Niki Crawford and members of the Indiana State Police Meth Suppression Team actively engaged with the community while updating them on the statewide issue of meth Tuesday.
Crawford, who is the leader of the ISP Meth Suppression Team, spent much of the evening updating and educating the community on the meth problem not only in Kosciusko County, but statewide.
One of the hottest topics in the fight against meth is whether or not tracking the sale of pseudoephedrine is making a difference in the fight against methamphetamine labs.
Crawford indicated that other states are finding the same thing out that Indiana has since they began to track the sale of pseudoephedrine.
“Indiana has had a 22.5 percent increase in the seizure of meth labs this year,” Crawford said. “Kentucky has had a 300 percent increase since they started tracking pseudoephedrine.”
This year, Indiana is on pace to seize approximately 1,650 meth labs statewide. In 2011, Indiana seized 1,437 labs. By the end of this year, Indiana is projected to have a total increase of 213 labs, or 14.82 percent increase.
Other states have had similar data.
When Tennessee began to track the sale of pseudoephedrine, it saw the exact thing that Kentucky and Indiana have seen. The problem with finding more meth labs is that there needs to be money to clean up the labs.
In February 2011, the Drug Enforcement Agency informed agencies that the grant money they once received was no longer available. In July 2011, the money was reinstated to those states that had a container program in place. In the meantime, Indiana had spent $90,000 to clean up meth labs that it normally would not have spent.
Crawford said she was very frugal with the grant money and had money left over to continue to clean up meth labs until the money was reinstated.
Crawford illustrated to the crowd that it costs the ISP about $2,500 to clean up each home that has been affected by meth. On top of the ISP cleaning the home, the homeowner might have to do further cleanup.
Crawford said that the average cost to clean a home can exceed $12,000, but the cost to society does not end there.
“They have found that smoking meth in a home contaminates it almost as much as manufacturing meth,” Crawford said.
The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics did a study on the cost of one meth lab. The OBN estimates the cost of one meth lab to society can be in excess of $350,000, not including health care, education and the cost to the family.
The overwhelming majority of the cost is housing an inmate for the duration of their sentence. That cost can be in excess of $252,000. Additionally, the cost to society could increase by almost $100,000 if the meth cook or someone nearby is severely burned by a meth lab.
In 2009, a study was conducted by the Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care where they looked at 58 burn patients. Twenty-nine were non-meth-burn patients and 29 were meth-burn patients.
The study showed that 41.4 percent suffered inhalation injuries compared to 13.8 percent of those not in a meth-related burn situation.
The average number of days spent on a ventilator was more than double that of a non-meth-burn patient at four to nine days. Of those, 55.2 percent with a meth-related burn needed to be intubated compared to 24.1 of non-meth-burn patients.
Only 10.3 percent of those with meth burns had private insurance compared to 58.6 percent of non-meth burn patients. On the other hand, 51.7 percent of meth burn patients had Medicaid and only 13.8 percent of non-meth-burn patients had Medicaid.
The average cost of a meth burn patient is nearly double that of their non-meth burn counterparts at $99,554 to $46,252.
If the person with meth-related burns has Medicaid, that cost falls on the society to pay. Crawford cited a 2005 study that stated the annual cost of meth-related crimes exceeded $23 billion. That year, Indiana was responsible for $1.871 billion, because Indiana was responsible for 8 percent of the meth labs seized nationally.
In 2011, Indiana had a major spike in those injured from meth labs. There were 73 injuries statewide including two deaths. So far in 2012 there have been 45 injuries, including two deaths.
In Mississippi, the state legislature made pseudoephedrine a scheduled drug July 1, 2010, and since then Mississippi has seen a 69.3 percent decrease in the number of meth labs seized.
Oregon was the first state to make pseudoephedrine a scheduled drug in 2006 and they saw a similar trend. The number of meth labs seized in Oregon has dropped from near 50 per year to only six in 2012.
This legislative session, State Representative Rebecca Kubacki will reintroduce a bill to make pseudoephedrine a scheduled drug. Kubacki briefly spoke on her bill and how it will influence those who choose to make meth.
“Making it a scheduled drug will make it a deterrent for those using meth,” Kubacki said. “I don’t want to see those articles in the paper. I don’t want to read it in the paper. I want something that will stop them from making it.”
