Photography Portfolio-: War On Meth

Methamphetamine use and abuse has spread across the nation like a plague. Meth is now considered the number one drug problem in America.

CENTRAL VALLEY, Calif. USA - California's Central Valley, located between San Francisco and Los Angeles, has long been known as the most fertile and productive agricultural region in the United States. Recently, it's been put on the map not for the abundance of vegetables it produces but for mass production of something much less benign: methamphetamine.

With its vast expanses of farmland speckled with rural communities and hundreds of thousands of small farm buildings, the Central Valley is the ideal place for meth labs to take root unnoticed.

According to authorities within the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program (HIDTA), meth was primarily produced by biker gangs in the 1980s. By the 90s, the gangs were all but wiped out of the meth production trade by Mexican drug cartels. Well-funded and highly organized cartels used their vast networks to quietly smuggle key ingredients such as ephedrine and acids into the U.S. and set up meth "super labs" in unsuspecting countryside locations.

As the meth epidemic spreads across the nation, never has law enforcement seen such an intense battle on the home front. On any given day in California's Central Valley, or any city across the nation, HIDTA task force officers can be found in complete military fatigues, armed with bulletproof vests and automatic rifles, kicking down the door of a super lab or user lab and possibly raiding the home next to you.

Photographer Mark Allen Johnson

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