Mexican Meth production, purity up, price down

97% of the meth seized by the US occurs along the Mexican border. In 2012, agents seized 8,460kg of meth headed into the United States from Mexico; in 2017 that figure was 30,081kg. In August, Mexican cops raided four drug labs in Sinaloa. One had allegedly been producing three tons of methamphetamine every week. The DEA says that over the past 5 years the purity of the drug increased from 87.9 to 93.2% while the price per gram decreased from $81 to $70. Profit margins on a kilogram of meth is much higher than it was for a kilogram of cocaine. With access to precursors, it's possible to produce the drug anytime, anywhere. Producing meth is also far less labor-intensive than either heroin or cocaine.

Mexican cartels' meth production increased dramatically in the mid-2000s after the US shut down super labs in California's Central Valley and passed laws restricting access to the required chemicals. Guadalajara-based Sinaloa cartel lieutenant Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villarreal became known as the "King of Crystal" due to the huge quantities of methamphetamine his organization produced.

Today, nearly every cartel in Mexico is either manufacturing methamphetamine or buying and smuggling the drug to sell at a profit in the United States.