Four years ago, a grocery bag filled with Sudafed boxes, matchbooks and camping fuel would not have elicited alarm from area law enforcers stopping a car.
But now, with methamphetamine arrests doubling in the area between 2002 and 2003, East Lansing and Lansing police departments and the Tri-County Metro Narcotics Squad say they're better prepared to bust the home labs.
"I wouldn't say the problem is licked, but it's stabilized," Detective 1st Lt. Tim Gill, squad commander said of the labs usually found in rural areas.
The Eaton County Sheriff's Department uncovered a mobile meth lab in a vehicle Friday in Delta Township. Late last month, a partial meth lab was found just outside Charlotte.
In 2003, meth busts made up 14 percent of the Tri-County Metro Crime Lab's arrests. Nearly 200 labs were found statewide.
The arrests had jumped from about 30 in 2002 to 60 in 2003, said Detective Sgt. Frank Williams of the Michigan State Police Methamphetamine Team.
The drug, which can be smoked, snorted or injected, gained popularity in the west in the late 1990s. It spread west as others learned to construct their own labs from grocery-store components, including acetone, Sudafed pills, drain cleaner and lithium batteries. The drug crept into Michigan in about 1996, Gill said, and exploded into the area in 2000, the same year the methamphetamine team was formed.
So far this year, Gill said, calls for service have dropped dramatically after the 2002-03 surge, but they're still uncovering labs.
"We hope to continue aggressive efforts to keep problems at bay," Gill said.
The squad seized about 1,880 grams of meth in the area in 2003.
The tri-county squad handles cases across Ingham, Clinton and Eaton counties. With three officers trained to find labs, the Michigan State Police team travels across the state to help with meth busts. Other agencies are trained to identify meth components and labs and offer help.
Because of the distinct urine, acetone or ammonia smell emanating from the production of meth, most labs are in rural areas, such as the "meth corridor" Gill said exists from Eaton Rapids to Stockbridge.
Eighty percent of meth arrests were for labs or drug transportation, rather than possession, according to the squad's annual report.
Arrests for meth use are about as common as finding someone using heroin, said Lansing police Sgt. Bill Byrnes of the special operations division.
Byrnes said he's only seen a few meth busts in the city of Lansing, including one this spring, but other law enforcement officials have warned of more in the future.
"They're telling us it's coming to the city soon," he said.
Meth comes from the same family of amphetamines as ecstacy - it's one molecule different from the club drug. The drug creates a euphoric high for the user that can last 12 hours or more.
And although the labs are primarily in rural areas, the odds are high that East Lansing residents and students use the drug, Gill said.
"It was primarily used by the biker gang population and truck drivers to keep awake and alert," he said. "Women have historically taken amphetamines for weight loss and appetite suppression."
Those qualities of a drug are attractive to students, Gill said.
"When you're thinking about what college students are doing, there is likely to be use of meth and abuse," he said.
But meth is one of the most highly addictive substances around, some substance abuse counselors said.
"They develop tolerance very quickly," said Troy Wendell, program manager for the substance abuse program at Lansing's Sparrow Hospital. Many of those who try to kick the habit relapse. "The urge to use and feel that rush and glow is pretty powerful, and we can't hold them in a substance-abuse program."
The danger of meth doesn't just lie in damage done to the users, Wendell said. The noxious fumes wafting from the meth kitchens have community health effects, too.
The ingredient fertilizer anhydrous ammonia can cause lungs to collapse. Each pound of meth produced causes six pounds of hazardous waste. In addition, a DeWitt pole barn explosion in 2003 was determined to be caused by meth components. Its owner was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Operating a meth lab is a 20-year felony.
"We were getting after them as hard as we could," Gill said. "They've gotten scared or gone to another area."
But for now, meth won't be fully leaving the area any time soon, officials said.
"It's out there, there's no doubt about it," Byrnes said.
Shannon Houghton can be reached at hought27@msu.edu.
