Central New York (WSYR-TV) -- There have been two meth busts in just two weeks in Oswego County alone. But the incident in Mexico Wednesday is just one of nearly one hundred State Police have dealt with in the last 12 years.
From 1999 to 2011 , State Police say they’ve broken up or responded to nearly 100 methamphetamine incidents in an eight county area; 31 of them happened in Jefferson County. What's alarming to police is that nearly a third of those happened just this year.
Oswego County Undersheriff Gene Sullivan said, "I think every time we encounter something like this, we're not necessarily used to encountering it on a regular basis. You get better at it the more you do it."
In 2005, New York State tried to curb meth cooking by limiting how much over-the-counter cold and cough medicine one could buy since components of the drugs are the main ingredients in meth. How much a person buys is also recorded in a logbook.
"We ask for their driver's license and take their address down, log it in there and take their driver's license number," said Dave Dingman with the Medicine Place.
But criminals keep finding ways around the laws. Since there is no central database keeping track of the purchases, there's not much stopping some from going down the block to buy more or having multiple people buy it.
"It's a collaboration of users and a whole group of people doing this, it's not just one person," Dingman explained.
State Police say one trend they're noticing is that some meth labs have gone mobile. The drug is cooked in a car or even carried in a backpack. The makers then dump the trash in a random dumpster. By the time police get a call about it the criminals have already moved on.
"Where there's a will there's a way and if there's money involved and there's profit to be had, it's part of the war on drugs," Dingman said.
State Police say Central New York has the most number of meth labs and incidents in the entire state. The Upstate Poison Control Center says it’s seen more calls this year compared to last year.
