DEA Special Agent Will Glaspy in the hot seat- What's Your Point?

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Mexican Cartels have been aggresively pushing meth into the U.S. markets, including Houston, In 2018 there was a 44% increase in meth seizures compared to 2017. Currently meth seizures made by the DEA Houston division are up in 2019 and continue to rise.

Greg Groogan talks with DEA Special Agent Will Glaspy about the increase in cartel controlled methamphetamine.

Meth is not a new drug, amphetamine was first made in 1887 in Germany, but was more developed in Japan in 1919. Meth went into wide use in WWII, when both sides used it to keep troops awake.

In the 1950s meth was prescribed as a diet aid and to fight depression. Easily available, it was also used as a non-medical stimulant by college students, truck drivers and abuse of the drug spread.

The pattern changed in the 1960s with the increased availability of injectable meth worsening the abuse.

In the 1970s The U.S. government made it illegal for most uses, after that motorcycle gangs controlled most of the production and distribution of the drug.

In the 1990s, Mexican drug cartels set up large laboratories in California in conjunction with smaller labs producing meth across the country.

Today the DEA is seeing meth with near 100% purity being mass produced by drug cartels in Mexico.