Meth labs declining in Minnesota

A new report published today by the Minnesota Department of Health documents significant reductions in the number of methamphetamine (meth) labs and meth users in Minnesota over the past few years. The report, Methamphetamine in Minnesota: a report on the impact of one illicit drug, is the first comprehensive review of the impact of meth in Minnesota.

The report’s key findings include:

* Between 2003 and 2007, the number of reported meth labs decreased by 92 percent. The number of reported meth labs in Minnesota peaked in 2003, at nearly 500.
* Drug arrests in the category that includes meth peaked in 2005 at 4,790, and declined 19 percent from 2005 to 2006. There have been more than 20,000 arrests for felony meth offenses in Minnesota since 2001.
* On January 1, 2006, there were 1,138 meth offenders in Minnesota state prisons. This number declined 15 percent between 2006 and 2008, to 969 meth offenders on January 1, 2008.
* Between 2004 and 2007, more than 3,000 residents of the Twin Cities area went to a hospital emergency department because of ill effects of meth.
* At least 35,000 individuals have entered treatment for meth use and addiction in Minnesota since 2000. Between 2005 and 2007, admissions for meth-related chemical dependency treatment decreased by 34 percent.
* Since 2001, physicians reported that more than 1,000 Minnesota mothers used meth during pregnancy, endangering themselves and their children. Reported prenatal use of meth decreased 34 percent between 2005 and 2007.
* The Minnesota Department of Public Safety estimated that the statewide public costs associated with methamphetamine abuse in 2004 exceeded $120 million. Although not an actual tally, extrapolating from that estimate suggests that the real public costs of meth in Minnesota since the late 1990s may have reached $500 - $750 million dollars and are probably be much higher.

Significant meth use and meth manufacturing took hold in Minnesota beginning in the mid- to late-1990s. The problem intensified through 2005, the year Governor Pawlenty and the Legislature enacted comprehensive anti-meth legislation. The legislation contained tight restrictions on the sale of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine. This is credited with the dramatic reductions in meth labs.