INCB warns about increase in meth production in Mexico

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said that the number of methamphetamine laboratories detected in Mexico has increased significantly since 2008, and that seizures of the drug at the United States border have increased by a factor of three since 2009.

In its 2015 report, the INCB said that “methamphetamine seizures reported by Mexico in 2014 amounted to 19.7 tons, an increase of more than 34 per cent over the amount in 2013. The country also reported an increase in the number of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled, with 131 clandestine laboratories dismantled in 2014, primarily in the States of Guerrero, Michoacán and Sinaloa.”

It added that “Mexico has also been identified as a source country for crystalline methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia and Oceania.”

The INCB said that “United States authorities have stated that most of the methamphetamine available in the United States is manufactured in Mexico. While most of the methamphetamine is smuggled into the United States in powder or crystal form, the drug is increasingly being trafficked across the border in liquid form after its dilution in a liquid solvent, making its detection more difficult.”

The report also states that “most of the heroin abused in the United States is sourced from Mexico and South America and smuggled across the United States-Mexico border” and that heroin seizures reported by authorities in Mexico amounted to over 386 kg in 2014.

According to the INCB, “Mexican drug cartels have also increased their market share of the illicit heroin market in the United States and are now the most prominent wholesale-level heroin traffickers in several large cities in the country. The number of heroin seizures and the quantities seized at the border with Mexico have also risen sharply, from 846 kg seized in 295 incidents in 2009 to 2,196 kg seized in 580 incidents in 2013. The increased smuggling of Mexican and Colombian heroin into the United States through the Mexican border has led to a change in heroin trafficking patterns, as western states in the United States are becoming major transit areas for the drug.”

According to UNODC, Mexico eradicated 14,662 hectares of opium poppy cultivation in 2013, a decrease of 7 per cent since 2012.