Officials report finding meth lab in Frazeysburg

Authorities reported they seized hundreds of bottles used for one-pot meth production Tuesday from inside a rural Frazeysburg barn.

The alleged manufacturing site was discovered Sunday afternoon by a farmhand gathering equipment from a barn on Scout Road in northern Frazeysburg.

Several officers wearing flame-retardant suits removed the plastic bottles from a cattle trailer inside the barn. Unlike large-scale labs, Muskingum County Sheriff's Office Detective Todd Kanavel said the local meth production site was likely used by small group of addicts who sneaked into the barn for the past several months to make and use meth.

One-pot mixtures combine pseudoephedrine, lithium, ammonia, water and other reactive ingredients to produce homemade methamphetamine, Kanavel said. The mixtures are highly flammable and require specialized extraction.

The perpetrators could face more than a decade in jail for producing the illicit substance. Manufacture of methamphetamine is a first-degree felony carrying a potential 11-year prison sentence. Kanavel said there could be additional charges for possession. No suspects have been arrested.

Meth sites are found "just about every week," Kanavel said. With federal crackdowns on larger cartel and gang-run meth labs, people have turned to one-pots for ease of access.

"This method is destroying the country," Kanavel said, watching detectives add the whitish remains of a plastic bottle into evidence.

Although the byproducts aren't technically methamphetamine, officials said they could be figured into the total weight of meth produced.

The investigation is ongoing. Assisting on scene were the Perry County Sheriff's Office, Zanesville Police Department, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Dresden Fire Department and Frazeysburg Fire Department.

from Zanesville Times Recorder