Methamphetamine: A Low-Tech Environmental Problem for Agriculture

Chuck D. Barlow

Farmers are getting caught up in the Drug War. Their fields are becoming battlefields between narcotics agencies and illicit narcotics producers, and the waste generated by the battle often seeps into the farmer’s soil.

Agricultural properties throughout the country are being vandalized as illegal, and highly mobile, drug operations move from area to area in search of sources of anhydrous ammonia, a common fertilizer used and stored by farmers, and a key ingredient of crystal methamphetamine, a controlled substance that is skyrocketing in popularity because it is strong and easy to make. Dealers and users can make methamphetamine by combining a series of common household cleaning items or manufacturing-grade solvents and chemicals. Manufacturing can occur in a hotel room, a shack, or even in the back of a pickup truck. Chances are, a dealer/user can find everything he needs to make the drug at a well-stocked hardware store, except for anhydrous ammonia, an ingredient in the most popular meth "recipes."

For the ammonia, the dealers/users travel to rural farming locations or abandoned manufacturing facilities where ammonia is stored. Ammonia tanks are vandalized, hoses cut, valves destroyed, and the ammonia is siphoned into the meth making process.

More often than not, when these dealers/users make meth, they also make a mess. Several of the precursor chemicals to meth, such as xylene and toluene, are generated as hazardous wastes in the process. When law enforcement officials are successful in busting a meth lab, they often must call on environmental experts to handle the leftover hazardous wastes. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality spent approximately $100,000 in 2000 alone assisting narcotics agencies in meth lab cleanups.

More often than not, when these dealers/users make meth, they also make a mess.
The Mississippi Legislature, taking note of this growing problem, has passed a bill that would criminalize the generation of waste by the combining, cooking, or processing of two or more methamphetamine precursors. The law includes several exemptions aimed at protecting legitimate manufacturing, farming, and pharmaceutical activities. What is left over, and thus criminalized by the statute, is the generation of waste in the process of illegally creating a controlled substance. The statute could provide an important new tool for drug prosecutors, because by marrying the strict liability aspect of environmental law to the identification of established precursor chemicals, the statute would allow prosecutors to obtain convictions without having to prove that the defendant had the specific intent to manufacture a controlled substance – a standard element in most criminal drug manufacturing provisions – and a difficult element to prove when a defendant is caught before or after the actual practice of processing the drug. In addition to creating a new felony count, the bill also would allow the state Commission on Environmental Quality to pursue administrative environmental claims against the generators of the waste.

The bill passed the Mississippi Senate on February 5, and more recently passed the House. The statute may set a new trend in using environmental protection laws to help protect innocent landowners and to help curb related nonenvironmental problems, such as drug manufacturing. As sponsoring Senator Alan Nunnelee explains, "authorities convicted Al Capone for tax evasion, so why can’t we convict drug dealers for the environmental mess they make?"