ABSTRACT
While we may (somewhat justiably) think of meth labs when the term clan lab is raised, hidden synthesis or purication processes have been carried out for as long as laws have made such processes illegal. Historically, alcohol distillation (particularly during Prohibition) has been commonplace, and laboratories processing opium resin for heroin and coca leaves for cocaine have been and remain the mainstay of the illegal drug trade. (Such laboratories are almost exclusively located outside the United States, and product reaches the North American market via various smuggling routes.) In recent years, however, the rise of numerous synthetic methamphetamine laboratories has become the focus of public attention, legal activities tracking or limiting availability to precursor molecules, and even popular television shows. Clandestine methamphetamine synthesis labs (“meth labs”) are usually engaged in a rather inelegant synthesis of methamphetamine from (oen) ephedrine/ pseudoephedrine, providing signicant challenges for those chemists who are asked to respond to the facility as part of specialized crime scene teams. e “clan lab” chemists act to safely terminate
ongoing reactions and neutralize some of the chemicals associated with the synthetic schemes and chemicals that can represent a hazard (e.g., lye, lithium, ether), in addition to collecting appropriate evidentiary materials. While methamphetamine laboratories remain an active problem for law enforcement, from a toxicologic perspective, the analysis of the methamphetamine end product as well as the synthetic raw materials and intermediate mixtures is relatively straightforward.
