Methamphetamine: More Than Just A Drug
Methamphetamine, like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, causes harm to more than just the
user. However, methamphetamine is unique in the extent to which the manufacturing process
itself causes harm to neighbors, the environment, property values, and tragically, to innocent
victims such as young children.
Environmental damage
Methamphetamine is fundamentally an adulterated mixture of pharmaceutical extracts
with poisonous materials. The ingredients in methamphetamine are found in over-the-counter
cold medicines and diet pills, household products like lithium camera batteries, matches, tincture
of iodine, and hydrogen
peroxide. Flammable
household products,
including charcoal lighter
fluid, gasoline, kerosene,
paint thinner, rubbing
alcohol, and mineral spirits,
are often used in the
production process.
Corrosive products, such as
muriatic acid, sulfuric
(battery) acid, and sodium
hydroxide from lye-based
drain cleaners, also may be
used. In rural areas where
anhydrous ammonia is used
as a fertilizer, farmers are
increasingly finding their
ammonia tanks have been
tapped by “cooks” using this
highly toxic chemical to produce methamphetamine.
These chemicals are not only flammable and corrosive – they are poison. Any property
owner whose rental has been converted into a toxic methamphetamine lab knows of the long,
expensive process required to make the location safe and habitable again. Costing thousands of
dollars, buildings may actually have to be razed and rebuilt after a methamphetamine lab has
been discovered. Some 15% of methamphetamine labs in this country are discovered as the
result of an explosion or fire at the lab—a further risk to nearby innocent property owners.
Chemicals Used in Methamphetamine Production
Associated Criminal Activity
Additionally, law enforcement in this country has identified a trend associated with the
domestic manufacture of methamphetamine: in areas where methamphetamine manufacturing is
increasing, so also are car thefts, forgeries, and especially identity theft incidents. Law
enforcement in these areas report that this correlation appears to exist with more frequency than
with cocaine, heroin or marijuana use or trafficking.
Methamphetamine: Innocent Victims
Last month, the Department of Justice published an important report regarding children
who have been raised in homes where methamphetamine labs were discovered. The results,
while preliminary, are disturbing. Along with an increase in methamphetamine labs was an
increase in children found present at the lab sites—most of whom resided at the residence where
the lab was found. The inherent dangers to children being raised at or near a methamphetamine
lab are severe: inhalation or ingestion of toxic substances including methamphetamine,
accidental injection or prick by discarded needles or other paraphernalia; and severe illness after
the ingestion of chemicals. Further, children at methamphetamine labs are more likely to be
physically and sexually abused by members of their own family and other individuals at the site.
While withdrawing from a methamphetamine high, some parents fall into a deep sleep for days,
during which time their children suffer from neglect, chemical exposure, hunger, and further
abuse by other methamphetamine-using individuals. And in some cases, children have died as a
direct result of exposure to the toxicity of a methamphetamine lab.
