An endless supply of recipes is as handy as the Internet. Hunkering down at home, a person can whip up a batch in about 30 minutes by using basic chemistry and kitchen equipment as common as a blender and a glass bowl. Making any quantity of meth creates five times that amount in toxic wastes. And because making meth is illegal under state and federal law, it's unlikely manufacturers will risk detection by disposing of the wastes lawfully. So they dump meth's dregs down the toilet or bury them in the yard, with either step allowing the dangerous refuse to seep into the groundwater.
Drug cultures are inherently local, and our drugs are heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
In that lineup meth was almost a footnote. Meth is on a rampage. The growth was seven times faster than cocaine and more than three times the rate for heroin. The discovery of clandestine meth labs is a common occurrence. At the beginning of the decade, King County reported six labs to the state Department of Ecology, which by law must dispose of the remains.