OT: Serious question. Meth. Why does Missouri have such a problem?

Question

What about the State of Missouri, is to blame for these numbers? Is it your geography? Is your economy very poor? Or, is every state this bad...your State is doing a good job in stopping and reporting it.

Originally posted on On the Quad by doc5077.

Answer 1

Honestly, I have no idea. We do seem to have a bit of a rep as the dealer for surrounding states when it comes to fireworks and meth. I would blame it on the Ozarks and the ability to conceal operations. Kentucky and Tenn have big numbers and the hollers that I'm thinking of are there too. That being said, I remember a half a million dollar home in a fairly swank St. Louis County community catching on fire because a meth lab blew up in it! Could be we've stepped up enforcement. But really I have no idea.
Originally posted on On the Quad by Duncan2588.

Answer 2

Well thought out response. Thank you.
Originally posted on On the Quad by doc5077.

Answer 3

Missouri has the largest number of meth lab busts and incidents....

but Missouri busts yield a far smaller net of product than other states

For example, the busts of 1,189 MO labs in 2007 netted 50 kilos of prduct, while CA busted 221 labs but recovered 1,958 kilos....50 times as much per bust

Law enforcement officials beleive MO labs are smaller and for geared personal use (or for small groups), while other states has more "commercial" labs

That blurs the inference of actual useage in a given state.


Secondly, meth requires getting your hands on pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, In 2005, Missouri enacted the current regs that limits purchases, requires pharmacists, or pharma techs to sell, and requires paper based logs.

Other states have more restrictive regs, or like OK, utlizes an on line database to monitor sales. I'm not saying its easy or even easier, but it seems MO laws haven't prohibited these meth circles from producing....


Its a problem everywhere, and MO is sepnding an inordinate amount of law enforcement effort on it.
Originally posted on On the Quad by Tiger Gary.

Answer 4

Having taken meth awareness training several times during my gov't. career, I would add that our geographic location as a mid-continental transportation hub and large population centers on two separate borders also impact illegal drug activity. There is nothing quite like a State line to hamper local law enforcement. Under populated rural areas situated between large urban centers also provide opportunity for criminal activity going undiscovered. Additionally, there are federal grants available for clean-up of these sites. For instance the bust of a traveling meth lab on I-70 might lead to discovery of evidence at one or more residences and be connected to several rural dumping sites. Each site would be counted as a meth lab for grant "bean-counting" purposes. Our State DNR depends on the EPA for well over 80% of it's funding. Local law enforcement typically budgets nothing for clean-up, depending on the DNR for those services. The more problems discovered, the more need for grant moneys. Also recall that early there was reportedly a Missouri connection with west coast motor cycle gangs that made the Nazi-meth method of production popular (in meth user circles). And anhydrous ammonia is not hard to find in Missouri.

This post was edited on 1/29 7:53 AM by none*****
Originally posted on On the Quad by none*****.

Answer 5

The biggest reason is touched upon in the last sentence. Anhydrous Ammonia is readily available in MO, as are places to hide and cook the shit.
Originally posted on On the Quad by keyser_soze.

Answer 6

Any product manufacturing business whether legal or illegal needs 3 things:

1) Access to the raw materials from which to create their product (meth's main ingredients are found on farms and and pharmacies. It's not too terribly hard to get people to go into pharmacies and buy the pseudephedrine in an urban area and farming supplies are readily available in our urban areas.

2) Manufacturing facilities. In the case of meth, you need some place where people can't smell it or see it. Plenty of places like that in the hills. (You could probably add a skilled workforce to this, but apparently it doesn't take a rocket scientist to cook meth.)

3) Access to markets In this case, there are nearby population centers in St. Louis and KC, but their are also some major routes including 44, 55 and 70 that all pass through Missouri.

So we have the conditions where the necessary conditions are met. Then add some of the earlier facts

- Because there are federal subsidies involved, there are incentives to count, double-count or triple-count if possible.
- Missouri takes it seriously and as a result ther are more busts. As also noted earlier, California has fewer busts, but the average size is much bigger. We're chasing down the smaller offenders (they still kill people). We're catching them too.
Originally posted on On the Quad by MUTiger91.

Answer 7

You could look at it as a fact that Missouri actually has a competent police force that can bust/find these hidden labs.

That's more likely the scenario than trying to explain why there is a dramatic drop in labs in near by states.
Originally posted on On the Quad by vehemon.

Answer 8

I would like to think that it's because we're frugal in our choice of drug.
Originally posted on On the Quad by jaygabriel99.