Meth production surged in Asia during COVID-19 pandemic, report says
CNN — Asian drug cartels adapted fast to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, flooding markets with synthetic narcotics worth tens of billions of dollars even as the global economy ground to a halt, a new United Nations report shows. Methamphetamine seizures in East and Southeast Asia surged 19% from 2019 to a new record high, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime report found. The organization did not put a dollar figure on the meth trade’s value in 2020, but it was believed to be worth between $30 billion and $61 billion in 2019, according to the UNODC. “While the pandemic has caused...