Meth lab busts dwindle, abuse of drug has not
TULSA — Tulsa had a record-breaking 431 meth labs seized in 2011. Police and fire officials were responding to meth lab fires in hotels, apartment complexes and cars.
So far in 2018, Tulsa officers have found one. But the sharp decrease in labs doesn’t mean meth isn’t still in demand.
The Tulsa Police Department’s Special Investigation Division seized 80 pounds in 2016 and 155 pounds in 2017. The department is “on track for 360 pounds” in 2018, said Tulsa Police Capt. Mark Wollmershauser.
Between 2016 and June 2018, Tulsa police have arrested fewer people on trafficking-related offenses, but they are seizing greater volumes of the drug, Wollmershauser said, which indicates the department and his division are “focusing our efforts at the right people.”
“The department, especially my division, isn’t in the business of focusing on those riddled with addiction,” Wollmershauser said. “We’re tired of people that take advantage of people riddled with addiction.”
The number of meth labs found by Tulsa police has dropped dramatically, at least in part because of state laws, but meth use did not. Dealers simply began importing it from Mexico.
“Most of what we’re dealing with (in 2018) has already been made for distribution prior to ... it getting here,” Wollmershauser said.
Many of the one-pot labs Oklahoma was dealing with just a few years ago would produce as little as a half ounce of the drug or up to 2 ounces, police said.
Super labs in Mexico, in contrast, can produce up to 12 pounds per day, according to the academic article “An Analysis of Clandestine Methamphetamine Laboratory Seizures in Oklahoma.”
“The cartels — because they watch where the need is and they recognize that meth addiction in Oklahoma is significant — they saw a need so they flooded the market strategically,” Wollmershauser said.
As a patrol officer in the ’90s, Tulsa Police Cpl. Mike Griffin was dispatched to full labs. As a narcotics officer, he participated in dismantling full labs and one-pot labs. At least 10 officers and a contingent of firefighters would arrive to deal with labs.
Griffin worked at least five failed meth cooks that resulted in fatalities. He said it was most often the cook. At least one of those times, a neighbor in an apartment complex died.
The scenes were extremely dangerous. Officers, when dealing with the one-pot labs, would sometimes have to finish the drug reaction before they could catalog evidence and dispose of the one pot, Griffin said.
“Water and lithium metal don’t like each other at all,” Griffin said of two components of a lab. “You’re playing Russian roulette. At some point that water and lithium is going to touch.”
Firefighters would have to stand by in case the lithium and water reacted violently.
“That was my issue when I was going to the state Capitol to get pseudoephedrine legislation passed,” Griffin said. “I didn’t ever think it’d take care of the meth problem, but I thought it could stop the fires and the deaths from fires.”
Oklahoma and other states countered the rise in local meth production with laws in 2004 and 2012 that made it more difficult to buy large quantities of over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a basic ingredient in homecooked meth.
Griffin and others say regulating pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, precursors to methamphetamine, largely accomplished what they intended to do: shut down labs, which tend to explode, catch on fire and leave behind a deadly residue that turns houses, apartments and trailers into hazardous-waste zones.
Since then, Mexican cartels have taken over the U.S. market, saturating it with a ready supply of methamphetamine. That has greatly reduced the price of the drug per pound, particularly in Tulsa. About 15 years ago, a pound of meth cost about $15,000, Wollmershauser said. It was about $10,000 five years ago and is less than $5,000 in 2018.
About two decades ago, Creek County law enforcers seized an estimated 20 to 30 “shake and bake” labs per month.
Fred Clark, chief deputy of the Creek County sheriff’s office, said he could not recall his deputies seizing any labs in 2018.
Likewise, law enforcers have booked far fewer people into the Tulsa County jail for manufacture of illicit substances. Officers booked 284 people in 2013 on various manufacturing complaints. In 2017, officers booked 23 people on various manufacturing complaints, according to Tulsa County jail records. Those records do not delineate between manufacture of meth and other illicit substances.
Local manufacturing likely still happens, but not as frequently as it once did.
“They just found a different way to get it,” Clark said. “It’s still a problem; they’re just not cooking it in Oklahoma anymore.”