The hit AMC TV series, Breaking Bad, gave us a glimpse inside a methamphetamine cooks world. The main character, Walter White, was a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin who turned to cooking meth to support his family and pay for expensive cancer treatments. Whites actions eventually led to his own demise, but the death and destruction left in his wake were telling.
Probably the most disturbing takeaway was the realization that a meth lab can exist just about anywhere – in a moving car, in a basement, in a stolen Winnebago or even in a state-of-the-art underground laboratory beneath an industrial laundry facility.
So who is responsible for identifying and cleaning up the Meth?
Let's Talk About Meth
According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrations Methamphetamine Lab Incidents list, there were 11,210 clandestine laboratory incidents in 2012. This is down from 13,390 in 2011. Missouri leads the country at 1,825 incidents. Right behind is Tennessee at 1,585 and Indiana at 1,429. New York, California and Texas report 147, 79, and 32 busts respectively.
But these numbers can be deceiving.