Cory Craig, a state highway patrolman and narcotics specialist based in northern Missouri. "When we go into a meth lab, we have on respirators, Tyvec suits, shoe coverings, gloves and eye goggles," says Sgt. "Ingesting some of these chemicals, even a tiny drop, can cause immediate death," Smith says. Nothing escapes contamination-the carpet, walls, furniture, drapes, air ducts, and even the air itself becomes toxic. Home-cooking meth spreads toxins to every inch of the room where the meth was cooked and beyond. These include acetone, the active ingredient in nail polish remover, and phosphine, a widely used insecticide.
The chemicals used in methamphetamine production are highly toxic and range from pseudoephedrine-the main ingredient in meth and the active ingredient in decongestants-to any one of 32 other precursor chemicals. "When we go into a lab, if there are children, the first thing we do is take the children to the hospital and assess them for contamination," Smith says. And because children have small, developing bodies and a tendency to play on the ground and put things in their mouths, they are especially susceptible to adverse health effects from meth toxins. Long-term problems are less well known, but the results from a 2009 study in Toxicological Sciences suggest that methamphetamine chemicals may cause cancer in humans.
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Upon moving into a meth house, people have experienced short-term health problems ranging from migraines and respiratory difficulties to skin irritation and burns. Houses formerly used as meth labs, called meth houses, put their residents at risk of serious health consequences, says Stan Smith, a doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Drug Endangered Children Task Force, a division of the California Drug Enforcement Agency. The house’s level of methamphetamine contamination was 63 times higher than the level at which the Utah Department of Health condemns a house. The results made Jaimee put her kids in the car and immediately abandon her new home, with all the family’s possessions still inside. So the Alkinanis had their house tested for methamphetamine. He also wasn’t gaining weight, and was in and out of the hospital. When their baby was born, he had serious lung issues that caused him to stop breathing a few times. Within five months, Jaimee and her husband developed sinus problems that required surgery. He even produced a certificate from the local health department to prove it. He told them not to worry, that the house had been decontaminated. "Your house used to be a meth lab," he said-a fact that the seller had never disclosed. But soon things turned for the worse.Ī few days after they had moved in, a neighbor welcomed them with disturbing news. Life had officially started for the Alkinanis. The family was on their way - they'd also just opened a small business near their home, had an 11-month-old child, and Jaimee was eight months pregnant. The three-bedroom house was in a nice neighborhood: tree-lined street, kids riding their bikes down the sidewalk, and friendly neighbors who waved when they passed. Jaimee Alkinani and her husband had just bought their first home in a quiet suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah.