Mexican ‘ice’ is drug enforcement nightmare

Across the United States, law enforcement officials 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.

Through arrests and enactment laws restricting the chemicals used to make methamphetamine, authorities in recent years dramatically reduced meth labs in the United States. But now, those efforts are being undercut by Mexican drug traffickers, who are mass-producing ‘ice’ in big labs south of the border, then smuggling it into and throughout the U.S.

Drug agents recently raided a "superlab" near Guadalajara and in Mexico City seizing $205 million allegedly used to buy ice raw materials from Chinese smugglers. But the Mexican drug traffickers are undeterred and are moving east, choosing Atlanta as a major U.S. distribution hub.

"We are a source city for as far north as New York, New Jersey, Boston," says Sherri Strange, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Atlanta. DEA says 80 percent of all meth consumed in the U.S. now comes from Mexico. The newest form, ice, is spreading fast