In the last year, lab explosions have jolted residents from Richmond to Antioch. One Richmond woman died months after she was burned in an explosion in a backyard shed. Explosions have always been part of the meth trade, but they have become even more common since cookers switched from Freon to camping fuel for part of the process. Spills and chemical reactions can go awry, as when residents of a Concord condominium complex were forced to evacuate in the middle of the night because of meth lab fumes. The condominium has since been sold.
Children live precariously amid lab toxins.
In one recent case, a Fairfield girl swallowed a lye solution she found under the sink, burning her lips and esophagus. The chemicals used in meth's manufacture have become so ubiquitous that people, often kids, routinely find dumps along roads or bucolic streams. Spills and explosions are dramatic, but much of the damage done by meth labs may be slower and quieter. Few studies have been done of the long-term effects of exposure to lab chemicals. But doctors and other researchers see unnerving indications in the host of maladies suffered by longtime meth cooks.