to a ban, persons who find uses for the plant will take extra measures to protect it, and even try and grow more of it clandestinely. This appears to have been what happened initially, with the traditional areas that used the ephedra plant for medicine, especially in the Far East, now converting it to methamphetamine, which is how, I suspect, the initial wave of methamphetamine was produced from China. The Chinese would have been introduced to the pleasures of cocaine by the US soldiers in their vicinity, and together they may have worked out how the ephedra plant could be used to obtain a cocaine substitute. This information would have been carried back to the US, where methamphetamine manufacture took off, and also to Iran as a result of US troop presence in the Middle East. The banning of the plant created a much worse problem than the need to control a natural plant, which is by itself an impossible task. Humans went to the labs and discovered how to create pseudoephedrine and P-2-P, the methamphetamine precursor using other freely available chemical compounds, thus entirely bypassing the plant route of ephedrine from ephedra itself. This was fundamental to the manufacture of methamphetamine moving to the next level, where anyone anywhere could synthesize methamphetamine, needing just a small laboratory at home. It is these multiple home labs that spurred the next wave of methamphetamine production, especially in the US. This then morphed into large scale industrial production, once the drug cartels took a liking to the idea.
We see this trajectory across all global drug related problems that humans have created. The utterly stupid approach of banning a natural plant creates a problem of such a magnitude that it is impossible to contain. It takes the onus of creating a medicinal plant from the hands of nature, which works patiently over millions of years crafting plants as suited for all of nature, not just humans, and transfers it to humans working in laboratories with synthesized compounds, the effects of which on humans and nature is completely unknown to everybody, including nature itself. From trying to control a natural plant, the problem then becomes one of controlling not just the natural plant, but all the compounds that can be used to synthesize the equivalent of the original natural compound. As drug control organizations ban chemical compounds used in the manufacture of the drug, the pharmacist discovers new compounds that serve the purpose, staying constantly one step ahead, creating more and more dangerous problems as he goes along. We see this with the opium plant, the banning of which increased the production of heroin, and finally the production of fentanyls which do not even need the opium plant anymore. A pencil tip amount of fentanyl is sufficient to kill a person. We see this with cannabis, where the banning of the plant led to the obsession with delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-9), and finally with the production of delta8-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-8) which can be synthesized in the lab. The banning of the coca plant has led to the obsession with cocaine, which then morphed into the obsession with methamphetamine from the ephedra plant because cocaine was unobtainable, and then finally has reached the synthesis of methamphetamine in laboratories with no need for the natural plant anymore.
To try and control these global drug problems related to cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine using the current approaches is not going to get us anywhere. As long as there is demand, there will be supply, and the pharmacists will always stay ahead of the game with their focus on making it rich with their synthesized creations. The only way out of this problem is to provide the world with safe alternatives that can at least reduce the likelihood of dying from an overdose. These safe alternatives are the natural plants themselves. Legalizing the coca plant, opium plant, ephedra plant and cannabis plant will enable these natural forms to cater to the demand, thus bringing down the demand for the dangerous synthesized chemical versions now in vogue. The legalization of the cannabis plant is the key here, as it has the greatest harm reduction potential. Just the global legalization of the cannabis plant will bring down demand for not just cocaine, heroin, fentanyls and methamphetamine, it will bring down demand for the coca, opium and ephedra plants itself. These plants can then be used in the regions where they are endemic by the persons who know how to use them judiciously, while the majority of the world can use cannabis to meet their need for stimulant and sedative. This solution is most obvious, and has been staring in the face of one and all for such a long time. The refusal to acknowledge this points to outright stupidity on the one hand, or a dangerous psychopathic bent of mind on the other that treats the goal of getting rich at any cost as much more important than the lives of human beings.
We see this trajectory across all global drug related problems that humans have created. The utterly stupid approach of banning a natural plant creates a problem of such a magnitude that it is impossible to contain. It takes the onus of creating a medicinal plant from the hands of nature, which works patiently over millions of years crafting plants as suited for all of nature, not just humans, and transfers it to humans working in laboratories with synthesized compounds, the effects of which on humans and nature is completely unknown to everybody, including nature itself. From trying to control a natural plant, the problem then becomes one of controlling not just the natural plant, but all the compounds that can be used to synthesize the equivalent of the original natural compound. As drug control organizations ban chemical compounds used in the manufacture of the drug, the pharmacist discovers new compounds that serve the purpose, staying constantly one step ahead, creating more and more dangerous problems as he goes along. We see this with the opium plant, the banning of which increased the production of heroin, and finally the production of fentanyls which do not even need the opium plant anymore. A pencil tip amount of fentanyl is sufficient to kill a person. We see this with cannabis, where the banning of the plant led to the obsession with delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-9), and finally with the production of delta8-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC-8) which can be synthesized in the lab. The banning of the coca plant has led to the obsession with cocaine, which then morphed into the obsession with methamphetamine from the ephedra plant because cocaine was unobtainable, and then finally has reached the synthesis of methamphetamine in laboratories with no need for the natural plant anymore.
To try and control these global drug problems related to cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine using the current approaches is not going to get us anywhere. As long as there is demand, there will be supply, and the pharmacists will always stay ahead of the game with their focus on making it rich with their synthesized creations. The only way out of this problem is to provide the world with safe alternatives that can at least reduce the likelihood of dying from an overdose. These safe alternatives are the natural plants themselves. Legalizing the coca plant, opium plant, ephedra plant and cannabis plant will enable these natural forms to cater to the demand, thus bringing down the demand for the dangerous synthesized chemical versions now in vogue. The legalization of the cannabis plant is the key here, as it has the greatest harm reduction potential. Just the global legalization of the cannabis plant will bring down demand for not just cocaine, heroin, fentanyls and methamphetamine, it will bring down demand for the coca, opium and ephedra plants itself. These plants can then be used in the regions where they are endemic by the persons who know how to use them judiciously, while the majority of the world can use cannabis to meet their need for stimulant and sedative. This solution is most obvious, and has been staring in the face of one and all for such a long time. The refusal to acknowledge this points to outright stupidity on the one hand, or a dangerous psychopathic bent of mind on the other that treats the goal of getting rich at any cost as much more important than the lives of human beings.
It is imperative that we, as society, make the necessary adjustments to
reduce the harms caused by methamphetamine. But the forces opposed to the legalization of
cannabis are powerful. Mexico
has been unable to legalize recreational cannabis use, despite a
Supreme Court ruling years ago that cannabis prohibition goes against the rights of an
individual. This is primarily because Mexico is the key supplier of methamphetamine
to the US. Powerful entities in Mexico
and the US stand to lose with the legalization of cannabis and its
threat to the meth market, similar to the threat to the cocaine and
heroin markets. Law and drug enforcement agencies world wide still focus
more resources on cannabis prohibition than on methamphetamine
regulation.
So, this is then how the rich took away the stimulants of the people of the world that were available in their natural form for all. They threw away the most important plant cannabis, kept the coca plant to make cocaine, and created methamphetamine to keep the world's people chained and stimulated to work for them. One more cup of coffee before I go...to the valley below??
Related articles
The following list of articles taken from various media speak about the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of yours truly at the time of reading the article.'“The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said Anne Milgram, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before. In fact, DEA lab analyses reveal that two out of every five fake pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose. DEA is focusing resources on taking down the violent drug traffickers causing the greatest harm and posing the greatest threat to the safety and health of Americans. Today, we are alerting the public to this danger so that people have the information they need to protect themselves and their children.”
These counterfeit pills have been seized by DEA in every U.S. state in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, which is more than the last two years combined. DEA laboratory testing reveals a dramatic rise in the number of counterfeit pills containing at least two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered a lethal dose. A deadly dose of fentanyl is small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil.
Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors.'
https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2021/09/27/dea-issues-public-safety-alert-sharp-increase-fake-prescription-pills
These counterfeit pills have been seized by DEA in every U.S. state in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, which is more than the last two years combined. DEA laboratory testing reveals a dramatic rise in the number of counterfeit pills containing at least two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered a lethal dose. A deadly dose of fentanyl is small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil.
Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors.'
https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2021/09/27/dea-issues-public-safety-alert-sharp-increase-fake-prescription-pills
'The United States is committed to working together with the countries of the Western Hemisphere as neighbors and partners to meet our shared challenges of drug trafficking and use. My Administration will seek to expand cooperation with key partners, such as Mexico and Colombia, to shape a collective and comprehensive response and expand efforts to address the production and trafficking of dangerous synthetic drugs that are responsible for many of our overdose deaths, particularly fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine. In Mexico, we must continue to work together to intensify efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations and their networks, increase prosecutions of criminal leaders and facilitators, and strengthen efforts to seize illicit assets. In Bolivia, I encourage the government to take additional steps to safeguard the country’s licit coca markets from criminal exploitation and reduce illicit coca cultivation that continues to exceed legal limits under Bolivia’s domestic laws for medicinal and traditional use. In addition, the United States will look to expand cooperation with China, India, and other chemical source countries in order to disrupt the global flow of synthetic drugs and their precursor chemicals. '
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/09/15/a-memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-state-on-presidential-determination-on-major-drug-transit-or-major-illicit-drug-producing-countries-for-fiscal-year-2022/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/09/15/a-memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-state-on-presidential-determination-on-major-drug-transit-or-major-illicit-drug-producing-countries-for-fiscal-year-2022/
'In recent years, we have seen synthetic opioids, such as illicitly manufactured fentanyl, drive many overdose deaths with cocaine- and methamphetamine-related deaths also increasing at alarming rates. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the overdose epidemic, as necessary pandemic restrictions made it harder for individuals with addiction to receive the treatment and support services they need. These factors contributed to the more than 93,000 drug overdose deaths in 2020. As a Nation, we need a strong response to America’s overdose epidemic and an investment in prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services, as well as strategies to reduce the supply of illicit drugs. '
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/08/27/a-proclamation-on-overdose-awareness-week-2021/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/08/27/a-proclamation-on-overdose-awareness-week-2021/
'“The sustained decrease in poppy cultivation and potential heroin production underlines the importance of maintaining strong United States-Mexico cooperation on drug policy,” said Acting Director of National Drug Control Policy Regina LaBelle. “The Biden-Harris Administration will build on this progress by investing historic amounts in public health strategies at home to reduce drug use and demand. Working with Mexico, we look forward to building on this success to address the production and trafficking of fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine.”'
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/briefing-room/2021/06/10/the-office-of-national-drug-control-policy-announces-the-third-consecutive-year-of-reduction-in-poppy-cultivation-and-potential-heroin-production-in-mexico/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/briefing-room/2021/06/10/the-office-of-national-drug-control-policy-announces-the-third-consecutive-year-of-reduction-in-poppy-cultivation-and-potential-heroin-production-in-mexico/
'While the DEA says their “Domestic Cannabis Suppression / Eradication Program” strives to “halt the spread of cannabis cultivation in the United States” and “targets Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) involved in cannabis cultivation,” McPheeters said DEA funded operations in the Casper area help target more than only marijuana.
