When it comes to the FBI they tend to by a decade or more behind on the subject of crime. Whether it is internet based or violent crime they are usually ten steps behind, but not as bad as congress who it still trying to figure out what the internet “is.”

Our story starts with a meth lab explosion that sent a man to the ICU in Bronson Hospital with the majority of his body burned. Letting labs explode became the primary technic law enforcement decided to use when it came to busting meth operations. Eventually it happens. What had never been seen before was the lab that had been put together in the patient’s room. The detectives that were assigned to the house fire (meth lab) waited a week before trying to question the man in the ICU. When they arrived, the patient refused to talk to them and when one of the detectives looked in the bathroom they found a lab sitting on the sink.

For those of you familiar with shows like Breaking Bad, it was not that kind of lab. This is where we back up for a second. In Kalamazoo, Public Safety has a drug enforcement team called KVET. The Meth specialist on the team, we will call Larry, had to go to Quantico in order to stay certified on his expertise. The class was a five-day event and by day three they had only taught the long cooking method also known as biker meth (crank), the stuff you saw on Breaking Bad. At the end of the third day Larry went to the instructor and asked when they would teach the “one pot method.” The instructor asked what that was and by the end of the conversation Larry was teaching the class for the last two days. The FBI had never heard of Michigan’s favorite way to cook meth. With a two-liter bottle, kerosine, water, Sudafed, and lithium torn out of batteries tweekers can cook anywhere and anytime.

Sitting on the sink of the ICU bathroom was a one pot lab that the patient’s visitors brought in one piece at a time. A time bomb sat on the counter and the police were the only ones that knew what it was. Hospital staff had gone in and out of the room, seen the bottles on the sink but didn’t think anything of it. More charges were filed on the patient before he was able to leave the hospital and the room had to be stripped down and rebuilt. The neighboring rooms had to be stripped down and rebuilt as well.

How I came to know all of this is because the hospital decided to offer a free class to their employees so that the staff would know what a lab looked like when they saw it. A few things I picked up in the class besides what has already been revealed. Never pick up pop/ soda bottles from the side of the road. They could be used labs that were tossed because a tweeker was paranoid they would be pulled over. Meth addicts really love Mountain Dew. Labs smell like cat piss. Labs have to be burped when cooking, or the pressure builds in the bottle and they could explode.

Tweekers have a habit of not owning anything. While coke/ crank/ weed dealers own their homes, cars, and have bank accounts that can be confiscated after a bust, tweekers rent, borrow, or steal what they have. There is nothing to be gained from busting a meth lab operation. If a lab is raided the house or apartment is the responsibility of the state to clean up. Each operation is a $6k-10k clean up. So, while they are removing meth from the streets it cost the state more to clean it up afterwards. If a lab explodes the house is demolished and the clean up is cheap compared to remodeling the property.

Even though the problem of meth continued to expand the budget for busting operations were cut because it was costing departments too much money with no financial gain.

So while the FBI was chasing Biker meth, a long and expensive operation in time and equipment, actual meth addicts had switched to a quicker method for lower quality meth. Van Buren county was the meth capital of the US in the early 2000s. this wasn’t because a group of Breaking Bad wannabes started building labs, a cheap fast method was more accessible. The only competition that the Michigan Tweekers had was the Mexican cartels who were receiving their supplies from China.

Besides meth crossing state lines I don’t know why the FBI would even focus on such a topic. When it comes to local law enforcement, meth is a pain in the ass, let the junkies burn their fucking house down and toss them back in the fire if they happened to crawl out. They have no insurance, spend weeks in the ICU if they survive and cost the prisons more for medical cost. It is easier to let the problem take care of itself. Letting the problem take care of itself in the hospital was not an option. Ignoring the issue isn’t an option either.