AUGUSTA — The national problem of homemade drug labs, mostly making methamphetamine, is growing in Maine and its cost is hitting law enforcement at all levels of government and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

“It is very much a concern,” said Roy McKinney, director of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. “This has been a big problem in other areas of the country and we have seen a significant increase in Maine over the last several months.”

In budget year 2011, the MDEA dealt with six meth labs. Since November 2011, the agency has investigated 14 drug labs with all but one involving the making of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant. One lab was making a synthetic version of the powerful psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine.

“These homemade labs are very dangerous,” McKinney said. “They use chemicals that when mixed together can cause toxic gas and the process creates heat that can cause fire and explosions.”

He said the container used to mix the chemicals, often a 2-liter soda bottle, sometimes develops a hole from the heat of the chemical reaction and causes a fire.

“We had one where it looked like a flame thrower with flames shooting out the side of it,” McKinney said.

He said MDEA has developed an online training program to help local police recognize potential labs. He said agents are immediately sent when a call comes from local police that they have a possible lab.

“We have trained agents to identify the chemicals and the equipment that might be used,” McKinney said.

He said responding to a report of a drug lab has become one of the highest priorities for his agency because of the danger posed to the public. He said a big concern is the cost of responding to a possible lab.

“We had one on a weekend and everybody was on overtime,” McKinney said. “We were using a federal grant to pay for dealing with labs, but that grant ran out on Christmas day and we are scrambling to find ways to pay for these now.”

Public Safety Commissioner John Morris warned lawmakers earlier this year of the growing bills for meth-lab investigations. He said the costs are significant and growing.

“Every time we break a meth lab, it costs $15,000 because of the care we have to take and the hazmat that we have to send in,” he said.

He said the costs to the state do not include the expenses of local police and other first responders.

“We often have a fire department standing by at these incidents,” McKinney said, “because there is a real danger from even these simple labs we have found so far.”

Barbara Parker, director of Response Services at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, said her agency also is facing increased costs to respond to drug labs. She said her hazardous material teams are trained to deal with a wide range of toxic and dangerous chemicals, including those used to make illegal drugs.

“Our biggest cost is manpower,” she said. “We send at least two people to every one of these and it can take a long time to assess the situation and clean up the lab site so the police can do their job.”

Parker said other costs include air bottles and disposable suits that vary based on the incident. She said it can cost a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars for the DEP to do its job at a drug lab site.

“We have been lucky that all of these labs have been small,” she said. “In Washington state, they had a railroad car buried in the ground that was being used as a big lab.”

Parker said she was concerned about the increasing number of labs and the costs to her division. The response services are funded by a dedicated tax on those Maine companies that produce hazardous materials, and responding to meth labs set up by criminals was not a consideration when the fund was set up, she said.

Maine Drug Enforcement Agency meth-lab busts since November 2011

Source: Maine DEA

Date              Town                     County                 Drug type