From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: The Impact of Control Efforts on Meth Labs

Description: Audio interview by GAO staff with Carol Cha, Director,
Homeland Security and Justice

Related GAO Work: GAO-13-204: Drug Control: State Approaches Taken to
Control Access to key Methamphetamine Ingredient Show Varied Impact on
Domestic Drug Labs

Released: February 2013


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[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news
and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. It's
February 2013. Methamphetamine can be made from easily obtainable
household goods. The labs in which it is commonly made pose significant
health, safety, and financial risks to local communities and states. A
team led by Carol Cha, an acting director in GAO's Homeland Security
and Justice team, recently reviewed trends in meth lab incidents and
the impact of certain approaches to reducing them. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey
sat down with Carol to talk about what they found.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What are some of the risks that neighborhoods and
communities face from the presence of meth labs?

[ Carol Cha: ] Sure. So first off, meth can be made using easily
obtainable household goods and consumer products. Meth producers have
found new and easier ways to make more potent meth using
pseudoephedrine, an ingredient commonly found in over-the-counter cold
and allergy medications. So these meth labs have wide-ranging impacts
on healthcare, child welfare, and the environment to name a few. The
toxic chemicals and solvents involved in cooking meth can result in
massive explosions and expose property and people, including children,
to contaminants that are dangerous and costly to remove. DEA has spent
nearly $147 million to assist on cleanup efforts since FY 2002 and meth
lab burns and injuries can be far more serious than burns sustained
through non-meth lab incidents. Often times meth burned patients don't
have health insurance to cover these costs which can exceed $2 million
per patient. According to DEA data, over 21,000 children were reported
affected by meth labs from 2002 to 2011. And in one example, Tennessee
reported that over a 5-year period, 1,600 children were placed into
foster care at a cost of about $70 million.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] The report talks about meth lab incidents. You
mentioned burns and a few other examples. Can you talk about how you
defined meth lab incidents for this report?

[ Carol Cha: ] Sure. So incidents refer to labs, dump sites, and
chemical and glassware seizures. And law enforcement agencies report
meth lab incidents to the National Seizure System maintained by DEA.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And what trends in these incidents did your team
identify as you looked at this issue?

[ Carol Cha: ] Sure. So according to DEA data, lab incidents peaked in
2004 with over 24,000 incidents nationwide, and then sharply declined
to reach a low in 2007 of about 7,000. And law enforcement officials
primarily attribute this to federal and state restrictions on purchases
of pseudoephedrine products during that period. Since then, the number
has steadily increased. At the end of 2010, incidents reached over
15,000. Law enforcement officials attribute this rising trend primarily
to two factors. Number one, the emergence of a new technique called the
one pot method which simplified the meth-cooking process down to a
single two-liter plastic bottle, enabling addicts to cook their own
meth. Factor number two, smurfing--the coordinated effort of groups of
individuals to purchase the maximum legal allowable limit per person
and then aggregate the purchases for cooking meth or sale to a meth
cooker. Boxes of pseudoephedrine purchased for $7 or less can be sold
between $30 to $100 apiece. We also found that the south and midwest
regions have significantly increased meth lab incidents overall as
compared with the west and northeast regions.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] States and communities have taken different
approaches to try and address this problem. You looked in particular at
the impact of electronic tracking systems that some states have used to
monitor pseudoephedrine sales. What did you find there?

[ Carol Cha: ] Well, electronic tracking approach has not reduced meth
lab incidents overall, however, it appears to be effective at enforcing
sales limits and useful in law enforcement investigations of smurfing
operations. We also looked at the pseudoephedrine by
prescription-only-approach used by two states at this time--Oregon and
Mississippi--and this approach appears to have a strong association to
a decline in incidents overall. The impact of this approach, however,
is not generally known and substantial changes in workload demands on
healthcare providers to dispense pseudoephedrine prescriptions, among
other things, have not been reported to date. The full impact on
consumers is also not known.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Finally, for taxpayers concerned about the
potential impact meth lab incidents could have in their communities,
what's the bottom line here?

[ Carol Cha: ] So clearly meth lab incidents pose significant public
safety and health risks and financial burdens to the local communities
and states in which they're found. While there is no silver bullet to
addressing domestic meth production, the two approaches taken by some
sates in response have their own sets of pros and cons which should be
weighed. Ultimately, the adoption of either approach will be a
trade-off decision.

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