ALBANY — Homemade meth labs are sprouting like mushrooms across the state — in rural farmhouses, ramshackle trailers, even a drainage pipe outside a Buffalo-area Wal-Mart — with a surging popularity of the drug.

Police across upstate New York say they’re encountering a growing number of clandestine methamphetamine operations, an ominous sign of the drug’s appeal.

Mobile “one-pot” labs are turning up in vehicles and backpacks. In some cases, the drug known as “crank” and “speed” is cooked up inside sports drink bottles.

“Over the past couple of years the problem has been climbing — and there is no indication it is going to stop,” said State Police Sgt. Rob Grace, based at State Police headquarters in Albany.

Law enforcement agencies are addressing the fast-spreading footprint of meth, in part, by talking to firefighters, social workers and others about how to recognize the paraphernalia of the home-grown chemistry sets.

One of their biggest concerns is rescuing children and others vulnerable to the potential dangers of homemade labs that can spark fires and explosions.

The fact the drug is relatively cheap and can be manufactured from over-the-counter ingredients is contributing to its popularity, investigators said.

A 10-year-old law limits the amount of a key ingredient found in cold remedies, pseudoephedrine, that an individual can purchase each month. But addicts and traffickers look for ways to circumvent those limits by finding surrogates to buy for them.

Grace, a supervisor with the State Police’s Contaminated Crime Scene Emergency Response Team, said the squad responded to 353 meth production sites in the first nine months of the year.

That exceeded its full year total for 2015 and was nearly three times the number recorded for all of 2013.

Even crude forms of the substance, made with Gatorade bottles in a method known as “shake and bake,” are highly addictive, he said.

“They say once you are addicted to it, there is no getting off of it,” he said. “All people care about is where they are going to get their next high from.”

For Justin Derocher, 27, of Ithaca, the cops didn’t detect his drug possession but rather stopped him for driving a car while his license was suspended. At the time, he said he was paying for his habit, which cost $60 to $100 a day, by shoplifting.

Derocher said he started using meth at age 22, after getting involved with cocaine, heroin and other drugs.

“At first it was fun, but then it started to take hold of my life,” he said, noting that he’s now clean. “I couldn’t function without it. I’d be up for days. When I had to go to work and couldn’t stay awake, I had to do more.”

He shed about 40 pounds, he said, and “looked like a walking zombie.”

“I didn’t want to interact with people. I would hallucinate and hide behind the couch, thinking the cops were going to come for me,” he said.

Derocher said his resolve to stay clean is fortified by a social media group, Clean Is The New Dirty, which inspires him with regular postings.

Capt. Scott Lombardo, of the Niagara County Drug Task Force, said meth takes a noticeable toll on the appearance of its users.

Their skin can be so blemished that it appears they have serious acne, he said, and they frequently suffer dental problems.

“It rots you from the inside out,” he said.

In Niagara County, he said, police see the same circle of users again and again.

“It’s almost like a closed group,” he said. “We arrest them, the courts do what they do, and then they are out on the streets doing it again.”

State police report taking down dozens of meth operations so far this year — including 15 in Clinton County, 13 in Chenango County, seven in Niagara County, four in Essex County, three in Franklin County, and one each in Otsego, Delaware and Schoharie counties.

Two rural counties – Oswego and Jefferson – led the state meth lab busts as of the end of September, with 40 and 33, respectively.

Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond said meth labs often show up in places where jobs and organized activities are scarce.

And the drug picks up the users of other substances looking for a cheaper fix.

That describes a common condition in upstate New York, he said.

“Meth has become what the most desperate people rely upon to feed their addictions,” he said.

Joe Mahoney covers the New York Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jmahoney@cnhi.com

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