“In that operation we are just as likely to come across methamphetamine and the impacts of methamphetamine and the tentacles of methamphetamine than we are marijuana,” McPheeters said. “But everybody wants to focus on the marijuana and claim that this is a waste of money when in fact we are absolutely improving traffic safety, we are reducing crashes, we are reducing crime.”'
https://oilcity.news/community/city/2021/04/26/police-chief-dea-funded-marijuana-crackdowns-in-casper-also-help-stop-meth/
“In that operation we are just as likely to come across methamphetamine and the impacts of methamphetamine and the tentacles of methamphetamine than we are marijuana,” McPheeters said. “But everybody wants to focus on the marijuana and claim that this is a waste of money when in fact we are absolutely improving traffic safety, we are reducing crashes, we are reducing crime.”'
https://oilcity.news/community/city/2021/04/26/police-chief-dea-funded-marijuana-crackdowns-in-casper-also-help-stop-meth/
'Our findings demonstrated that CBD can induce neuroprotective effects by modulating neurogenesis. Therefore, it can provide a promising therapeutic approach to improve cognitive performance following chronic exposure to psychostimulant drugs, including meth.
https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-256868/v1/8820e486-c49d-46e9-b03e-6118210a9ef2.pdf
https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-256868/v1/8820e486-c49d-46e9-b03e-6118210a9ef2.pdf
Has the Mexican government met the April 30 deadline, extended twice already, set by the Mexican Supreme Court for recreational cannabis legalization? The government has been requesting extensions citing Covid and issues with the bill's content. Mexico supplies heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to its big brother next door, the US. Mexico's rich and powerful drug cartels have friends both in Mexico's government as well as across the border among US politicians and US drug networks. Cannabis was once one of the drugs that Mexico supplied to the US, but with legalization in many US states, the flow of cannabis has now reversed into Mexico. Mexico legalizing cannabis will add pressure on the US federal government to legalize as well, considering then that both its immediate neighbors, Mexico and Canada, have legal cannabis. So, for Mexico's people, who have fought long and hard for the sacred herb, the forces against them are both within and outside their borders. The Mexican government will do all it can to delay legalization. All the government needs to do, as a simple mediate first step, is legalize home growing, release prisoners jailed for cannabis and expunge their records, while getting its commercial sales aspect right at a later time, like so many US states have done. That would be the case if the interests of the people were foremost, but then, name one government where this is the case?
Apr 30, 2021 4:56:58pm
Apr 30, 2021 4:56:58pm
'It was revealed that CBD (10 and 50 µg/5 µL) microinjection profoundly inhibited both phases of MET [Methamphetamine]-induced CPP [conditioned place preference] without any side effect on the locomotion in animals were treated by MET injection over conditioning phase. Also, CBD's inhibitory impact was more potent in the acquisition phase than the expression phase of MET-induced CPP. Ultimately, the current research reported that CBD could be a beneficial compound to treat drug abuse however more investigations are needed.'
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432821000450
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166432821000450
'Data show that, after cannabis, the drug for which the most people are brought into contact with the criminal justice system is the drug that dominates the market in a particular region. In Asia in particular, ATS are the major drug group for which people are brought into contact with the criminal justice system, most likely as a result of the wide use and trafficking of methamphetamine in the region. For both males and females, offences related to ATS are predominant among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for possession for personal use. In the case of trafficking, the data show different patterns for men and women. Among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for drug trafficking in Asia, for those who are men, ATS, opioids and cannabis account for similar proportions of cases (each drug group accounts for about a third of cases), while for women, ATS account for 60 per cent of cases, followed by opioids (which account for a third). Cocaine-related offences are particularly prevalent in the Americas, reflecting the extent of cocaine supply and trafficking in the region. Among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for drug trafficking in the Americas, cocaine accounts for about 40 per cent, with similar proportions of men and women.'
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
'Most of the clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia has traditionally been in the Islamic Republic of Iran, being manufactured both for the local market and for export to countries in East and South-East Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) as well as for export to Central Asia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan) and to Europe (including Bulgaria, France, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Kingdom). However, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not the main source of the methamphetamine found in other countries in the Near and Middle East/SouthWest Asia (with the exception of Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic). The main source countries for other countries in this subregion seem to continue to be countries in East and South-East Asia. The extent of clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Islamic Republic of Iran actually appears to be declining, while manufacturing is rapidly increasing in neighbouring Afghanistan.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In this context, INCB raised concerns over large-scale exports of pseudoephedrine preparations from Jordan to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While the officially reported estimate of pseudoephedrine used in Iraq in 2018 was approximately 10 tons, notified shipments of pseudoephedrine preparations sent through the Pre-Export Notification Online system were three times that amount. Those shipments took place even though the national authorities objected.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The emergence of methamphetamine use in Iraq was reported in 2012, when, on the basis of data from medical and psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clients, health centres, surveys of medial patients and prisoners and law enforcement reports, the primary drugs of concern in Iraq were found to be “captagon”, crystalline methamphetamine and tramadol. A study conducted in 2015 reported that drug users in Iraq thought that cannabis was “very difficult” to obtain while “captagon” and methamphetamine were “very easy” to obtain. Both official and media sources report a recent rapid increase in methamphetamine use in Iraq. Initially, law enforcement sources in Iraq suggested that methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into the country from the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran, across the long shared border, being smuggled to Basra in the south in particular. However, there have been reports of the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine inside Iraq. In November 2016, for example, the Iraqi National Security Agency discovered methamphetamine laboratories in Basra and in the south-eastern province of Maysan.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Much of the methamphetamine production in these subregions was originally intended for exports to the rapidly growing markets of East and South-East Asia, but domestic markets also appear to have started to emerge in the Near and Middle East/ South-West Asia in recent years. Of 15 reporting countries in these subregions, 12 countries reported the use of methamphetamine by 2018 (or the latest year for which data are available). In the absence of scientific data for the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, qualitative information on trends in methamphetamine use reported by national authorities to UNODC give an indication of the threat experienced by the region. National authorities have reported a clear upward trend in methamphetamine use in those subregions. Methamphetamine appears to have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia as the main ATS used in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2009– 2018) as well as in Iraq (2016 and 2017), Lebanon (2014–2017), Bahrein (2016), Afghanistan (2015 and 2016), Israel (2014 and 2015) and Kuwait (2003, 2009, 2013' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'One of his "associates" was usually a well-dressed, well-mannered young Chicano whose only job was to carry at least 100 milligrams of pure speed at all times and feed Oscar whenever he signaled; the other was not so well dressed or mannered; his job was to stay alert and be one step ahead of the bailiffs when they made a move on Oscar - at which point he would reach out and grab any pills, powders, shivs, or other evidence he was handed, then sprint like a human bazooka for the neatest exit.
This strategy worked so well for almost two years that Oscar and his people finally got careless. They had survived another long day in court - on felony arson charges, this time, for trying to burn down the Biltmore Hotel during a speech by then governor Ronald Reagan - and they were driving back home to Oscar's headquarters pad in the barrio (and maybe running sixty or sixty-five in a fifty m.p.h. speed zone, Oscar later admitted) when they were suddenly jammed to a stop by two LAPD cruisers. "They acted like we'd just robbed a bank," said Frank, looking straight down the barrel of a shotgun. "They made us all lie face down on the street and then they searched the car, and - "
Yes. That's when they found the drugs: twenty or thirty white pills that the police quickly identified as "illegal amphetamine tablets, belonging to attorney Oscar Acosta.
The spic for all seasons was jailed once again, this time on what the press called a "high-speed drug bust." Oscar called a press conference in jail and accused the cops of "planting" him - but not even his bodyguards believed him until long after the attendant publicity had done them all so much damage that the whole "Brown Power Movement" was effectively stalled, splintered, and discredited by the time all charges, both arson and drugs, were either dropped or reduced to small print on the back of the blotter.'
- Fear & Loathing in the Graveyard of the Weird: The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat, December 15, 1977, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
This strategy worked so well for almost two years that Oscar and his people finally got careless. They had survived another long day in court - on felony arson charges, this time, for trying to burn down the Biltmore Hotel during a speech by then governor Ronald Reagan - and they were driving back home to Oscar's headquarters pad in the barrio (and maybe running sixty or sixty-five in a fifty m.p.h. speed zone, Oscar later admitted) when they were suddenly jammed to a stop by two LAPD cruisers. "They acted like we'd just robbed a bank," said Frank, looking straight down the barrel of a shotgun. "They made us all lie face down on the street and then they searched the car, and - "
Yes. That's when they found the drugs: twenty or thirty white pills that the police quickly identified as "illegal amphetamine tablets, belonging to attorney Oscar Acosta.
The spic for all seasons was jailed once again, this time on what the press called a "high-speed drug bust." Oscar called a press conference in jail and accused the cops of "planting" him - but not even his bodyguards believed him until long after the attendant publicity had done them all so much damage that the whole "Brown Power Movement" was effectively stalled, splintered, and discredited by the time all charges, both arson and drugs, were either dropped or reduced to small print on the back of the blotter.'
- Fear & Loathing in the Graveyard of the Weird: The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat, December 15, 1977, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'In the past few years, the manufacture and use of methamphetamine have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, subregions that until recently were dominated by use of “captagon”. Methamphetamine manufacture and consumption used to be largely unknown in those subregions. Initially reported by only one country in the subregion (Israel), the number of countries reporting seizures of methamphetamine has increased in subsequent years. Overall, eight countries in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia reported seizures of methamphetamine in the period 2000–2009, rising to 14 countries in the period 2010–2018. The bulk of the methamphetamine seized, however, continued to be seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In the context of the long-term dynamics of the global drug market, there are many different changes that have affected selected geographical areas. Within the past two decades some regions have seen a gradual transformation of their drug markets: methamphetamine has become the predominant drug in South-East Asia, amphetamine (“captagon’’) in the Middle East, North America has been confronted with the opioid crisis, Africa has seen an expansion of its domestic heroin market, and countries in North and West Africa are now facing a tramadol crisis. More recently, two subregions, the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia and the Russian Federation/ Central Asia, appear to have been affected by rapid changes in their drug markets, with new drugs taking a substantial share of the drug market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'England and Wales and Australia are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have competed for their share of the stimulant market over the past 20 years. Germany and the United States are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have together led the changes in the stimulant market
Within the stimulant markets, there are also examples of substitution effects in the “ecstasy” market. In England and Wales, for example, trend data on the use of “ecstasy”, mephedrone and NPS in the period 2005–2019 suggest that first mephedrone and later NPS filled the market space left by the decreasing supply of “ecstasy”, mainly due to a supply shortage, until 2012. Once “ecstasy” started to regain its previous share, the other substances declined sharply' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Although in Europe opioids continue to be the predominant main drug for which people seek drug treatment, cocaine has become more common in Spain and methamphetamine remains the main drug of concern in Czechia. Within the amphetamines group, different patterns have developed in different subregions. For example, amphetamine continues to be the primary ATS of concern in Europe and in the Middle East, while methamphetamine has emerged as the primary ATS of concern in East and South-East Asia and in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Humphrey's addiction with Wallot has not stirred any controversy, so far. He has always campaigned like a rat in heat, and the only difference now is that he is able to do it eighteen hours a day instead of ten. The main change in his public style, since '68, is that he no longer seems aware that his gibberish is not taken seriously by anyone except Labor Leaders and middle-class Blacks.
At least half the reporters assigned to the Humphrey campaign are convinced that he's senile. When he ran for president four years ago he was a hack and a fool, but at least he was consistent.
Now he talks like an eighty-year old woman who just discovered speed. He will call a press conference to announce that if elected he will "have all our boys out of Vietnam within ninety days" - then rush across town, weeping and jabbering the whole way, to appear on a network TV show and make a fist-shaking emotional appeal for every good American to stand behind the president and "applaud" his recent decision to resume heavy bombing in North Vietnam.
Humphrey will go into a Black neighborhood in Milwaukee and drench the streets with tears while deploring "the enduring tragedy" that life in Nixon's America has visited on "these beautiful little children" - and then act hurt and dismayed when a reporter who covered his Florida campaign reminds him that "In Miami you were talking just a shade to the Left of George Wallace and somewhere to the Right of Mussolini"'
- The Campaign Trail: More Late News from Bleak House, May 11, 1972, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'While the main drug treatment interventions in Asia and Europe continue to be linked primarily to opiates, in Africa to cannabis, and in South America to cocaine, in North America there has been a shift over the past decade from the predominance of cocaine to an increasing importance of opioids. Marked shifts in the main drug for which patients receive drug treatment can also been observed at the subregional level. In a number of countries in East and South-East Asia, for example, methamphetamine has emerged as the predominant drug; in the Near and Middle East, “captagon” tablets (amphetamine), and along the eastern coast of Africa, heroin, have emerged as the predominant drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The growth of methamphetamine consumption in the world as well as in Iran has become an important problem for the health sector at the individual and social levels.
