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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (628863)	9/20/2011 9:18:16 PM
From: i-node	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1577025

Use to be I could buy any cold medicine. Then you had to show your driver's license to get Pseudoephedrine decongestant from behind the counter. Today Walmart says you must present a doctor's prescription to buy it. It's all about the money as far as I can see, the meth labs will continue while the general population is screwed. It is one more ill-fated attempt to control a problem that was CREATED by the so-called War on Drugs. Meth is the worst of the illegal drugs. Yet, its proliferation was a direct result of the failed war on drugs which was trying to get rid of the crack epidemic. And the crack epidemic was a result of the attempt to end a cocaine epidemic. The bad news is that while the tightened control over precursors has shut down local labs, meth imports from Mexico have increased by a factor of five. La Familia Michoacana imports 100 tons a year of meth to the US, which is about half the total. They began after the 2005-06 anti-meth measures (limiting sales of precursors) started going into effect. We spend 25B/year on meth law enforcement and medical treatment alone. We've got a bigger meth problem after getting rid of local labs than we ever had before. That's what happens when you raise the prices on a banned substance. Organized crime gets even more interested in it. So instead of cocaine and marijuana, they're smuggling meth. Keeps the cops and the jailers busy, though.