From 2001-10, the Missouri Sheriff Methamphetamine Action Relief Team (MO SMART) seized 16,739 methamphetamine labs.
This is 82 percent of the 20,563 total meth labs seized, with only 3,824 seized by other Missouri state agencies.
Despite the August announcement of the federal government's cancellation of the $1.5 million MO SMART program, which employs about 30 officers throughout the state to investigate and combat meth, pleas from law enforcement agencies and MO SMART administrators to state legislators for Missouri to fund and keep the program alive have still not changed the fate of the project.
"I am very disappointed in the state Legislature for not taking a look at this problem," said Lt. J.D. Williams of the Mid-Missouri Drug Task Force.