Helping Mexican Drug Cartels
For years the Charleston Gazette has pushed a War on Decongestants, much to my amusement. Slapping a prescription on an over-the-counter remedy to stop meth is like restricting sugar purchases to stop moonshining.
But our moral and intellectual superiors have a hair up their inner sanctums on this. Liberals attach themselves to one and only one answer on every problem and demand that we fall in line. End of discussion. Their way or the highway.
A few legislators still bow to the Gazette, but on this one, lawmakers are saying take a hike. Get used to it Gazette. A Republican takeover of the House of Delegates is underway.
Which is good because prescriptions won’t end meth use. It will just make the home brewers buy from the Mexican drug cartels. That’s what happened in Nebraska, according to the Omaha World-Herald:
One of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels is now the main distributor of methamphetamine in Nebraska, federal law enforcement officials say.
The Sinaloa Cartel has built a sophisticated drug-trafficking operation in Omaha over the past five to eight years, according to the FBI.
Cartels increased their presence in Nebraska about the same time state officials effectively shut down local meth labs through laws limiting the sale of cold medicines, U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg said.
And there is this.
Officials find, at most, 10 percent of the methamphetamine transported and distributed by cartels in Nebraska, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Kevin Hytrek estimated. The Sinaloa Cartel recently began warehousing large quantities of meth in the Omaha metro area, meaning cartels are storing meth in homes or buildings until they are ready to distribute it, either in Omaha or in other U.S. locations such as Chicago, said Michael Sanders, assistant special agent in charge for the DEA in Nebraska.
“The volumes (of meth) that we are seeing now are significantly more than what we were seeing three years ago,” Sanders said.
So not only has the crackdown on meth labs helped the Mexican drug cartels, it led to an increase in meth use.
Never trust a liberal.
Never.
Who’s to say the drug cartels haven’t bought them off? The cartels have money and Democrats have no scruples.
Radley Balko of the Washington Post was less cynical than me: “These results may have been unintended, but they certainly weren’t unpredictable. Other states that put heavy restrictions on cold medication have seen similar problems. The pseudoephedrine restrictions went national in 2006 when Congress snuck the provision into reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Within five years, we knew the law had little effect on the meth supply.”
Unintended? I don’t know. Gangs have licenses to deal in every city Democrats. Over time, coincidence seems less and less likely.