The opioid crisis grabs the headlines, but what about the meth crisis? Methamphetamine, produced by Mexican cartels and smuggled over the southwestern border, killed 10,333 Americans in 2017, more than in any previous year. Worse, preliminary statistics show an increase to more than 12,000 in the year ending last July. President Trump says there’s a ” crisis” at the border, and he’s right–its result is the meth-overdose epidemic.
Meth first made its mark on American society in the mid-1980s. But a spike in meth deaths beginning in 2003 prodded Congress to pass the 2005 Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic. Act. This restricted the sale of cough medicines that meth makers used to cook up the drug. Deaths dropped and Congress stopped paying attention.
Then something alarming happened. Meth-overdose deaths exploded between 2008 and 2017. Over that period, (the annual death rate from meth overdoses per 100,000 people rose from 0.4 to 3.2, an eight-fold increase. This rise coincided with a new wave of meth on America’s streets. methamphetamine was the single most common drug reported by police forensic scientists to the Drug Enforcement Administration database of laboratory samples in 2017-more than marijuana, cocaine or opioids.
The new meth isn’t homegrown. Thanks to DEA crackdowns—shuttering backyard labs and controlling Sudafed—domestic production has virtually evaporated. But that left a hole in the market, which Mexican Drug-trafficking organizations moved in to fill. Today the methamphetamine on American streets is synthesized in Mexican labs using ingredients made in Mexico labs using ingredients made in Mexico or sourced from China, taking advantage of struggling foreign regulators. This new drug—typically 90% methamphetamine—is diluted and more potent and sells at rock-bottom prices. Old trailer-made meth has been replaced with industrial-grade product.
The cartels’ dominance of the meth trade is shy U.S. Customs and Border protection (CBP) has each year since 2007 reported a huge increase in the volume at methamphetamine it interdicts at America’s southwestern border. It seized 67,292 pounds in the first 11 months of fiscal 2018, nearly five times the haul from 2012. Even still, eight DEA field divisions reported increases in meth’s availability in 2017. From Portland, Ore., to Louisville, Ky., to Philadelphia, meth is back.
Some might object that while the meth crisis is growing, it pales in comparison to the opioid epidemic. This is true—for now. Of the 70,237 total U.S drug deaths in 2017, opioids were involved in nearly 50,000.
But prescription-opioid deaths are falling and China finally agreed in December to add fentanyl to its list of controlled substances. If the opioid crisis begins to abate, methamphetamine is primed to take its place. That’s why U.S. policy makers need to act now, before it becomes the next big killer.
Because most drugs pass through ports of entry, stopping overdose deaths will require increasing the resources and personnel available to CBP, as well as new hand-held drug detectors. The 1,200 new border agents and $564 million for new technology in the most recent spending bill are a good start. Policy makers should also look to erect a barrier or deploy drone and sensor surveillance to stop smuggling between ports of entry. One way or another, protecting Americans from drugs means massively enhancing border security.
At the same time, funding is needed to help meth users. For the 774000 or so Americans who used the drug in 2017, better knowledge about meth and better availability of drug test strips, which can indicate the presence of a deadly substance, encourages safer use and saves lives.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the best available treatment for meth users is behavioral therapy, which can reduce use but has a weak track record of “curing” addiction. The NIDA notes, however, that there have been promising developments in medication-assisted treatment: The drug Ibudilast was found to discourage methamphetamine self-administration in rats, and InterveXion Therapeutics is developing a meth “vaccine” to block the onset of a high by binding to meth in the bloodstream, Grant funding from Congress could help accelerate this drug-discovery process.
Outspoken about the meth crisis in Montana, Republican Sen. Steve Daines worked to include meth-related provisions in last year’s opioid-crisis and criminal-justice-reform bills. And before losing in the midterms, Sen. Claire McCaskill had sought more information on anti-meth enforcement as ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Someone in Congress ought to pick up that mantle.
But a few voices aren’t enough. If the spike in meth deaths in the mid-2000s merited a bipartisan response, the present one does too. State and federal governments must equip border and law-enforcement agents as well as public-health officials to face the methamphetamine crisis head on, before it becomes even more devastating.