Ease of production, uncommon compounds, and different degrees of purity, low cost and high income, easy availability, simple and little needed equipment, the possibility of mass production, and difficulty in identifying laboratories make its trade very lucrative. However, it can cause a lot of dangers, such as explosion, burns, lung burns and even cancer, for manufacturers and those who are near the places of production and exposed to waste.
The regular methamphetamine use can lead to long-term harmful effects. Ahmad Hatim conducted a study on methamphetamine dependence in Malaysia, and the results showed that the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among these people was 54.4%, the prevalence of suicide was 12.1, and 47.9% of these people had high levels of methamphetamine-induced psychosis. '
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227073/
'Many of the chemicals most commonly used as precursors to synthesize drugs such as amphetamine, methamphetamine and “ecstasy” have been placed under international control. Traffickers and manufacturers have sought alternatives – not only less well-controlled substances but also chemicals specifically designed to circumvent controls, known as “designer precursors”.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Surveys of people in hospitals, prisons and other institutions had already revealed the importance of methamphetamine in Iraq as far back as 2012. Along with “captagon” and tramadol, crystalline methamphetamine has emerged as a main drug of concern. A study in 2015 further confirmed those findings, with drug users saying they found cannabis more difficult to get hold of than “captagon” or methamphetamine. More recently, Iraqi authorities have discovered methamphetamine laboratories and, INCB has expressed concern over large-scale imports of pseudoephedrine preparations – used as precursors in methamphetamine laboratories. In Afghanistan, seizures of methamphetamine have steadily risen since 2014, when manufacturing seems to have started. But the amount seized in the first six months of 2019 – 657 kg – signals a huge leap on the previous year. The large seizures effected in other countries of methamphetamine thought to originate in Afghanistan also suggest that production in that country is rising fast.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'The stimulant scene is dominated by cocaine and methamphetamine, and use of both substances is rising in their main markets. Some 19 million people used cocaine in 2018, fuelled by the drug’s popularity in North America and Western Europe. Roughly 27 million people used amphetamines that same year, methamphetamine being the most used ATS [amphetamine type substance] in South-East Asia. Use of methamphetamine in these two subregions has been expanding for two decades, according to most available indicators. Cocaine and methamphetamine can coexist in some markets by acting as substitutes for each other, so that use of one drug rises when the other goes down, or by feeding the same market with parallel increases and declines.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Unlike with plant-based drugs such as cocaine or heroin, it is not possible to use rigorous methods to estimate the extent of ATS manufacture. However, a number of indicators suggest that the global market of such substances, especially methamphetamine, is expanding. Quantities of seized methamphetamine, the ATS [amphetamine type substance] with the largest market globally, reached a new record high, at 228 ton-equivalents, in 2018. There are signs of a marked expansion in the trafficking of the drug in its main subregional markets of North America and South-East Asia. While supply in China has markedly decreased in recent years, prices, which have now reached their lowest level in a decade, and purity suggest an abundant supply of the drug, in both its crystalline and tablet forms in South-East Asia.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine traffickers have varied routes and continue to develop new trading patterns. For example, the manufacture of methamphetamine was traditionally carried out in small-scale laboratories in the United States to serve the domestic market. But this kind of production seems now to be dwarfed by industrial-size laboratories in Mexico. The methamphetamine seized in the United States over the past few years is increasingly imported, with the trade controlled by Mexican cartels' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Around 27 million people worldwide, corresponding to 0.5 per cent of the adult population, are estimated to have used amphetamines, including amphetamine, methamphetamine and pharmaceutical stimulants, in the past year. The past-year prevalence of the use of amphetamines is particularly high in North America (2.3 per cent of the population aged 15–64) and Australia and New Zealand (1.3 per cent). The past-year use of amphetamines in Asia, as a percentage of the population, is at a similar level (0.5 per cent) to the global average. Nearly half of the global estimate of past-year users of amphetamines (12.7 million people) reside in Asia, although the region is home to 60 per cent of the global population aged 15–64' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”. In many countries in South and Central America, especially those that have reported recent survey data, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants is more common than the use of other amphetamines. The non-medical use of weight loss pills is reportedly more prevalent among women than among men, with pills such as sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate (sold under the brand names Aderan and Ipomex) and phentermine (sold under the brand names Duromine and Suprenza), along with methylphenidate and amphetamine, reported to be the most commonly misused pharmaceutical stimulants in those subregions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'In 2018, methamphetamine use declined among young adults (aged 18–25), but increased significantly among adults aged 26 and older. This excludes institutionalized and homeless populations, however, both of which may be affected by disproportionately higher rates of drug use. In recent years, reported methamphetamine per gram purity levels in the United States have averaged more than 90 per cent, while prices have declined by a further 18 per cent over the past year to $56 per pure gram.48 Although in the United States, methamphetamine has historically been mixed with heroin to create a “speedball”, such combinations are increasingly rare. Recent forensic laboratory reports indicate that, while still comparatively rare, there are combinations of methamphetamine, fentanyl and fentanyl analogues on the United States drug markets.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'European wastewater analysis confirms the patterns of use of amphetamines reported in household survey data, which point to an overall prevalence of amphetamine use in Europe that is higher than that of methamphetamine, as methamphetamine use is predominant in only a few countries. Wastewater analyses, conducted in 140 cities in 33 countries across Europe, suggest that the quantity of amphetamine consumed per capita over the period 2011–2019 was 1.7 times larger in 2019. In most of the cities included in the analysis, amphetamine was the most consumed substance of the amphetamines group in 2019 (or the latest year available)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'More than one third (9.9 million people) of the estimated global number of users of amphetamines are in East and South-East Asia. The increased use of methamphetamine, both in the form of tablets and crystalline methamphetamine, continues to be reported in the subregion. A recent household survey conducted in Indonesia in 2017 reported past-year prevalence of the use of amphetamines at 0.5 per cent, or roughly 1 million past-year users, 850,000 of whom were past-year users of methamphetamine. Similarly, in the Philippines, on the basis of a 2016 household survey, 1.1 per cent of the population aged 10–69, or approximately 850,000 people, were estimated to be past-year users of methamphetamine, while in Thailand 1.3 per cent of the population (653,000 people) aged 12–65 were estimated to be past-year users of methamphetamine tablets, whereas 0.7 per cent of the population (372,000) used crystal methamphetamine in 2019.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'In other countries in East and South-East Asia, the number of drug treatment admissions is the only indicator available to provide information on the extent of drug use. With the exception of Viet Nam, all countries in the subregion continued to report methamphetamine as the primary drug of concern in drug treatment admissions in 2018 (or the latest available year). While China does not report data on drug treatment admissions, the majority of registered drug users (nearly 60 per cent) in 2018 comprised users of synthetic drugs (mainly methamphetamine)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'By contrast, wastewater analysis in Australia shows that increasing amounts of methamphetamine are consumed each year in the country, from an estimated average of 8.4 tons in 2016/17 to 11.5 tons in 2018/19.66 The wastewater analysis conducted in 2019 was carried out at 22 sites in state capitals and 36 regional sites, and covered 57 per cent of the population and a wide range of catchment sizes. Overall, the average per capita consumption of methamphetamine was highest at regional sites: 1,500 mg per 1,000 population per day, compared with an average of 1250 mg per 1,000 population per day at state capital sites.67 The largest amounts of methamphetamine were consumed in New South Wales, followed by Victoria and Queensland' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'Treatment for the use of amphetamine-type stimulants is more common in Asia (predominantly for the use of methamphetamine) and Oceania (based on data from Australia and New Zealand) than in other regions. As is the case with cannabis users, people who are in treatment for disorders related to the use of amphetamines tend to be younger – in their mid-twenties – than users of opioids in treatment, and the majority of them also tend to be first-time entrants. People receiving treatment for the use of methamphetamine account for more than three quarters of those in treatment in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'The quantity of ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized at the global level has increased over the past two decades, in particular over the period 2009–2018, when the quantity of ATS seized quadrupled. The increase was primarily due to the increasingly large quantities of methamphetamine being seized, as seizures increased sevenfold over the period 2009–2018. The largest proportional increase (18-fold) was for the group of “other stimulants” (including prescription ATS, a number of cathinones, such as mephedrone or MDPV, which are now under international control, and non-specified ATS). The total quantity of “ecstasy” seized doubled over the period 2009–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In most years since 1998, the ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized in the largest quantities was methamphetamine, which in the period 2014–2018 accounted for 71 per cent of the total quantity of ATS seized globally, followed by amphetamine (21 per cent) and “ecstasy” (5 per cent). The rest (3 per cent) of seized ATS included former synthetic new psychoactive substances such as mephedrone, MDPV or methylone (0.4 per cent of the total).
