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It doesn't sound like much, but before this, I had never heard of even a -single- pound being found, let alone 16 pounds of the pure stuff. And remember, that $200,000 figure was for pre-cut. By the time it filters down to the street level, it probably has been watered down at least two or three times, punching the total value of drugs and guns up closer to the $1M mark.

Besides, the real profit is in shutting down smuggling routes. Every time a route goes down, time money and labor need to be invested in finding new routes and new men to man them. Of course, with the southern border looking more and more like swiss cheese with each passing year...

Busts with amounts in the one pound to five pound range are pretty common actually.

"It doesn't sound like much, but before this, I had never heard of even a -single- pound being found, let alone 16 pounds of the pure stuff."

Busts this big are not all that uncommon on our highways. I'm in a small county on a major interstate highway and they've made bigger busts than this here. Mostly we get big pot busts. We also get a few big coke bust every year, some a hundred pounds or more. Big meth loads aren't quite as common but we get those too. I don't know what the biggest bust has been but I believe it was at least a hundred pounds and I know there have been several multiple pound busts this year just off the highway in my county.

"And remember, that $200,000 figure was for pre-cut. By the time it filters down to the street level, it probably has been watered down at least two or three times, punching the total value of drugs and guns up closer to the $1M mark."

No way. The Ice found on the streets is rarely going to be two thirds cut. It's usually stronger than the regular meth which has been averaging over 65% pure. I've read this from government sources and I've handled a lot of methamphetamine cases and seen an awful lot of crime lab reports where they always test the product and tell us how pure it is. The ice is generally stronger, but none of it is 100%. When they send this stuff to test it at the crime lab it's going to be below 90% most likely and it could be a good bit lower. They have no idea how pure the stuff is now until they get their crime lab report back which generally takes a long time. It's been taking several months where I live. The field tests they have won't tell them how pure the stuff is but that won't stop them from bragging and exaggerating to reporters.

"Besides, the real profit is in shutting down smuggling routes. Every time a route goes down, time money and labor need to be invested in finding new routes and new men to man them. Of course, with the southern border looking more and more like swiss cheese with each passing year..."

I don't know how many routes are ever shut down and the problem is that there are so many different routes these substances are coming in on and so many different groups involved with producing it, smuggling it, transporting and distributing it. Everything is so compartmentalized, with different people handling the dope at different stages. It changes hands so many times that it quickly becomes impossible to trace up the chain. When people toward the bottom of the distribution chain are caught they are rarely ever able to help catch anyone but those working with them or up one level, if they are willing to snitch. And even when there is a big bust where they round up a lot of people the drugs keep flowing unabated because there is always so much competition out there that hasn't been caught ready, able, willing, and tickled to death to have the new business.

In case you haven't noticed we've more than quadrupled the number of people in our prison over the last twenty five or thirty years yet drugs keep getting cheaper and more pure. The only way to reverse that trend is to interdict a whole lot more of the huge loads at our borders and in source countries and to somehow get at the people producing all of this stuff. Popping smaller loads of a even several pounds doesn't really have any impact, nor does sticking a bunch of people in prison. The real impact comes from shutting down producers and grabbing the huge loads. For some reason people are stuck on thinking the more people we put in prison the more we win the war on drugs. That part really is of minor importance on the supply side compared to the importance of disrupting production and seizing the huge loads. That's the only way to stop the downward slide in prices and maybe even cause them to go up.