Meth-related arrests, seizures have increased 50% in rural South Dakota in last 10 years

Meth-related arrests in South Dakota are up 50 percent in the last decade, and the amount of meth seized in rural counties has also doubled in the past 10 years, Mark Walker reports for the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls. Last year the state's rural counties had 350 meth-related arrests, with eight counties recording meth arrests for the first time.

Some rural law enforcement departments not used to seeing meth are ill-equipped to fight it, Walker writes. Buffalo County sheriff Wayne Willman, who told Walker that "meth is continuing to be a greater and greater problem" in his county, "said his department doesn't have specific drug officers and the county doesn't have the resources needed for rehabbing users and sellers."

State lawmakers did pass legislation in 2014 to use the National Precursor Law Exchange, "an electronic version of the record keeping that already was required to aid real-time tracking of pseudoephedrine products," Walker writes. (Meth statistics in all of South Dakota)