While the number of countries reporting seizures of “ecstasy” declined slightly, from 109 countries in the period 2004–2008 to 100 countries in the period 2014–2018, the number of countries reporting seizures of amphetamine increased from 85 to 97 in that same time. Those reporting seizures of methamphetamine increased by more than 50 per cent, from 69 to 105 countries, which suggests that there has been a significant increase in the geographical spread of methamphetamine trafficking at the global level' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Nonetheless, seizures of methamphetamine remain highly concentrated: the three countries responsible for most of the methamphetamine seized worldwide in 2018 (the United States, Thailand and Mexico) accounted for 80 per cent of the global total, while the three countries reporting the largest quantities of amphetamine (Turkey, Pakistan and the Syrian Arab Republic) and the three countries reporting the most “ecstasy” seized (Turkey, the United States and Australia) accounted for a significantly smaller proportion of the global total (around 50 per cent) in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Different substances are predominant in the seizures of ATS in different regions: methamphetamine is predominant in North America, East and SouthEast Asia, South Asia and Oceania; and amphetamine in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, Europe, Africa and Central America. South America and the Caribbean were the only subregions where the quantities of “ecstasy” seized were predominant among all ATS intercepted in the period 2014–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In contrast to previous decades, when methamphetamine was primarily manufactured from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, nowadays more than half of seized precursor chemicals linked to the manufacture of methamphetamine are P-2-P and/or its precursor chemicals. There is, however, a significant geographical divide. Most methamphetamine production in Asia, Oceania and Africa – and possibly some in Europe – continues to be based primarily on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as the key precursor chemicals, while manufacture of methamphetamine in North America is now primarily based on P-2-P and its precursor chemicals. In some instances, precursor chemicals for the manufacture of P-2-P also seem to have been used in the manufacture of methamphetamine in Western Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the quantities of methamphetamine seized have increased rapidly over the past decade, seizures of internationally controlled chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine have fluctuated over the years and showed a clear increase only in 2018, when methamphetamine precursor seizures almost tripled compared with 2017. The marked increase was the result of record quantities of P-2-P linked to methamphetamine manufacture in North America being seized – an almost ninefold increase – and the global quantities of ephedrine seized increasing almost fivefold. By contrast, the reported number of dismantled laboratories continued to decline, from 10,600 methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in 2010 to close to 3,700 in 2017 and less than 2,100 in 2018. A possible explanation of the phenomenon of an expanding market going hand in hand with fewer and fewer laboratories being dismantled could be a shift towards operating fewer but larger laboratories in parallel with a general shift in production to countries with comparatively limited interdiction capacities.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
''Regarding precursor chemicals, it has to be taken into account that increasing quantities of methamphetamine are now being produced from pre-precursors that are not under international control; for example, substances such as benzaldehyde and nitroethane are used in the clandestine manufacture of P-2-P, in both North America and Europe. Similarly, benzyl chloride and sodium cyanide are used in the clandestine manufacture of phenylacetic acid, which is also used to manufacture P-2-P, the main precursor used in methamphetamine manufacture in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The United States reported the dismantling of 1,607 methamphetamine laboratories in 2018, accounting for 78 per cent of all methamphetamine laboratories dismantled worldwide that year. However, the overall output of domestic methamphetamine manufacture in the United States now appears to be considerably smaller than the potential output produced by several of the large, industrial-scale laboratories found in other parts of the world, such as Mexico and East and South-East Asia, in recent years. Over the past few years, the United States has reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its market has been smuggled into the country from abroad, most notably from Mexico. Most of the clandestine production and smuggling seems to be controlled by various Mexican drug cartels.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The vast majority of the methamphetamine production facilities dismantled in the United States were “kitchen laboratories” (1,426), which typically produce two ounces or less per production cycle for local demand, although the overall figure also included the dismantling of 11 industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratories in the United States in 2018. Nevertheless, the overall number of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories detected in the United States fell by about 90 per cent over the period 2010–2018 and by 93 per cent since the peak in 2004. According to the United States authorities, the initial decline after 2004 resulted from improved precursor control, notably through the regulation of over-the-counter sales of methamphetamine precursor chemicals such as ephedrine preparations and pseudoephedrine, and ongoing efforts to dismantle laboratories, which acted as a deterrent to domestic methamphetamine manufacture.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'By contrast, the decline in the number of dismantled laboratories after 2010 was no longer in line with the upward trend in a number of other indicators, which had been clearly pointing to an expansion of the methamphetamine market, both in terms of supply (rising seizures, falling purity adjusted prices) and demand (rising prevalence rates, positive tests among the general workforce, treatment admissions and deaths). The purity of methamphetamine rose from 95 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 to 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, while the potency of methamphetamine increased from 85 to 97 per cent over the same period. This indicates an improvement in the know-how of organized crime groups manufacturing methamphetamine from various (non-scheduled) P-2-P precursors in neighbouring Mexico, an overall increase in the supply of methamphetamine in the United States and the emergence of a potentially even more problematic substance, showing everhigher levels of purity and potency, thus increasing the risk of overdose.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the annual prevalence of methamphetamine use more than doubled from 0.3 to 0.7 per cent of the population aged 12 and older in the United States over the period 2008–2018, the number of psychostimulants involved in drug poisoning deaths in the United States rose from 1,302 to 12,676 deaths over the same period, equivalent to an almost 10-fold increase. This increase may have been inflated by an increasing number of contaminations of psychostimulants with opioids (such as fentanyl and its analogues); however, psychostimulant-related deaths excluding any involvement of opioids still showed an eightfold increase, from 807 deaths in 2008 to 6,271 deaths in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The decline in the domestic supply of methamphetamine, indicated by the falling number of manufacturing facilities dismantled in the United States, going hand in hand with increasing use and an overall increase in the supply of the drug, can be explained by the increasing importance of rapidly growing illegal methamphetamine imports from clandestine manufacture sites in neighbouring Mexico. According to the United States authorities, the latter phenomenon appears to have resulted from attempts by Mexican organized crime groups to diversify their drug portfolio as they attempted to reduce their dependence on cocaine produced in countries in South America, preferring instead to source the required chemicals from China and produce methamphetamine themselves. Methamphetamine shipments intercepted along the south-western border of the United States increased almost fourfold between 2013 and 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The region with the next largest number of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled was Asia, accounting for 6 per cent of the global total in the period 2014–2018. Most of these facilities were dismantled in China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which together accounted for 94 per cent of all reported laboratories dismantled in Asia, while some clandestine methamphetamine laboratories were also dismantled, in descending order of importance, in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the Republic of Korea, Myanmar and Hong Kong, China. In addition, the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine has been reported in recent years by Afghanistan and Iraq.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Countries identified as significant source countries for methamphetamine shipments in Asia in the period 2014–2018 included Myanmar, followed by China, Thailand, India and Iran (Islamic Republic of). Clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in Asia seems to be still largely based on the use of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as precursors, although reports from Afghanistan suggest that ephedrine is extracted from ephedra plant material and used as a precursor for methamphetamine.80 The authorities in Myanmar and Thailand have reported the seizure of increasing quantities of sodium cyanide and benzyl cyanide in recent years. These substances can be used for synthesizing P-2-P, which is then used to manufacture either amphetamine or methamphetamine.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Similar to the situation in the United States, where the manufacture of methamphetamine declined while increasing in neighbouring Mexico, both China and Iran (Islamic Republic of) reported declining domestic production, reflected in the decreasing numbers of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in recent years, going hand in hand with the expansion of methamphetamine manufacture in their neighbouring countries. Indeed, by 2018 the Islamic Republic of Iran reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its territory originated in Afghanistan and was trafficked either from there directly or via Pakistan. Similarly, China reported that methamphetamine seized in recent years has originated primarily in Myanmar. In contrast to many other countries, however, the marked declines in the domestic manufacture of methamphetamine in China appear to have more than outweighed any increase in clandestine manufacture and imports from neighbouring countries. This is revealed in the decline in methamphetamine found in the wastewater in cities across China, with wastewater-based estimates suggesting a fall in methamphetamine consumption amounts of 26 per cent over the period 2014 –2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The information available globally on methamphetamine points to a market expansion over the past two decades, in particular since 2009. Qualitative information on methamphetamine trafficking trends reported by Member States, data on drug treatment facilities, prevalence data in countries based on survey data, and prices all suggest that the methamphetamine market has been expanding, particularly in the two subregions where demand for the drug is highest, South-East Asia and North America, while most trafficking in methamphetamine continues to be intraregional.
Methamphetamine continues to be seized mainly in North America and in East and South-East Asia which accounted for, respectively, 50 per cent and 42 per cent of the global quantities of methamphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018, while the quantities of the drug seized in Oceania (4 per cent), the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia (2 per cent), South Asia and Europe (1 per cent each) continued to be far smaller.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in 2018 were the quantities seized in the United States, followed by Thailand and Mexico. Marked increases in the quantities seized from 2017 to 2018 were reported by the United States and Thailand, while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in China declined, in line with reports of wastewater analysis that showed a significant decline in methamphetamine consumption in that country.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In the United States, most methamphetamine is sold as methamphetamine. However, there have also been reports of tablets sold as “ecstasy” that contained methamphetamine instead (notably in Missouri). The sale of methamphetamine in the form of falsified Adderall tablets is a new phenomenon, with laboratories manufacturing such falsified medicaments found in a number of states, in particular Georgia and California. The expansion of methamphetamine trafficking has also gone hand in hand with the increasingly common practice of mixing methamphetamine with fentanyls. This practice has proved to be particularly harmful and has contributed to the rapid rise in methamphetamine-related deaths in recent years.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The quantities of methamphetamine seized in North America rose sixfold between 2009 and 2018, to 117 tons. North American methamphetamine seizures accounted for more than 99 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in the Americas in 2018. Methamphetamine seizures in the subregion were dominated by those reported by the United States (71 per cent of the total in 2018), followed by Mexico (29 per cent), while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in Canada (0.4 per cent) remained more limited' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'As cross-border methamphetamine trafficking in North America consists mainly of trafficking from Mexico to the United States, the south-western border thus remains the main entry point for illegal imports of methamphetamine into the United States: in 2018, 95 per cent of the methamphetamine seizures made by United States customs authorities were effected at or near the country’s south-western border. Quantities of methamphetamine seized in the United States as a whole almost tripled between 2013 and 2018, whereas those intercepted along the south-western border quadrupled during the same period. Trafficking modi operandi include concealment by human couriers on commercial flights, the use of parcel delivery services, and the use of pick-up trucks and commercial buses, as well as unusual goods deliveries such as concealment in metal collars, cargo stabilizers, electric transformers and industrial drill bits, reflecting the increasing sophistication of methamphetamine smuggling activities. Another emerging trend over the past few years has been the use of drones, which easily fly over physical barriers on the border while the operators remain at a safe distance from where the drugs are dropped, thereby reducing the risk of arrest.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Practically all the major transnational criminal organizations in Mexico seem to be involved in the smuggling of methamphetamine to the United States. They include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Los Zetas Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization. In parallel, outlaw motorcycle gangs continue to be involved in the distribution of methamphetamine within the United States. The increased involvement of Mexican organized crime groups in the trafficking of drugs other than cocaine has contributed to the spread of methamphetamine trafficking from the western United States to the whole country over the past decade, including states in the eastern part of the country that had previously been spared from the large-scale harmful use of methamphetamine.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The United States, for example, has been reported by other countries as a country of departure of methamphetamine for Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), Asia (Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) and Europe (Ireland). Moreover, methamphetamine trafficking has been reported not only from Mexico or from Canada into the United States but also from the United States to those two countries, suggesting a number of two-way trafficking flows across the countries of North America. Methamphetamine trafficked from Canada has been reported in the United States, South America (Chile), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and a few countries in Europe (Iceland and Latvia).