The societal costs of the methamphetamine—crystal meth or simply meth for short—drug business, if we can call the trade in this illegal drug a business, is very difficult to calculate. It negatively impacts the health and welfare of the participants and the communities in which it is most active. These tend to be rural communities located in the mid-section of the country. The states fighting the largest battles with the meth trade are Missouri, Tennessee, Indiana and Kentucky.

The graph shows the number of methamphetamine laboratory incidents reported by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) over the period 2004–2012. An incident is any seizure of a meth lab, a dump site or stashes of chemical and glassware. The graph also shows the quantity of methamphetamine seized by the DEA over this period.

There is one cost associated with the meth trade, of so many costs to society, that has been a stimulus to a legal business activity. That is the cost of cleaning up clandestine laboratories in which this drug is produced, or cooked in the vernacular of this trade. The methods used to make this drug also produce a lot of hazardous fumes and byproducts. Therefore, meth labs must be handled carefully and then thoroughly cleaned up after a seizure. The cost of such cleanups depends greatly on the size of the facility but it can run anywhere from $1,000 per site to $25,000 per site or even more in some extreme cases. Specially certified waste management firms and environmental consulting firms are contracted to carry out this cleanup work.

Today’s market size is the estimated amount spent in the United States cleaning up meth labs in 2012. Worth noting is the fact that this money was concentrated in the ten states in which most meth trade occurs. Together these ten states represent 82.4% of all meth lab incidents. For more details on which states have the highest level of meth activity, go to the DOJ website listed as the third source below.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2012
Market size: $29 million
Sources: (1) Jonah Engle, “Merchants of Meth,” Mother Jones, July/August 2013, page 33. (2) “DEA Domestic Drug Seizures,” part of a U.S. Department of Justice web site available online here. (3) “Methamphetamine Lab Incidents, 2004–2012,” another DOJ offering on its website here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Justice
Posted on November 22, 2013