Meth supplies increased in part because of two seemingly contradictory events. First, hundreds of labs were seized and tons of meth destroyed; and second, meth prices plummeted. Between 2015 and 2019, the Mexican military raided 333 meth labs in Sinaloa alone. But no one was ever arrested. Far from being a deterrent, the lab seizures showed that no one would pay a personal price. More people entered the trade as a result. At one point in 2019, DEA intelligence held that, despite the hundreds of lab seizures, in Sinaloa alone at least seventy meth labs were operating, each with the capacity to
...more