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'More recently, methamphetamine shipments have also been intercepted en route from Mexico to the Netherlands for distribution in Europe; moreover, Mexican “methamphetamine cooks”, linked to Mexican organized crime groups, were arrested in Europe, after being detected in large-scale methamphetamine manufacture in Western Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia increased eightfold over the period 2009–2018, to close to 100 tons, and preliminary data for 2019 show further strong increases in the quantities of methamphetamine seized, in particular in South-East Asia, with increases reported in 2019 by, among other countries, Brunei Daraussalam, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam. In most years in the past decade the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia were reported by China. In 2018, by contrast, 66 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in that subregion was seized in Thailand, followed by Indonesia (8 per cent) and Malaysia (8 per cent) and only then by China (6 per cent), reflecting underlying shifts in the methamphetamine market in South-East Asia, that is, a decline in the methamphetamine market in China in parallel with ongoing increases in the ASEAN countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the typical purity of methamphetamine tablets encountered in East and South-East Asia has remained relatively stable in recent years (mostly within a range of 15 to 25 per cent), retail prices of methamphetamine tablets have decreased sharply in several countries in the subregion, which, when combined with the increases in quantities seized, suggests that the supply of methamphetamine may have outstripped demand in East and South-East Asia' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The average purity of crystalline methamphetamine in East and South-East Asia continues to remain very high, again suggesting an abundant supply of the drug. The average purity of samples analysed in China reached 95 per cent in 2018 and other countries in the subregion (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Viet Nam) reported purity levels of between 70 and 90 per cent. While purity has remained high, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have decreased in several countries in the subregion in recent years, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia and Myanmar, pointing to an increase in the availability of crystalline methamphetamine in the subregion. In Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have actually more than halved over the past decade. At the same time, the average purity of crystalline methamphetamine rose in Thailand from 90 per cent in 2011 to around 95 per cent in 2019, with almost all (99 per cent) of the crystalline methamphetamine samples analysed in 2019 showing purity levels of over 90 per cent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'All in all, tablet and crystalline methamphetamine prices in several countries in the region reached their lowest level over the past decade despite a record number of seizures being made every year during the same period. The decrease in prices also appears to have contributed to an increase in the use of methamphetamine and, subsequently, in more methamphetamine-related treatment demand. Thus, there have been sharp increases in methamphetamine-related treatment admissions reported in recent years by several countries in South-East Asia, including a more than 30-fold increase in the number of treatment admissions for the use of methamphetamine reported by Malaysia over the period 2011–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'This shift from China as the main location of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking to other countries in East and South-East Asia is also indirectly reflected in trafficking data reported by Australia. China and Hong Kong, China, were the two main embarkation points for methamphetamine trafficked to Australia in 2015, whereas in the fiscal years 2016/17 and 2017/18 the most important embarkation points were the United States, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. In fact, in 2018, the Australian authorities reported that the importance of China as a source country for methamphetamine had declined while there has been an emerging trend in the growth of quantities of seized methamphetamine originating in South-East Asia, mainly in the Mekong region, including the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Most of the methamphetamine available in East and South-East Asia is sourced within the subregion. The dynamics of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking within that subregion are, however, less well understood than in others as the available indicators show partly contradictory patterns. Although in previous years, China and Myanmar were identified as the most frequently identified countries of “origin”, “departure” and “transit” in East and South-East Asia, manufacture of methamphetamine may now be more widely spread across the subregion, although it is not clear whether frequently mentioned departure countries, such as Malaysia or Thailand, are also the countries of origin or mainly transit countries for methamphetamine manufactured in Myanmar. In fact, Myanmar reported Thailand and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic as main destination countries for methamphetamine shipments in 2018, while Malaysia reported Thailand as the main departure country' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While methamphetamine trafficking flows from East and South-East Asia to countries outside the subregion remain modest, some smuggling to destinations around the world was reported, mainly smuggling from Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar in 2018 or, when the period is extended to the past five years, mainly from China and Thailand. Destinations outside the subregion included countries in South Asia, the Near and Middle East (Saudi Arabia as well as Israel), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), North America (the United States as well as Canada), Western Europe (notably Switzerland as well as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland), Eastern Europe (notably the Russian Federation) and Africa (notably South Africa) over the period 2014–2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Methamphetamine found in Australia and New Zealand is both locally manufactured and, to a larger extent, imported from North America and Asia. In the fiscal year 2017/18, methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into Australia from the United States, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, China (including Hong Kong, China), Mexico, Lebanon, Viet Nam and India. The United States was also the main source country of the methamphetamine found in New Zealand in 2018, followed by Canada and, in SouthEast Asia, by Malaysia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Of the total number of amphetamine laboratories reported dismantled worldwide in the period 2014–2018 (749 laboratories), more than half were dismantled in Europe (417), most notably in Western and Central Europe (316) and, to a lesser degree, in Eastern Europe (100). Overall, 16 European countries reported the dismantling of clandestine amphetamine laboratories over the period 2014– 2018, in particular the Netherlands. The Netherlands, followed by Poland, Lithuania and Belgium, were the most frequently identified source countries of amphetamine in Europe. Amphetamine from South-Eastern Europe was reported as being mainly sourced from Bulgaria and Turkey. However, it is likely that such statistics are heavily skewed as a number of countries, in particular in the Middle East, where large-scale amphetamine manufacture has been reported, have a very limited capacity to dismantle laboratories and thus are not appropriately represented in these statistics' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The manufacture of counterfeit “captagon” tablets, that is, amphetamine tablets mixed with caffeine, in the Near and Middle East is more widespread than the manufacture of amphetamine in South Asia or in East and South-East Asia. Indications received from other countries in the subregion pointed to the existence of clandestine laboratories manufacturing “captagon” tablets in the period 2014–2018, in particular in the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon, intended partly for domestic consumption and partly for the more lucrative markets of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as the Sudan and Libya. In addition, Iran (Islamic Republic of) and Jordan have been identified by other countries in the subregion as possible countries of origin of amphetamine shipments. Jordan reported that all of the amphetamine found on its market originated in either the Syrian Arab Republic or Lebanon.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Although data for 2018 were unavailable for key countries in the Near and Middle East, more than half (54 per cent) of the global quantity of amphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018 was reported in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia. Of the rest, some 24 per cent was seized in Europe (including 14 per cent in Western and Central Europe), 13 per cent in the Americas (including 7 per cent in North America), 6 per cent in Africa (mostly in North Africa) and 1 per cent in Oceania (mostly in Australia). The regional totals for Europe and the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia show larger seizures of amphetamine than of methamphetamine over the period 2014–2018, suggesting that the availability of amphetamine may be still greater than of methamphetamine in those regions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, the quantities of methamphetamine seized increased markedly in 2018. However, the marked decline in the reported quantities of amphetamine seized in recent years (-37 per cent in 2017 and -80 per cent in 2018) seems to be largely a statistical artefact. Some of this decline may have been related to changes in the categorization of stimulants seized, for example, “prescription stimulants” instead of “amphetamine”. Even more important has been the hiatus in the reporting of seizures to UNODC by some countries known to be affected by major amphetamine trafficking activities. There is plenty of evidence that trafficking in amphetamine, in particular of “captagon” tablets, has also continued in the Near and Middle East in recent years. INCB, for example, in its most recent annual report noted the following: The manufacture and trafficking of counterfeit “captagon” continued to seriously affect the countries of the Middle East, which not only are destination markets for those drugs but are also increasingly becoming a source of counterfeit “captagon”…Political instability and unresolved conflicts, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in some parts of the subregion have contributed to increased trafficking in…“captagon”' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Instability and conflict in the Middle East contributed to the trafficking in falsified “captagon” in the subregion. A lack of control and monitoring led to an increase in the manufacture of “captagon” tablets in some countries over the period 2014–2018, which turned into an additional source of income for terrorist and insurgency groups in the Middle East. Captagon was originally the trademarked brand name of a medicinal product containing fenetylline, until the substance was placed under international control in 1986. While the diversion of fenetylline from existing stocks might have continued until the end of the 1990s, those stocks, some of which were apparently located in Bulgaria, became depleted. However, the “captagon” name and logo continued to be used even though the composition of the counterfeit tablets had changed, and increasingly, seized “captagon” tablets were found to contain amphetamine, often mixed with caffeine and other substances.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The two countries most frequently reported as countries of origin of amphetamine (mainly “captagon”) seized in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia in the period 2014–2018 were Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, which together accounted for some 40 per cent of all mentions of countries of origin reported by the authorities in the subregion. Final destinations are mostly countries in the Near and Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and various other Gulf countries, in particular the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, using both direct and indirect routes.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The growing complexity of drug markets can be also seen in the manufacturing processes of synthetic drugs. In the past, a limited number of precursor chemicals was used to manufacture synthetic drugs, such as amphetamine (manufactured mostly from P-2-P), methamphetamine (manufactured mostly from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or from P-2-P in North America) and “ecstasy” (mainly manufactured from 3,4-MDP-2-P). This has changed over the past two decades. As the key precursors mentioned above are all under international control, traffickers have been looking for alternatives. Over the years, different strategies have been adopted by traffickers to overcome controls using as alternative precursors substances that were not equally well controlled in all countries, noncontrolled pre-precursors and so-called “designer precursors”, that is, chemicals specifically designed to circumvent existing precursor control systems. Pharmaceutical preparations containing controlled precursor chemicals have also been used to supply precursors because, although controlled, they are exempt from a number of control mechanisms such as the system of pre-export notifications' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
At least half the reporters assigned to the Humphrey campaign are convinced that he's senile. When he ran for president four years ago he was a hack and a fool, but at least he was consistent.
Now he talks like an eighty-year old woman who just discovered speed. He will call a press conference to announce that if elected he will "have all our boys out of Vietnam within ninety days" - then rush across town, weeping and jabbering the whole way, to appear on a network TV show and make a fist-shaking emotional appeal for every good American to stand behind the president and "applaud" his recent decision to resume heavy bombing in North Vietnam.
Humphrey will go into a Black neighborhood in Milwaukee and drench the streets with tears while deploring "the enduring tragedy" that life in Nixon's America has visited on "these beautiful little children" - and then act hurt and dismayed when a reporter who covered his Florida campaign reminds him that "In Miami you were talking just a shade to the Left of George Wallace and somewhere to the Right of Mussolini"'
- The Campaign Trail: More Late News from Bleak House, May 11, 1972, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'While the main drug treatment interventions in Asia and Europe continue to be linked primarily to opiates, in Africa to cannabis, and in South America to cocaine, in North America there has been a shift over the past decade from the predominance of cocaine to an increasing importance of opioids. Marked shifts in the main drug for which patients receive drug treatment can also been observed at the subregional level. In a number of countries in East and South-East Asia, for example, methamphetamine has emerged as the predominant drug; in the Near and Middle East, “captagon” tablets (amphetamine), and along the eastern coast of Africa, heroin, have emerged as the predominant drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The growth of methamphetamine consumption in the world as well as in Iran has become an important problem for the health sector at the individual and social levels.
Ease of production, uncommon compounds, and different degrees of purity, low cost and high income, easy availability, simple and little needed equipment, the possibility of mass production, and difficulty in identifying laboratories make its trade very lucrative. However, it can cause a lot of dangers, such as explosion, burns, lung burns and even cancer, for manufacturers and those who are near the places of production and exposed to waste.
The regular methamphetamine use can lead to long-term harmful effects. Ahmad Hatim conducted a study on methamphetamine dependence in Malaysia, and the results showed that the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among these people was 54.4%, the prevalence of suicide was 12.1, and 47.9% of these people had high levels of methamphetamine-induced psychosis. '
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7227073/
'Many of the chemicals most commonly used as precursors to synthesize drugs such as amphetamine, methamphetamine and “ecstasy” have been placed under international control. Traffickers and manufacturers have sought alternatives – not only less well-controlled substances but also chemicals specifically designed to circumvent controls, known as “designer precursors”.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Surveys of people in hospitals, prisons and other institutions had already revealed the importance of methamphetamine in Iraq as far back as 2012. Along with “captagon” and tramadol, crystalline methamphetamine has emerged as a main drug of concern. A study in 2015 further confirmed those findings, with drug users saying they found cannabis more difficult to get hold of than “captagon” or methamphetamine. More recently, Iraqi authorities have discovered methamphetamine laboratories and, INCB has expressed concern over large-scale imports of pseudoephedrine preparations – used as precursors in methamphetamine laboratories. In Afghanistan, seizures of methamphetamine have steadily risen since 2014, when manufacturing seems to have started. But the amount seized in the first six months of 2019 – 657 kg – signals a huge leap on the previous year. The large seizures effected in other countries of methamphetamine thought to originate in Afghanistan also suggest that production in that country is rising fast.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'The stimulant scene is dominated by cocaine and methamphetamine, and use of both substances is rising in their main markets. Some 19 million people used cocaine in 2018, fuelled by the drug’s popularity in North America and Western Europe. Roughly 27 million people used amphetamines that same year, methamphetamine being the most used ATS [amphetamine type substance] in South-East Asia. Use of methamphetamine in these two subregions has been expanding for two decades, according to most available indicators. Cocaine and methamphetamine can coexist in some markets by acting as substitutes for each other, so that use of one drug rises when the other goes down, or by feeding the same market with parallel increases and declines.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Unlike with plant-based drugs such as cocaine or heroin, it is not possible to use rigorous methods to estimate the extent of ATS manufacture. However, a number of indicators suggest that the global market of such substances, especially methamphetamine, is expanding. Quantities of seized methamphetamine, the ATS [amphetamine type substance] with the largest market globally, reached a new record high, at 228 ton-equivalents, in 2018. There are signs of a marked expansion in the trafficking of the drug in its main subregional markets of North America and South-East Asia. While supply in China has markedly decreased in recent years, prices, which have now reached their lowest level in a decade, and purity suggest an abundant supply of the drug, in both its crystalline and tablet forms in South-East Asia.