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Drug Situation: Mexican poly-drug trafficking organizations control a large majority of the distribution of methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin in Missouri. Various organizations with ties to Texas, Arizona and California continue to traffic in cocaine and heroin. In addition, small toxic methamphetamine laboratories are found in all areas of Missouri.

Cocaine: Cocaine remains readily available throughout the St. Louis area and is abused by all social and ethnic groups. Much of the cocaine is converted to crack and sold in the inner-city areas. Cocaine typically comes from sources of supply in Texas and California that are associated with Mexican international distribution organizations. Both cocaine HCl and crack cocaine are readily available in the Kansas City Metropolitan area. Hispanic traffickers control the wholesale distribution of cocaine, while many ethnic groups participate in retail level distribution.

Heroin: The evolving heroin situation in the St. Louis area, particularly the growing availability of higher-purity white heroin has become a significant concern to drug law enforcement in the area. Although Mexican black-tar heroin continues to be the most readily available type of heroin found in St. Louis, the higher-purity white heroin is encountered with increasing frequency. While low purity, Mexican black-tar heroin dominates the market, some high purity (64% and 69%) Mexican black-tar heroin has been noted in the recent past.The availability of heroin in Missouri outside of Saint Louis and Kansas City remains very limited.

Some interdictions of larger quantities of South American white heroin have occurred in the past year. In each instance, the heroin was believed to be enroute to Chicago, Illinois.

Methamphetamine: Methamphetamine is widely available throughout Missouri, particularly in the rural areas. It is either manufactured locally or smuggled into the state by Hispanic organizations based in Mexico or the southwest United States and distributed in St. Louis, Kansas City and southeast Missouri. Methamphetamine smuggled into the state is generally of lower purity than methamphetamine than is locally manufactured, although encounters of higher purity “ice” methamphetamine from originating from outside Missouri have increased. In 2004, Missouri passed legislation restricting the sale of products containing pseudoephedrine, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the number of methamphetamine labs in Missouri.

Predatory Drugs: MDMA (ecstasy) continues to be available St. Louis, Kansas City and southeast and southwest Missouri. MDMA and GHB are widely available in dance clubs. MDMA is obtained by local distributors from sources of supply in California, New York, Florida, Texas and Washington state.

Marijuana: Marijuana is prevalent throughout the state Missouri. Mexican marijuana is imported into the state primarily on interstate highways in automobiles, commercial trucks, vans, horse trailers, rental trucks, and motor homes from the southwest border. There has also been an increasing availability of marijuana from Canada and the northwest United States.

Indoor marijuana grow operations are found in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas. Outdoor grow operations are found in the rural parts of the state.

Other Drugs: OxyContin continues to be the pharmaceutical drug of choice in the St. Louis area. It is favored by it’s users over street drugs such as heroin due to the consistent purity and quality. Law enforcement and treatment professionals report that the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs continue to be a major problem throughout the states of the St. Louis Division. After OxyContin, all of the states cite Hydrocodone products as the most commonly abused pharmaceutical substance. The most common methods for obtaining these substances continue to be doctor shopping, prescription forgeries, pharmacy break-ins, employee theft, and internet pharmacy websites.

Pharmaceutical Diversion: Current investigations indicate that diversion of hydrocodone products such as Vicodin®, and oxycodone products such as OxyContin® continues to be a problem in Missouri. Primary methods of diversion being reported are forged prescriptions, employee theft, pharmacy theft, illegal sale and distribution by health care professionals and workers, “doctor shopping” (going to a number of doctors to obtain prescriptions for a controlled pharmaceutical), and the Internet. Alprazolam, methadone, codeine, Adderall® and Ritalin® were also identified as being among the most commonly abused and diverted pharmaceuticals in Missouri.

DEA Mobile Enforcement Teams: This cooperative program with state and local law enforcement counterparts was conceived in 1995 in response to the overwhelming problem of drug-related violent crime in towns and cities across the nation. Since the inception of the MET Program, 473 deployments have been completed nationwide, resulting in 19,643 arrests. There have been 11 MET deployments in the State of Missouri since the inception of the program: Sikeston, Fountain Park, St. Charles County, Audrain County, Crystal City, Berkeley, Hannibal, Franklin County (2), Joplin, and Springfield.

DEA Regional Enforcement Teams: This program was designed to augment existing DEA division resources by targeting drug organizations operating in the United States where there is a lack of sufficient local drug law enforcement. This program was conceived in 1999 in response to the threat posed by drug trafficking organizations that have established networks of cells to conduct drug trafficking operations in smaller, non-traditional trafficking locations in the United States. As of January 31, 2005, there have been 27 deployments nationwide, and one deployment in the U.S. Virgin Islands, resulting in 671 arrests. There has been one RET deployment in the state of Missouri since the inception of the program, in Springfield/Joplin.

Special Topics: The St. Louis Homicide Initiative was created by DEA St. Louis and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to address and combat the city's increase in drug related homicides. The objectives of this initiative are to identify violent organizations involved in drug trafficking activity and to develop investigative leads by use of court authorized telephone intercepts to clear unsolved homicides and related crimes. Missouri is crossed by a number of interstate highways (Interstates 44, 64, and 70 from east to west; 35 and 55 from north to south), providing excellent smuggling routes for drug trafficking organizations. During 2004, highway interdictions in Missouri led to seizures including approximately 500 kilograms of cocaine, 950 grams of heroin, 16,400 pounds of marijuana, 9 pounds of methamphetamine HCl, 3.5 pounds of crystal methamphetamine, 48 ounces of PCP, 500 dosage units of LSD, 50 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms, and over $3.5 million dollars.

More information about the St. Louis Division Office.

Sources

Factsheet last updated: 6/2007