'A gram is $6' Crystal meth use booms in Mexico as prices fall

11 night, Daniela stares at screens in the warehouse where she works as a security guard. The challenge is to stay awake. So, before every shift, she smokes crystal meth for the euphoric focus it gives her.

- Thomas Graham

When Donald Trump threatened a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico if it did not stop fentanyl crossing the border, Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, shot back with a public letter stating that it was drug demand in the US that caused crime and death in Mexico. "We don't consume synthetic drugs," she asserted.

But Daniela is one of many in Mexico who do - except it is not fentanyl, but the ultra-cheap cristal that is Mexico's synthetic drug of choice. Its use among workers, partygoers and young people has soared, threatening a public health crisis that state services are ill-equipped to face.

Back in the 2000s, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) cracked down on domestic labs cooking methamphetamine - the potent, crystalline form of which is known as crystal meth - which displaced production to Mexico and its organised crime groups.