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine traffickers have varied routes and continue to develop new trading patterns. For example, the manufacture of methamphetamine was traditionally carried out in small-scale laboratories in the United States to serve the domestic market. But this kind of production seems now to be dwarfed by industrial-size laboratories in Mexico. The methamphetamine seized in the United States over the past few years is increasingly imported, with the trade controlled by Mexican cartels' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'Around 27 million people worldwide, corresponding to 0.5 per cent of the adult population, are estimated to have used amphetamines, including amphetamine, methamphetamine and pharmaceutical stimulants, in the past year. The past-year prevalence of the use of amphetamines is particularly high in North America (2.3 per cent of the population aged 15–64) and Australia and New Zealand (1.3 per cent). The past-year use of amphetamines in Asia, as a percentage of the population, is at a similar level (0.5 per cent) to the global average. Nearly half of the global estimate of past-year users of amphetamines (12.7 million people) reside in Asia, although the region is home to 60 per cent of the global population aged 15–64' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”. In many countries in South and Central America, especially those that have reported recent survey data, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants is more common than the use of other amphetamines. The non-medical use of weight loss pills is reportedly more prevalent among women than among men, with pills such as sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate (sold under the brand names Aderan and Ipomex) and phentermine (sold under the brand names Duromine and Suprenza), along with methylphenidate and amphetamine, reported to be the most commonly misused pharmaceutical stimulants in those subregions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'In 2018, methamphetamine use declined among young adults (aged 18–25), but increased significantly among adults aged 26 and older. This excludes institutionalized and homeless populations, however, both of which may be affected by disproportionately higher rates of drug use. In recent years, reported methamphetamine per gram purity levels in the United States have averaged more than 90 per cent, while prices have declined by a further 18 per cent over the past year to $56 per pure gram.48 Although in the United States, methamphetamine has historically been mixed with heroin to create a “speedball”, such combinations are increasingly rare. Recent forensic laboratory reports indicate that, while still comparatively rare, there are combinations of methamphetamine, fentanyl and fentanyl analogues on the United States drug markets.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'European wastewater analysis confirms the patterns of use of amphetamines reported in household survey data, which point to an overall prevalence of amphetamine use in Europe that is higher than that of methamphetamine, as methamphetamine use is predominant in only a few countries. Wastewater analyses, conducted in 140 cities in 33 countries across Europe, suggest that the quantity of amphetamine consumed per capita over the period 2011–2019 was 1.7 times larger in 2019. In most of the cities included in the analysis, amphetamine was the most consumed substance of the amphetamines group in 2019 (or the latest year available)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'More than one third (9.9 million people) of the estimated global number of users of amphetamines are in East and South-East Asia. The increased use of methamphetamine, both in the form of tablets and crystalline methamphetamine, continues to be reported in the subregion. A recent household survey conducted in Indonesia in 2017 reported past-year prevalence of the use of amphetamines at 0.5 per cent, or roughly 1 million past-year users, 850,000 of whom were past-year users of methamphetamine. Similarly, in the Philippines, on the basis of a 2016 household survey, 1.1 per cent of the population aged 10–69, or approximately 850,000 people, were estimated to be past-year users of methamphetamine, while in Thailand 1.3 per cent of the population (653,000 people) aged 12–65 were estimated to be past-year users of methamphetamine tablets, whereas 0.7 per cent of the population (372,000) used crystal methamphetamine in 2019.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'In other countries in East and South-East Asia, the number of drug treatment admissions is the only indicator available to provide information on the extent of drug use. With the exception of Viet Nam, all countries in the subregion continued to report methamphetamine as the primary drug of concern in drug treatment admissions in 2018 (or the latest available year). While China does not report data on drug treatment admissions, the majority of registered drug users (nearly 60 per cent) in 2018 comprised users of synthetic drugs (mainly methamphetamine)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'By contrast, wastewater analysis in Australia shows that increasing amounts of methamphetamine are consumed each year in the country, from an estimated average of 8.4 tons in 2016/17 to 11.5 tons in 2018/19.66 The wastewater analysis conducted in 2019 was carried out at 22 sites in state capitals and 36 regional sites, and covered 57 per cent of the population and a wide range of catchment sizes. Overall, the average per capita consumption of methamphetamine was highest at regional sites: 1,500 mg per 1,000 population per day, compared with an average of 1250 mg per 1,000 population per day at state capital sites.67 The largest amounts of methamphetamine were consumed in New South Wales, followed by Victoria and Queensland' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'Treatment for the use of amphetamine-type stimulants is more common in Asia (predominantly for the use of methamphetamine) and Oceania (based on data from Australia and New Zealand) than in other regions. As is the case with cannabis users, people who are in treatment for disorders related to the use of amphetamines tend to be younger – in their mid-twenties – than users of opioids in treatment, and the majority of them also tend to be first-time entrants. People receiving treatment for the use of methamphetamine account for more than three quarters of those in treatment in Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf
'The quantity of ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized at the global level has increased over the past two decades, in particular over the period 2009–2018, when the quantity of ATS seized quadrupled. The increase was primarily due to the increasingly large quantities of methamphetamine being seized, as seizures increased sevenfold over the period 2009–2018. The largest proportional increase (18-fold) was for the group of “other stimulants” (including prescription ATS, a number of cathinones, such as mephedrone or MDPV, which are now under international control, and non-specified ATS). The total quantity of “ecstasy” seized doubled over the period 2009–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In most years since 1998, the ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized in the largest quantities was methamphetamine, which in the period 2014–2018 accounted for 71 per cent of the total quantity of ATS seized globally, followed by amphetamine (21 per cent) and “ecstasy” (5 per cent). The rest (3 per cent) of seized ATS included former synthetic new psychoactive substances such as mephedrone, MDPV or methylone (0.4 per cent of the total).
While the number of countries reporting seizures of “ecstasy” declined slightly, from 109 countries in the period 2004–2008 to 100 countries in the period 2014–2018, the number of countries reporting seizures of amphetamine increased from 85 to 97 in that same time. Those reporting seizures of methamphetamine increased by more than 50 per cent, from 69 to 105 countries, which suggests that there has been a significant increase in the geographical spread of methamphetamine trafficking at the global level' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Nonetheless, seizures of methamphetamine remain highly concentrated: the three countries responsible for most of the methamphetamine seized worldwide in 2018 (the United States, Thailand and Mexico) accounted for 80 per cent of the global total, while the three countries reporting the largest quantities of amphetamine (Turkey, Pakistan and the Syrian Arab Republic) and the three countries reporting the most “ecstasy” seized (Turkey, the United States and Australia) accounted for a significantly smaller proportion of the global total (around 50 per cent) in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Different substances are predominant in the seizures of ATS in different regions: methamphetamine is predominant in North America, East and SouthEast Asia, South Asia and Oceania; and amphetamine in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, Europe, Africa and Central America. South America and the Caribbean were the only subregions where the quantities of “ecstasy” seized were predominant among all ATS intercepted in the period 2014–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In contrast to previous decades, when methamphetamine was primarily manufactured from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, nowadays more than half of seized precursor chemicals linked to the manufacture of methamphetamine are P-2-P and/or its precursor chemicals. There is, however, a significant geographical divide. Most methamphetamine production in Asia, Oceania and Africa – and possibly some in Europe – continues to be based primarily on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as the key precursor chemicals, while manufacture of methamphetamine in North America is now primarily based on P-2-P and its precursor chemicals. In some instances, precursor chemicals for the manufacture of P-2-P also seem to have been used in the manufacture of methamphetamine in Western Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the quantities of methamphetamine seized have increased rapidly over the past decade, seizures of internationally controlled chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine have fluctuated over the years and showed a clear increase only in 2018, when methamphetamine precursor seizures almost tripled compared with 2017. The marked increase was the result of record quantities of P-2-P linked to methamphetamine manufacture in North America being seized – an almost ninefold increase – and the global quantities of ephedrine seized increasing almost fivefold. By contrast, the reported number of dismantled laboratories continued to decline, from 10,600 methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in 2010 to close to 3,700 in 2017 and less than 2,100 in 2018. A possible explanation of the phenomenon of an expanding market going hand in hand with fewer and fewer laboratories being dismantled could be a shift towards operating fewer but larger laboratories in parallel with a general shift in production to countries with comparatively limited interdiction capacities.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
''Regarding precursor chemicals, it has to be taken into account that increasing quantities of methamphetamine are now being produced from pre-precursors that are not under international control; for example, substances such as benzaldehyde and nitroethane are used in the clandestine manufacture of P-2-P, in both North America and Europe. Similarly, benzyl chloride and sodium cyanide are used in the clandestine manufacture of phenylacetic acid, which is also used to manufacture P-2-P, the main precursor used in methamphetamine manufacture in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The United States reported the dismantling of 1,607 methamphetamine laboratories in 2018, accounting for 78 per cent of all methamphetamine laboratories dismantled worldwide that year. However, the overall output of domestic methamphetamine manufacture in the United States now appears to be considerably smaller than the potential output produced by several of the large, industrial-scale laboratories found in other parts of the world, such as Mexico and East and South-East Asia, in recent years. Over the past few years, the United States has reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its market has been smuggled into the country from abroad, most notably from Mexico. Most of the clandestine production and smuggling seems to be controlled by various Mexican drug cartels.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The vast majority of the methamphetamine production facilities dismantled in the United States were “kitchen laboratories” (1,426), which typically produce two ounces or less per production cycle for local demand, although the overall figure also included the dismantling of 11 industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratories in the United States in 2018. Nevertheless, the overall number of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories detected in the United States fell by about 90 per cent over the period 2010–2018 and by 93 per cent since the peak in 2004. According to the United States authorities, the initial decline after 2004 resulted from improved precursor control, notably through the regulation of over-the-counter sales of methamphetamine precursor chemicals such as ephedrine preparations and pseudoephedrine, and ongoing efforts to dismantle laboratories, which acted as a deterrent to domestic methamphetamine manufacture.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'By contrast, the decline in the number of dismantled laboratories after 2010 was no longer in line with the upward trend in a number of other indicators, which had been clearly pointing to an expansion of the methamphetamine market, both in terms of supply (rising seizures, falling purity adjusted prices) and demand (rising prevalence rates, positive tests among the general workforce, treatment admissions and deaths). The purity of methamphetamine rose from 95 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 to 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, while the potency of methamphetamine increased from 85 to 97 per cent over the same period. This indicates an improvement in the know-how of organized crime groups manufacturing methamphetamine from various (non-scheduled) P-2-P precursors in neighbouring Mexico, an overall increase in the supply of methamphetamine in the United States and the emergence of a potentially even more problematic substance, showing everhigher levels of purity and potency, thus increasing the risk of overdose.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the annual prevalence of methamphetamine use more than doubled from 0.3 to 0.7 per cent of the population aged 12 and older in the United States over the period 2008–2018, the number of psychostimulants involved in drug poisoning deaths in the United States rose from 1,302 to 12,676 deaths over the same period, equivalent to an almost 10-fold increase. This increase may have been inflated by an increasing number of contaminations of psychostimulants with opioids (such as fentanyl and its analogues); however, psychostimulant-related deaths excluding any involvement of opioids still showed an eightfold increase, from 807 deaths in 2008 to 6,271 deaths in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The decline in the domestic supply of methamphetamine, indicated by the falling number of manufacturing facilities dismantled in the United States, going hand in hand with increasing use and an overall increase in the supply of the drug, can be explained by the increasing importance of rapidly growing illegal methamphetamine imports from clandestine manufacture sites in neighbouring Mexico. According to the United States authorities, the latter phenomenon appears to have resulted from attempts by Mexican organized crime groups to diversify their drug portfolio as they attempted to reduce their dependence on cocaine produced in countries in South America, preferring instead to source the required chemicals from China and produce methamphetamine themselves. Methamphetamine shipments intercepted along the south-western border of the United States increased almost fourfold between 2013 and 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The region with the next largest number of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled was Asia, accounting for 6 per cent of the global total in the period 2014–2018. Most of these facilities were dismantled in China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which together accounted for 94 per cent of all reported laboratories dismantled in Asia, while some clandestine methamphetamine laboratories were also dismantled, in descending order of importance, in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the Republic of Korea, Myanmar and Hong Kong, China. In addition, the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine has been reported in recent years by Afghanistan and Iraq.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Countries identified as significant source countries for methamphetamine shipments in Asia in the period 2014–2018 included Myanmar, followed by China, Thailand, India and Iran (Islamic Republic of). Clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in Asia seems to be still largely based on the use of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as precursors, although reports from Afghanistan suggest that ephedrine is extracted from ephedra plant material and used as a precursor for methamphetamine.80 The authorities in Myanmar and Thailand have reported the seizure of increasing quantities of sodium cyanide and benzyl cyanide in recent years. These substances can be used for synthesizing P-2-P, which is then used to manufacture either amphetamine or methamphetamine.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Similar to the situation in the United States, where the manufacture of methamphetamine declined while increasing in neighbouring Mexico, both China and Iran (Islamic Republic of) reported declining domestic production, reflected in the decreasing numbers of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in recent years, going hand in hand with the expansion of methamphetamine manufacture in their neighbouring countries. Indeed, by 2018 the Islamic Republic of Iran reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its territory originated in Afghanistan and was trafficked either from there directly or via Pakistan. Similarly, China reported that methamphetamine seized in recent years has originated primarily in Myanmar. In contrast to many other countries, however, the marked declines in the domestic manufacture of methamphetamine in China appear to have more than outweighed any increase in clandestine manufacture and imports from neighbouring countries. This is revealed in the decline in methamphetamine found in the wastewater in cities across China, with wastewater-based estimates suggesting a fall in methamphetamine consumption amounts of 26 per cent over the period 2014 –2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The information available globally on methamphetamine points to a market expansion over the past two decades, in particular since 2009. Qualitative information on methamphetamine trafficking trends reported by Member States, data on drug treatment facilities, prevalence data in countries based on survey data, and prices all suggest that the methamphetamine market has been expanding, particularly in the two subregions where demand for the drug is highest, South-East Asia and North America, while most trafficking in methamphetamine continues to be intraregional.
