By Adam Allington, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and drug czar John Walters met with foreign officials in St. Louis on Wednesday in an effort to control the spread of methamphetamine.
Mukasey met with representatives from Mexico, Canada, China and Germany to discuss ways to combat the meth problem, specifically ways to reduce the spread of it's precursor chemical, pseudoephedrin.
Many states now have laws on the books that limit the sale of pseudoephedrine-based drugs such as the cold medication, Sudafed.
Mukasey says even with the limits drug dealers have found ways get beyond the controls.
"One tactic these use is what's called 'smurfing', that is getting squads of people to go and make purchases just under the legal limit, from several different pharmacies," said Mukasey.
Mexico has announced that it will stop all imports of pseudoephedrin in 2008.
Mukasey says the cooperation with Mexico has led to an overall decrease in the number of large meth labs and has boosted the street value of meth up 84-percent, from $152 per gram to $280.
United States drug czar John Walters credits international cooperation for an overall decrease in the amount of meth on the market.
"There's a scarcity nationwide of meth, there just isn't enough to go around, which is why we have a combination of supply and demand efforts that are now biting and causing such sharp declines."
Missouri had close to 1200 incidents involving clandestine meth labs in 2007, that's down from almost 2800 in 2004.
A Senate committee has approved legislation that would create a statewide electronic tracking system to monitor the sale of pseudoephedrine-based medications.