‘Ice’ becomes drug enforcement nightmare

Mexican labs are making, importing a new and stronger methamphetamine
By Mark Potter
Correspondent
Updated: 4:14 p.m. MT March 29, 2007

CROSSVILLE, Tenn. - In rural Cumberland County, Tenn., sheriff's deputies are trying to stop the spread of "ice," the latest illegal drug to sweep the country.

Ice is a powerful form of the stimulant methamphetamine and is very addictive.

In the last few years, through arrests and laws restricting chemicals used to make methamphetamine, authorities were able to dramatically reduce meth labs in the United States. But now, those efforts around the country are being undercut by Mexican drug traffickers, who are mass-producing ice in big labs south of the border, then smuggling it throughout the U.S.

Drug agents raided a "superlab" near Guadalajara and in Mexico City seized $205 million allegedly used to buy ice raw materials from Chinese smugglers.

But the Mexican traffickers are undeterred and are moving east, making Atlanta a major U.S. distribution hub.