Methamphetamine continues to be seized mainly in North America and in East and South-East Asia which accounted for, respectively, 50 per cent and 42 per cent of the global quantities of methamphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018, while the quantities of the drug seized in Oceania (4 per cent), the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia (2 per cent), South Asia and Europe (1 per cent each) continued to be far smaller.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in 2018 were the quantities seized in the United States, followed by Thailand and Mexico. Marked increases in the quantities seized from 2017 to 2018 were reported by the United States and Thailand, while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in China declined, in line with reports of wastewater analysis that showed a significant decline in methamphetamine consumption in that country.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In the United States, most methamphetamine is sold as methamphetamine. However, there have also been reports of tablets sold as “ecstasy” that contained methamphetamine instead (notably in Missouri). The sale of methamphetamine in the form of falsified Adderall tablets is a new phenomenon, with laboratories manufacturing such falsified medicaments found in a number of states, in particular Georgia and California. The expansion of methamphetamine trafficking has also gone hand in hand with the increasingly common practice of mixing methamphetamine with fentanyls. This practice has proved to be particularly harmful and has contributed to the rapid rise in methamphetamine-related deaths in recent years.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The quantities of methamphetamine seized in North America rose sixfold between 2009 and 2018, to 117 tons. North American methamphetamine seizures accounted for more than 99 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in the Americas in 2018. Methamphetamine seizures in the subregion were dominated by those reported by the United States (71 per cent of the total in 2018), followed by Mexico (29 per cent), while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in Canada (0.4 per cent) remained more limited' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'As cross-border methamphetamine trafficking in North America consists mainly of trafficking from Mexico to the United States, the south-western border thus remains the main entry point for illegal imports of methamphetamine into the United States: in 2018, 95 per cent of the methamphetamine seizures made by United States customs authorities were effected at or near the country’s south-western border. Quantities of methamphetamine seized in the United States as a whole almost tripled between 2013 and 2018, whereas those intercepted along the south-western border quadrupled during the same period. Trafficking modi operandi include concealment by human couriers on commercial flights, the use of parcel delivery services, and the use of pick-up trucks and commercial buses, as well as unusual goods deliveries such as concealment in metal collars, cargo stabilizers, electric transformers and industrial drill bits, reflecting the increasing sophistication of methamphetamine smuggling activities. Another emerging trend over the past few years has been the use of drones, which easily fly over physical barriers on the border while the operators remain at a safe distance from where the drugs are dropped, thereby reducing the risk of arrest.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Practically all the major transnational criminal organizations in Mexico seem to be involved in the smuggling of methamphetamine to the United States. They include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Los Zetas Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization. In parallel, outlaw motorcycle gangs continue to be involved in the distribution of methamphetamine within the United States. The increased involvement of Mexican organized crime groups in the trafficking of drugs other than cocaine has contributed to the spread of methamphetamine trafficking from the western United States to the whole country over the past decade, including states in the eastern part of the country that had previously been spared from the large-scale harmful use of methamphetamine.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The United States, for example, has been reported by other countries as a country of departure of methamphetamine for Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), Asia (Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) and Europe (Ireland). Moreover, methamphetamine trafficking has been reported not only from Mexico or from Canada into the United States but also from the United States to those two countries, suggesting a number of two-way trafficking flows across the countries of North America. Methamphetamine trafficked from Canada has been reported in the United States, South America (Chile), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and a few countries in Europe (Iceland and Latvia).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'More recently, methamphetamine shipments have also been intercepted en route from Mexico to the Netherlands for distribution in Europe; moreover, Mexican “methamphetamine cooks”, linked to Mexican organized crime groups, were arrested in Europe, after being detected in large-scale methamphetamine manufacture in Western Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia increased eightfold over the period 2009–2018, to close to 100 tons, and preliminary data for 2019 show further strong increases in the quantities of methamphetamine seized, in particular in South-East Asia, with increases reported in 2019 by, among other countries, Brunei Daraussalam, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam. In most years in the past decade the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia were reported by China. In 2018, by contrast, 66 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in that subregion was seized in Thailand, followed by Indonesia (8 per cent) and Malaysia (8 per cent) and only then by China (6 per cent), reflecting underlying shifts in the methamphetamine market in South-East Asia, that is, a decline in the methamphetamine market in China in parallel with ongoing increases in the ASEAN countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While the typical purity of methamphetamine tablets encountered in East and South-East Asia has remained relatively stable in recent years (mostly within a range of 15 to 25 per cent), retail prices of methamphetamine tablets have decreased sharply in several countries in the subregion, which, when combined with the increases in quantities seized, suggests that the supply of methamphetamine may have outstripped demand in East and South-East Asia' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The average purity of crystalline methamphetamine in East and South-East Asia continues to remain very high, again suggesting an abundant supply of the drug. The average purity of samples analysed in China reached 95 per cent in 2018 and other countries in the subregion (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Viet Nam) reported purity levels of between 70 and 90 per cent. While purity has remained high, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have decreased in several countries in the subregion in recent years, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia and Myanmar, pointing to an increase in the availability of crystalline methamphetamine in the subregion. In Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have actually more than halved over the past decade. At the same time, the average purity of crystalline methamphetamine rose in Thailand from 90 per cent in 2011 to around 95 per cent in 2019, with almost all (99 per cent) of the crystalline methamphetamine samples analysed in 2019 showing purity levels of over 90 per cent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'All in all, tablet and crystalline methamphetamine prices in several countries in the region reached their lowest level over the past decade despite a record number of seizures being made every year during the same period. The decrease in prices also appears to have contributed to an increase in the use of methamphetamine and, subsequently, in more methamphetamine-related treatment demand. Thus, there have been sharp increases in methamphetamine-related treatment admissions reported in recent years by several countries in South-East Asia, including a more than 30-fold increase in the number of treatment admissions for the use of methamphetamine reported by Malaysia over the period 2011–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'This shift from China as the main location of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking to other countries in East and South-East Asia is also indirectly reflected in trafficking data reported by Australia. China and Hong Kong, China, were the two main embarkation points for methamphetamine trafficked to Australia in 2015, whereas in the fiscal years 2016/17 and 2017/18 the most important embarkation points were the United States, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. In fact, in 2018, the Australian authorities reported that the importance of China as a source country for methamphetamine had declined while there has been an emerging trend in the growth of quantities of seized methamphetamine originating in South-East Asia, mainly in the Mekong region, including the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Most of the methamphetamine available in East and South-East Asia is sourced within the subregion. The dynamics of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking within that subregion are, however, less well understood than in others as the available indicators show partly contradictory patterns. Although in previous years, China and Myanmar were identified as the most frequently identified countries of “origin”, “departure” and “transit” in East and South-East Asia, manufacture of methamphetamine may now be more widely spread across the subregion, although it is not clear whether frequently mentioned departure countries, such as Malaysia or Thailand, are also the countries of origin or mainly transit countries for methamphetamine manufactured in Myanmar. In fact, Myanmar reported Thailand and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic as main destination countries for methamphetamine shipments in 2018, while Malaysia reported Thailand as the main departure country' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'While methamphetamine trafficking flows from East and South-East Asia to countries outside the subregion remain modest, some smuggling to destinations around the world was reported, mainly smuggling from Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar in 2018 or, when the period is extended to the past five years, mainly from China and Thailand. Destinations outside the subregion included countries in South Asia, the Near and Middle East (Saudi Arabia as well as Israel), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), North America (the United States as well as Canada), Western Europe (notably Switzerland as well as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland), Eastern Europe (notably the Russian Federation) and Africa (notably South Africa) over the period 2014–2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Methamphetamine found in Australia and New Zealand is both locally manufactured and, to a larger extent, imported from North America and Asia. In the fiscal year 2017/18, methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into Australia from the United States, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, China (including Hong Kong, China), Mexico, Lebanon, Viet Nam and India. The United States was also the main source country of the methamphetamine found in New Zealand in 2018, followed by Canada and, in SouthEast Asia, by Malaysia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Of the total number of amphetamine laboratories reported dismantled worldwide in the period 2014–2018 (749 laboratories), more than half were dismantled in Europe (417), most notably in Western and Central Europe (316) and, to a lesser degree, in Eastern Europe (100). Overall, 16 European countries reported the dismantling of clandestine amphetamine laboratories over the period 2014– 2018, in particular the Netherlands. The Netherlands, followed by Poland, Lithuania and Belgium, were the most frequently identified source countries of amphetamine in Europe. Amphetamine from South-Eastern Europe was reported as being mainly sourced from Bulgaria and Turkey. However, it is likely that such statistics are heavily skewed as a number of countries, in particular in the Middle East, where large-scale amphetamine manufacture has been reported, have a very limited capacity to dismantle laboratories and thus are not appropriately represented in these statistics' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The manufacture of counterfeit “captagon” tablets, that is, amphetamine tablets mixed with caffeine, in the Near and Middle East is more widespread than the manufacture of amphetamine in South Asia or in East and South-East Asia. Indications received from other countries in the subregion pointed to the existence of clandestine laboratories manufacturing “captagon” tablets in the period 2014–2018, in particular in the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon, intended partly for domestic consumption and partly for the more lucrative markets of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as the Sudan and Libya. In addition, Iran (Islamic Republic of) and Jordan have been identified by other countries in the subregion as possible countries of origin of amphetamine shipments. Jordan reported that all of the amphetamine found on its market originated in either the Syrian Arab Republic or Lebanon.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Although data for 2018 were unavailable for key countries in the Near and Middle East, more than half (54 per cent) of the global quantity of amphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018 was reported in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia. Of the rest, some 24 per cent was seized in Europe (including 14 per cent in Western and Central Europe), 13 per cent in the Americas (including 7 per cent in North America), 6 per cent in Africa (mostly in North Africa) and 1 per cent in Oceania (mostly in Australia). The regional totals for Europe and the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia show larger seizures of amphetamine than of methamphetamine over the period 2014–2018, suggesting that the availability of amphetamine may be still greater than of methamphetamine in those regions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'In the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, the quantities of methamphetamine seized increased markedly in 2018. However, the marked decline in the reported quantities of amphetamine seized in recent years (-37 per cent in 2017 and -80 per cent in 2018) seems to be largely a statistical artefact. Some of this decline may have been related to changes in the categorization of stimulants seized, for example, “prescription stimulants” instead of “amphetamine”. Even more important has been the hiatus in the reporting of seizures to UNODC by some countries known to be affected by major amphetamine trafficking activities. There is plenty of evidence that trafficking in amphetamine, in particular of “captagon” tablets, has also continued in the Near and Middle East in recent years. INCB, for example, in its most recent annual report noted the following: The manufacture and trafficking of counterfeit “captagon” continued to seriously affect the countries of the Middle East, which not only are destination markets for those drugs but are also increasingly becoming a source of counterfeit “captagon”…Political instability and unresolved conflicts, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in some parts of the subregion have contributed to increased trafficking in…“captagon”' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Instability and conflict in the Middle East contributed to the trafficking in falsified “captagon” in the subregion. A lack of control and monitoring led to an increase in the manufacture of “captagon” tablets in some countries over the period 2014–2018, which turned into an additional source of income for terrorist and insurgency groups in the Middle East. Captagon was originally the trademarked brand name of a medicinal product containing fenetylline, until the substance was placed under international control in 1986. While the diversion of fenetylline from existing stocks might have continued until the end of the 1990s, those stocks, some of which were apparently located in Bulgaria, became depleted. However, the “captagon” name and logo continued to be used even though the composition of the counterfeit tablets had changed, and increasingly, seized “captagon” tablets were found to contain amphetamine, often mixed with caffeine and other substances.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The two countries most frequently reported as countries of origin of amphetamine (mainly “captagon”) seized in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia in the period 2014–2018 were Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, which together accounted for some 40 per cent of all mentions of countries of origin reported by the authorities in the subregion. Final destinations are mostly countries in the Near and Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and various other Gulf countries, in particular the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, using both direct and indirect routes.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The growing complexity of drug markets can be also seen in the manufacturing processes of synthetic drugs. In the past, a limited number of precursor chemicals was used to manufacture synthetic drugs, such as amphetamine (manufactured mostly from P-2-P), methamphetamine (manufactured mostly from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or from P-2-P in North America) and “ecstasy” (mainly manufactured from 3,4-MDP-2-P). This has changed over the past two decades. As the key precursors mentioned above are all under international control, traffickers have been looking for alternatives. Over the years, different strategies have been adopted by traffickers to overcome controls using as alternative precursors substances that were not equally well controlled in all countries, noncontrolled pre-precursors and so-called “designer precursors”, that is, chemicals specifically designed to circumvent existing precursor control systems. Pharmaceutical preparations containing controlled precursor chemicals have also been used to supply precursors because, although controlled, they are exempt from a number of control mechanisms such as the system of pre-export notifications' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'“This study has shown that in a preclinical setting, high doses of CBD can act to reduce methamphetamine consumption and also relapse to taking methamphetamine. Many other studies need to be done in this space prior to the use of CBD in human population of methamphetamine addicts – but this study is a first step for understanding the potential use of CBD treatment in methamphetamine addiction.”'
