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Medina County authorities seized eight meth labs in a Medina home earlier this month. Officers said a 1-year-old baby and a 13-year-old girl were living in the home at the time.

(Photo provided by Medina County Drug Task Force)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says methamphetamine has hit epidemic proportions across the state, especially in rural Ohio where investigators continue to find the remnants of labs strewn along back roads and highways.

"We're not going to arrest our way out of the problem,'' DeWine said. "It's not going to happen. We need community groups to push back through education and prevention. You have to have grassroots groups fighting this. It's a huge problem.''

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation tracks meth lab seizures by federal fiscal year, meaning from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30. The state's police officers report seizing the labs through a voluntary process, so there are likely many more than the statistics reflect.

Since October, police across Ohio have found 315 labs, and there still are seven months left in the fiscal year. Summit County leads the way with 66, according to DeWine's office. Cuyahoga County, the state's most urban county, had just one seizure of a lab.



Authorities are on target to seize more labs than it did in 2009, when investigators dismantled 348, and in 2010, when they grabbed 359. In 2011, officers seized 375.

Last year, investigators reported finding 881, a 45 percent jump over the 607 taken apart the year before. Summit County, which has been the epicenter of meth making in the state for more than a decade with its underground base of cookers, leads with 66.

Some of this year's seizures have indicated the scope of the problem. On Feb. 12, the Medina County Drug Task Force seized eight portable labs in a home in Medina. A 1-year-old child, and a 13-year-old girl were living there at the time, said Gary Hubbard, the director of the task force.

Five people were charged with using the one-pot method of cooking the drug, a quick, combustible way of making the drug with the help of a handful of household chemicals.

Hubbard said his office has arrested 78 people on more than 200 charges relating to the illegal purchases of pseudoephedrine, the cold medication that is used in making the drug, a gritty stimulant.

He called it "smurfing,'' where cookers pay people to buy large volumes of the cold medication at a variety of stores and bring the product back to them. Ohio has limits on the amount of the medication a person can buy.

Hubbard said investigators have tracked a number of people from Summit County who have traveled to Medina County to buy pseudophedrine.

DeWine said the drug has gained a hold in rural counties. Reports show that meth lab seizures in Highland and Clermont counties in Southwest Ohio have jumped: Highland had 29, while Clermont had 25. Fairfield, which is east of Franklin, had 30.

DeWine said his office has stressed training, especially to local groups who work or volunteer outside. He fears a worker picking up litter will stumble upon a 2-liter pop bottle, which is often used to brew the drug's ingredients, and become injured. And he also stressed the need to educate the dangers of the drug in the state's rural areas.

"Look at Highland County,'' DeWine said. "Its population is about 42,000 people, and it has 29 labs. To me, that's just a staggering number.''