amount of drugs coming from mexico
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am William K. Hubbard, Senior Associate Commissioner for Policy, Planning and Legislation, Food and Drug Administration (FDA or the Agency). I appreciate the opportunity to discuss our mutual concerns related to the importation of drugs into the United States (U.S.). Corruption and weakness in Mexico's judicial and police sectors have largely allowed the drug trade to flourish. The police are easily bought, in part because of their meager earnings (about $9,000-$10,000 a year), which fall below the average salary for public-sector employees. A survey of prescription drugs being brought by pedestrians into the U.S. at eight ports of entry along the 2,000 mile border with Mexico was conducted by FDA's Southwest Import District (SWID) with the assistance of other agencies including Customs, the DEA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and others. Mexican production of all three of these drugs has increased since 2005, as has the amount of drugs seized at the southwest border, according to the U.S. Department of Justice [PDF]. More than 90 percent of cocaine now travels through Mexico into the United States, up from 77 percent in 2003. Officials estimate that the drug trade makes up 3 to 4 percent of Mexico's $1.2 trillion annual GDP—totaling as much as $30 billion—and employs at least half a million people. The Trans-Border Institute's 2013 report on drug violence in Mexico estimates that during Calderon'calderón s, term organized–crime style killings made up anywhere from 30 to 60 percent of total homicides in a given, year depending on the sources used to calculate the. figures For now, cocaine remains far and away the cartels' most profitable drug. The RAND Corp. estimates that Mexican traffickers earn $30 billion in annual export revenue from cocaine, $20 billion from heroin, and about $5 billion from meth. Although Mexican meth is not new to the U.S. drug trade, it now accounts for as much as 80 percent of the meth sold here, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it is as much as 90 percent pure, a level that offers users a faster, more intense and longer-lasting high. During the four hour blitz a total of 586 persons brought in a total of 1,120 drugs. Approximately 56 percent had a prescription for the medicines (61 percent were U.S. prescriptions, 39 percent were Mexican). On April 11, 2001, FDA, Customs, and other agencies conducted a survey of prescription drugs being brought into the U.S. at seven ports of entry along the U.S./Mexican border. In order to define better the nature of the risk to public health from the types of products coming into the U.S. through personal importation, FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) reviewed listings of the products detained during the Carson pilot.
More than 90 percent.