https://www.psypost.org/2018/11/study-high-doses-of-cbd-can-act-to-reduce-methamphetamine-consumption-in-rodents-52602
'In the present study, we showed that delta9-THC, the principal constituent of cannabis, attenuates the neurotoxic effect of METH by reducing two markers of neuronal damage, overexpression of nNOS and astrogliosis. Specifically, METH-induced astrogliosis and nNOS overexpression were reduced by pre- and post-treatment with delta9-THC in the CPu and PFC, respectively.'
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0098079
'Cannabidiol (80 mg/kg, but not 40 mg/kg, or 20 mg/kg) reduced the motivation to self-administer methamphetamine and attenuated methamphetamine-primed relapse to methamphetamine-seeking behavior after extinction'
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269881118799954
Legalize ganja federally in the US. Encourage the growth and consumption of ganja as a healthier, green alternative to the pharmaceutical business and market of methamphetamine in the US, Mexico and worldwide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxhyumdiVtw
From 4 years ago. Legalize ganja in the Philippines to provide people with a healthy and safe recreational drug instead of shabu i.e. crystal meth and to end the war on drugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ0I7HyZNiI
'With meth steadily becoming the ‘recreational drug of choice’ in the country, because it was easier, faster, and cheaper to produce than heroin or marijuana, the demand for and availability of its main component, ephedrine, in the black market had increased, investigators said.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/meth-abuse-drives-ephedrine-smuggling/article5924368.ece
Legalize recreational marijuana in the US and in Mexico to reduce the demand and market for meth. No wall can stop corruption but legalization could.
'The new president of Mexico was installed on Saturday, amid rising violence in Juarez. More than 10 years after the war on drugs was launched in Mexico, VICE News looks at current state of Mexican drug cartels as a new president prepares to take office on December 1, and a new phase in the drug war begins.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ToJrahEu_w
'The economic life of lumpen drug users is made of daily expediencies, such as barter, repairing, collecting abandoned objects, selling minimal items, begging and resorting to charity. It is a diverse ecosystem which changes according to personal and structural conditions. The use of drugs is not mechanically experienced and driven by a deus ex machina called ‘addiction’. It is based on what I call ‘chemical calibration’, for instance in the use of shisheh (methamphetamine) as a productive drug to hustling and heroin as a tranquillizer and painkiller amid sheer destitution.'
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1466138118787534
'The major features of cellular organization, including, for instance, mitosis, must be much older than 500 million years old - more nearly 1000 million,' wrote George Gaylord Simpson and his colleagues Pittendrigh and Tiffany in their broadly encompassing book entitled Life. 'In this sense the world of life, which is surely fragile and complex, is incredibly durable through time - more durable than mountains. This durability is wholly dependent on the almost incredible accuracy with which the inherited information is copied from generation to generation.'
But in all the thousand million years envisioned by these authors no threat has struck so directly and so forcefully at that 'incredible accuracy' as the mid-20th century threat of man-made radiation and man-made and man-disseminated chemicals. Sir Macfarlane Burnet, a distinguished Australian physician and a Nobel Prize winner, considers it 'one of the most significant medical features' of our time that, 'as a by-product of more and more powerful therapeutic procedures and the production of chemical substances outside of biological experiences, the normal protective barriers that kept mutagenic agents from the internal organs have been more and more frequently penetrated.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
'After discussing the data limitations of the study, the authors
concluded that “it indeed seems to be the case that legalizing the
recreational use of marijuana results in fewer marijuana related arrests
and court cases” and that while law enforcement sources voiced various
concerns, several “indicated that methamphetamine and heroin were much
larger problems for their agencies than was marijuana.”
The team “saw no evidence that marijuana legalization had an impact on indicators in border states,” adding that they “found no indications of increases in arrests related to transportation/trafficking offenses.”'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/study-funded-by-feds-debunks-myths-about-marijuana-legalizations-alleged-harms/
'Drug overdose deaths involving selected drug categories are identified by specific multiple cause-of-death codes. Drug categories presented include: heroin (T40.1); natural opioid analgesics, including morphine and codeine, and semisynthetic opioids, including drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and oxymorphone (T40.2); methadone, a synthetic opioid (T40.3); synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone, including drugs such as fentanyl and tramadol (T40.4); cocaine (T40.5); and psychostimulants with abuse potential, which includes methamphetamine (T43.6). Opioid overdose deaths are identified by the presence of any of the following MCOD codes: opium (T40.0); heroin (T40.1); natural opioid analgesics (T40.2); methadone (T40.3); synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone (T40.4); or other and unspecified narcotics (T40.6).'
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
'The current crisis of fentanyls appears to be more supply-driven than earlier waves of increases in the use of pharmaceutical opioids or heroin. Fentanyls are being used as an adulterant of heroin, are used to make falsified pharmaceutical opioids, such as falsified oxycodone and hydrocodone – and even falsified benzodiazepines – which are sold to a large and unsuspecting population of users of opioids and other drugs; users are not seeking fentanyl as such.
It seems that some local distributors are not able to distinguish between heroin, fentanyl and fentanyl laced heroin, nor between diverted pharmaceutical opioids and falsified opioids containing fentanyl. A general problem with fentanyls is dosing by nonprofessional “pharmacists”, where small mistakes can lead to lethal results. Furthermore, as the overdose death data suggest, even people using cocaine and psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, are also exposed – probably unintentionally – to fentanyls or other potent synthetic opioids mixed with those substances' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'By contrast, quantities of stimulants seized rose twentyfold [in the Russian Federation] over the period 2008–2018, in particular seizures of ATS, which rose to almost 33 times the initial level. Moreover, according to seizure data, a variety of substances (internationally controlled or not) are now present in the synthetic drugs market: methamphetamine and various cathinones, including mephedrone and alpha-PVP.
The emergence of “new drugs” in the Russian Federation seems to be supply-driven as it may be, at least partly, linked to the rapid spread of the darknet in the Russian Federation. Data collected among a convenience sample of Internet users suggest that the Russian Federation may have the highest proportion worldwide of Internet users who use the darknet for purchasing drugs; those who purchased drugs on the darknet represented 46 per cent of the drug users among the survey respondents in January 2018, rising to 86 per cent in January 2020.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'An analysis of the Hydra market, based on webscraping techniques, conducted in February 2019, revealed a total of 13,935 drug listings on the platform in one day, dominated by synthetic cathinones (39 per cent of all listings, notably alpha-PVP and mephedrone), cannabis, mostly marijuana (16 per cent) and hashish (14 per cent), traditional ATS, mostly amphetamine (10 per cent) and methamphetamine (1 per cent), cocaine (4 per cent), psychedelics (3 per cent), dissociatives (2 per cent) and opioids (2 per cent). The analysis also indicated that, partly due to the increasing availability of drugs through the darknet, two thirds of the Russian population were now able to buy drugs instantly. The importance of trafficking ATS through the darknet and/or through web shops is also indirectly reflected in the high proportion of ATS being shipped to end users and local retail traffickers by mail: 80 per cent in 2018 – a higher proportion than for most other drug categories in the Russian Federation' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
The team “saw no evidence that marijuana legalization had an impact on indicators in border states,” adding that they “found no indications of increases in arrests related to transportation/trafficking offenses.”'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/study-funded-by-feds-debunks-myths-about-marijuana-legalizations-alleged-harms/
'Drug overdose deaths involving selected drug categories are identified by specific multiple cause-of-death codes. Drug categories presented include: heroin (T40.1); natural opioid analgesics, including morphine and codeine, and semisynthetic opioids, including drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and oxymorphone (T40.2); methadone, a synthetic opioid (T40.3); synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone, including drugs such as fentanyl and tramadol (T40.4); cocaine (T40.5); and psychostimulants with abuse potential, which includes methamphetamine (T43.6). Opioid overdose deaths are identified by the presence of any of the following MCOD codes: opium (T40.0); heroin (T40.1); natural opioid analgesics (T40.2); methadone (T40.3); synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone (T40.4); or other and unspecified narcotics (T40.6).'
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
'The current crisis of fentanyls appears to be more supply-driven than earlier waves of increases in the use of pharmaceutical opioids or heroin. Fentanyls are being used as an adulterant of heroin, are used to make falsified pharmaceutical opioids, such as falsified oxycodone and hydrocodone – and even falsified benzodiazepines – which are sold to a large and unsuspecting population of users of opioids and other drugs; users are not seeking fentanyl as such.
It seems that some local distributors are not able to distinguish between heroin, fentanyl and fentanyl laced heroin, nor between diverted pharmaceutical opioids and falsified opioids containing fentanyl. A general problem with fentanyls is dosing by nonprofessional “pharmacists”, where small mistakes can lead to lethal results. Furthermore, as the overdose death data suggest, even people using cocaine and psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, are also exposed – probably unintentionally – to fentanyls or other potent synthetic opioids mixed with those substances' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'By contrast, quantities of stimulants seized rose twentyfold [in the Russian Federation] over the period 2008–2018, in particular seizures of ATS, which rose to almost 33 times the initial level. Moreover, according to seizure data, a variety of substances (internationally controlled or not) are now present in the synthetic drugs market: methamphetamine and various cathinones, including mephedrone and alpha-PVP.
The emergence of “new drugs” in the Russian Federation seems to be supply-driven as it may be, at least partly, linked to the rapid spread of the darknet in the Russian Federation. Data collected among a convenience sample of Internet users suggest that the Russian Federation may have the highest proportion worldwide of Internet users who use the darknet for purchasing drugs; those who purchased drugs on the darknet represented 46 per cent of the drug users among the survey respondents in January 2018, rising to 86 per cent in January 2020.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'An analysis of the Hydra market, based on webscraping techniques, conducted in February 2019, revealed a total of 13,935 drug listings on the platform in one day, dominated by synthetic cathinones (39 per cent of all listings, notably alpha-PVP and mephedrone), cannabis, mostly marijuana (16 per cent) and hashish (14 per cent), traditional ATS, mostly amphetamine (10 per cent) and methamphetamine (1 per cent), cocaine (4 per cent), psychedelics (3 per cent), dissociatives (2 per cent) and opioids (2 per cent). The analysis also indicated that, partly due to the increasing availability of drugs through the darknet, two thirds of the Russian population were now able to buy drugs instantly. The importance of trafficking ATS through the darknet and/or through web shops is also indirectly reflected in the high proportion of ATS being shipped to end users and local retail traffickers by mail: 80 per cent in 2018 – a higher proportion than for most other drug categories in the Russian Federation' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
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