Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

In the US they've been fighting the problem for decades.

Crystal meth can be made quite simply with a mixture of legal household items, but the toxic chemicals produced in the process can be fatal.

Multi-million dollar crime wave

In its various forms the drug has been around for more than a century and there are now reported to be around two million meth addicts in the USA.

Just one smoke of the drug can give users a 'high' lasting 12 hours, and days without sleep can provoke uncontrolled bouts of violence.

It continues to cause a multi-million dollar crime wave in the States, one addict stole a tank and went on the rampage before being shot dead by police.

ACC Paul Broadbent: concerned about meth

Nearer home, in 2007 a secret crystal meth lab was raided in the Peak District. And it’s unclear how many others there could be in the UK.

South Yorkshire’s Assistant Chief Constable, Paul Broadbent, says, "We know meth’s here... we believe it's a small problem but we do know how deadly it is and we want to learn the lessons from others."

Lessons from the US

Inside Out travelled across the Atlantic with ACC Broadbent and drug squad officer Bob Chapman.

Law enforcement officers from all over the world come to Quantico in Virginia to learn how to dismantle illegal labs. It’s training which could, one day, save their lives.

Quantico is home to the Marine corps, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Meth labs can be filled with toxic fumes and chemicals so volatile that they could explode at any moment, and at Quantico they have a 'smoke house' which provides an idea of how a meth lab operates.

A city with a problem

The next stop on our trip is Phoenix, Arizona, where one in six people have tried the drug and thousands have a serious problem.

The Yorkshire officers want to find out how the drug took such a hold.

DEA Special Agent Doug Coleman says crystal meth is an insidious poison causing a significant crisis:

"We've made a lot of mistakes in the US in dealing with this problem and we're hoping that some of the mistakes we've made and some of the knowledge that we've learned  we can pass onto our brother law enforcement officers in other countries."

Long term effects

Only a few people ever recover from long-term use of crystal meth.

It ravages the body, making some users almost unrecognisable and at Maricopa County Hospital in Phoenix they know all about the long term damage it causes.

One in five patients in the emergency department is on the drug. And all three major hospitals in the city have the same problem.

The shocking effect of crystal meth use

They're swamped.

Dr Marc Matthews works in the trauma centre, "You see continued brain damage. It's like the scans have holes punched out of them showing continued brain death"

He describes the drug as a plague:

"It is a scourge… The worst one was a father and son who came in.

"The father was making meth in his home. The child was next to him and the lab blew up.

"He sustained horrendous burns, he ended up dying so now the child is fatherless, is an orphan.

"The child ends up in the intensive care unit and had major lung damage and had to have skin grafting."

Sylvia Forry lives in an affluent suburb of Phoenix. Her son’s now behind bars after becoming a crystal meth addict.

Sylvia says she feels she’s lost ten years of his life, "Talk to your kids,  no matter how small they are, how young they are, just talk to them, educate them, show them how dangerous this drug is."

Lessons learnt?

Yorkshire ACC Paul Broadbent is concerned about how the drug may be dealt with in the UK:

"It's not like any other drug I have seen before.

"My biggest worry is that we don't learn the lessons from the states. We just pretend it's a problem that belongs elsewhere."

Since their return from our visit, a policy to educate thousands of frontline officers about the drug has been introduced.

And the UK government has announced its own legal changes to help restrict the spread of the drug. 

From April 1, 2008 you’ll only be able to buy cold and flu remedies which contain pseudo ephedrine in small packets.

It seems the lessons from the United States are already being taken onboard.