Portable Meth Lab Abandoned Along Pennsylvania Highway
BLAIRSVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- State police are trying to figure out who abandoned a portable methamphetamine lab in a picnic cooler along a busy western Pennsylvania highway.
Police say a trucker reported the cooler along U.S. Route 22 near Blairsville, and troopers have determined it was likely left there between 4:30 p.m. Monday and 1 a.m. Tuesday.
Methamphetamine, a powerful stimulant, can be cooked using various volatile chemicals and the ingredients in some over-the-counter cold medicines.
Trooper Steve Limani, spokesman for the Greensburg barracks, says this portable lab was "definitely functional. It was missing two different ingredients."
Limani says anyone could have begun cooking the drug immediately if they had those unspecified ingredients.
Police aren't sure if the lab was left there for someone else to pick up or whether someone dumped it there because they feared being caught with it.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
