How Law Enforcement made Meth worse

I watched the state police of Oklahoma the other night make propaganda about how their tough stance against the sale of cold medication has reduced the number of meth labs in that state (Missouri law enforcement is making the same claims). However, there is no evidence at all that this has reduced the amount of meth Oklahomians are actually using.

Which leads to the question of where the meth is coming from and how are they paying for it?

Human addictions like nature abhors a vacuum and the decline of domestic labs has led to the rise of meth imports (which mirrors the rest of modern American capitalism) from Mexico. These imports have to be bad to criminal gangs in hard cash. Domestic labs were generally run by Meth users themselves which brought down the cost of their addiction and allowed a lot of users to get their fix without committing other crimes. With the drastic undercutting of the domestic meth production by law enforcement, the rise of Mexican production can only be fueled by hard cash. And a lot of addicts who can no longer pay for their addictions by producing their own or by dealing (most Mexican Meth is controlled by San Salvadoran gangs) have had to turn to crime.

What these law enforcement people are not telling us when they go on TV to brag about licking the meth lab problem is that there is a growing armed robbery and theft epidemic underway. There is no evidence that meth use has declined. It seems that each action by law enforcement only creates a worse reaction.

The only solution to prevent the police from making things progressively worse is complete legalization and production of meth is an environmentally safe way.