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Overall usage: The 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse estimated that 4.7 million Americans tried methamphetamine in their lifetime. This figure shows a marked increase from the 1994 estimate of 3.8 million. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), methamphetamine-related emergency department episodes more than tripled between 1991 and 1994, rising from roughly 4,900 to 17,700. Possibly due to a shortage of methamphetamine between 1995 and 1996, there was a decrease in incidents between those years before rising to 17,154 in 1997. Between 1993 and 1995, episodes increased in nine of the twenty-one metropolitan areas surveyed by DAWN. The number of methamphetamine-related episodes more than doubled in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, and St. Louis. Likewise, treatment providers in California, Oregon, Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina report significant increases in the number of clients entering treatment with methamphetamine problems. The director of one clinic in Arizona reported that 7080 percent of its clients are meth abusers. Use among youth: The 1999 Monitoring the Future survey asked twelfth graders about the use of crystal methamphetamine and found that use has been rising since 1990, peaking in 1998 before leveling off in 1999. Currently, 4.8 percent of high school seniors used the drug in their lifetime (compared to 2.7 percent in 1990), and 1.9 percent used the drug within the past year (compared to 1.3 percent in 1990). In areas such as the Midwest, where meth is readily available, meth abuse among teens is much more common. For example, an expert associated with Juvenile Court Services in Marshall County, Iowa, estimated in 1998 that one-third of the 1,600 students at Marshalltown High School had tried methamphetamine. Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) 1997 studies found that most teenagers in the United States do not see great risk in trying meth and that teen use of meth is now comparable to the national level of cocaine use among teens. In response to these findings and another PDFA study showing that parents believe that children understand the dangers of meth use, the PDFA launched, on June 17, 1998, a national multimedia campaign targeting meth users as a part of a $196 million anti-drug media campaign coordinated by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Availability Because meth production and trafficking for a period of time were concentrated primarily in the West and Southwest United States, particularly California, Arizona, Utah, and Texas, availability and abuse were high in those areas. However, the expansion of Mexico-based meth traffickers and the growth of independent U.S.-based laboratories has dramatically increased the availability and abuse of meth in the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and some portions of the Southeast, particularly Georgia, Tennessee, and the surrounding states. There is also evidence that meth production and availability is beginning to spread to Mid-Atlantic states, such as Virginia, and even as far north as New England. In 1998, meth labs were, for the first time, found in New Jersey, Delaware, and Massachusetts. Sources Historically, suppliers of methamphetamine in the United States were outlaw motorcycle gangs and other independent trafficking groups. Although motorcycle gangs continue to produce meth and control a share of the market, Mexico-based trafficking groups entered the illicit methamphetamine market in 1995 and now dominate the trade. With their ability to obtain wholesale (multi-ton) quantities of precursor chemicals on the international market, their access to already established smuggling and distribution networks, and their control over laboratories capable of large-scale production and distribution of methamphetamine, these criminal groups from Mexico now dominate wholesale meth trafficking in the United States.
Over the past few years, these groups revolutionized the production and distribution of methamphetamine by operating "super labs" that can produce unprecedented quantities of high-purity methamphetamine. Each such lab is capable of producing 10 pounds or more per manufacturing cycle. The majority of the methamphetamine made and distributed by Mexico-based organizations is produced within the United States, particularly in California and other Western states. Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of methamphetamine laboratories operating in certain states, such as Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The rise in laboratory seizures in these states does not reflect a concerted effort by major traffickers to shift production from sites in California. Rather, it reflects the increasing effort by local entrepreneurs, who operate on the periphery of the methamphetamine market, to exploit the expanding demand for the drug by producing smaller amounts of the drug in less complex laboratories. Trafficking
According to the El Paso Intelligence Center, the
methamphetamine seized annually in transit from Mexico to the United States has increased
Source: U.S. Department of Justice HOME
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The primary points
of entry into the United States for methamphetamine and amphetamine produced in Mexico are
California ports-of-entry, particularly San Ysidro. However, south Texas ports-of-entry,
particularly Laredo, are experiencing increased smuggling activity. The most common method
of transporting methamphetamine and amphetamine is via cars, with pickup trucks and
4-wheel drive vehicles also being used. 
dramatically since 1992.
Authorities seized 560 kilograms of methamphetamine along the border in 1998, compared
with only 6.5 kilograms seized in 1992. To expand their distribution systems, Mexico-based
traffickers use methods such as exploiting the presence of a large number of honest
Mexican-American workers in the meat processing plants of the Midwest and in the forest
industry in the Northwest to insert surrogates into many U.S. communities, explaining why
meth has become a major problem in states like Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Washington.