PHOENIX — Arizona law enforcement authorities are concerned the state is about to see a big increase in meth production.
They attribute it to Mexico's crackdown on the availability of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient to making methamphetamine.
After Arizona began attacking meth production, largely through local ordinances restricting sales of drugs containing pseudoephedrine, the number of labs seized in the state plummeted from more than 200 in 2002 to fewer than a dozen in 2007 as manufacturers moved operations to Mexico.
Although the labs dried up the demand for the drug didn't.
Manufacturing meth and getting away with it can be very lucrative.
"At $17,000 per pound - that's the retail price in Phoenix - they're doubling their money at least," said Lt. Steve Bailey, an investigator with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
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As more meth labs pop up in Arizona, authorities are seeing a new trend in business. This time, the manufacture and distribution of the drug is in the hands of violent drug-trafficking organizations.
Instead of the "mom-and-pop bathtub operations" investigators used to find although it's still in homes, drug labs today are large and elaborate, Bailey said.
"Meth is harder to make than anything else. It creates more waste, you need more people, more time, more resources, but to most of those (dealers), it's worth it.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said he expects lab seizures in the state to start climbing again. "The small labs are beginning to come back," Goddard said. "I see it come across my desk almost every day."
Meanwhile, the cost to society is enormous.
A recent survey from a drug-policy research group pinned meth's annual costs to the United States at more than $24 billion.
The total includes estimates of costs on social services, health care, law enforcement and lost productivity, according to RAND, the research group that conducted the study.
Although the $24 billion tab is staggering, Arizona experts say the real cost could be higher because the total fails to include costs associated with crimes such as identity theft, property crimes and the expense of cleaning up drug labs.
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