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United States Crime Government Science

"Breaking Bad" At the National Institute of Standards and Technology 98

Posted by samzenpus from the walter-white-approved dept.
sciencehabit writes: Police are investigating whether an explosion inside a Maryland federal laboratory was the result of an effort to make drugs. Authorities who responded to the explosion at the National Institute of Standards and Technology found pseudoephedrine, Epsom salt and other materials associated with the manufacture of meth. Federal and local law enforcement agencies are investigating the cause of the explosion and if a security guard injured in the blast might have been involved. Sciencemag reports: "Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX), chairman at the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, got involved today, expressing grave concern over the incident in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. NIST is part of the Commerce Department. 'I am troubled by the allegations that such dangerous and illicit activity went undetected at a federal research facility. It is essential that we determine exactly where the breakdown in protocol occurred and whether similar activities could be ongoing at other federal facilities,' wrote Smith in an accompanying press release. He has requested a briefing with NIST no later than 29 July."
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"Breaking Bad" At the National Institute of Standards and Technology More

"Breaking Bad" At the National Institute of Standards and Technology

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  • Interesting... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lq_x_pl ( 822011 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @03:03PM (#50170177)
    I guess that's one way to take care of the Federal Deficit.
  • I'm torn between wishing it was my (former) group and wishing it wasn't. I think the stories will be much better if robots were involved. In any case, I advise BLAMING THE DEER. Always blame the deer. Or the geese.

    • I agree. Which OU had control of the space? Where's the dirt? Is even there a single decent paparazzo left in science reporting?

      I give kudos to the selection of the "special projects" building though*. Nothing like a remote corner of campus with sloped earthwork embankments around all the lab windows for doing something like this. Do you realize how much of a success this indicates for NIST's culture of safety (which they've been working hard on ever since that little Pu oops in Boulder)? Even their al

      • I haven't been on campus in... 25 years or so. I seem to recall the special projects building having something to do with money production, as in paper money.

        But really kids, safety first! I am ashamed at the apparent lack of proper lab procedure. We must demand only the best meth labs in the nation at NIST! I'm writing a letter to my congressman.

  • Wrong! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @03:14PM (#50170231)
    The Spokesman for NIST, when announcing it right after coming from a dentist appointment, and his mouth was numb, said "The asplosion made a real meth of the place"

  • Walter White would *never* blow up a building. Well, I mean, he blew up plenty of buildings, but not accidentally, and not the ones he was making meth in. If you suggest the building blew up due to the behavior of someone acting like he was in Breaking Bad, I would assume the building was being used as the headquarters of some nasty Mexican drug lord, and the dude had to teach the guy a lesson in badassitude. (Sorry, spoilers.)

  • Meth Hype is Common: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hartree ( 191324 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @03:27PM (#50170295)

    Take things with a grain of salt. Many of these "high tech meth lab" cases are someone using a couple of soda bottles and plastic straws to make meth with ingredients they bought at Walmart.

    It may have been a random building worker doing this. If it were one of the scientists, I'd be surprised they'd be using drain cleaner as the sodium hydroxide rather than just getting some out of the lab. It's one of the most common lab chemicals.

    • Re:Meth Hype is Common: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23, 2015 @04:06PM (#50170521)

      They suspect that a guard (injured in the explosion) was cooking it. The attempt in the title to link scientist working at NIST to the meth production is misleading. First thing I thought when reading it was "This meth must have been hitting and exceeding the specs". Then i start reading about pseudoephedrine, drain cleaner and Epsom salt... Well this is not how Walter White would have done it, is it?

      • Well this is not how Walter White would have done it, is it?

        That's the coward's way out, using drugs, where 90% of your synthesis has been done for you by already by some Big Pharma company selling pseudoephedrine to people who need to clear their noses.

        "Now get me my phenylacetic acid... bitch!"

    • Take things with a grain of salt.

      Apparently, Epsom salt.

  • NIST? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @03:33PM (#50170321)

    They were probably just making a reference sample.

    • I knew some guys at a state toxicology lab. Back in the seventies they had some trouble getting a steady supply of marijuana from the feds for standards testing.

      They ended up growing some on the windowsill.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swb ( 14022 )

        It does make a person wonder how many university organic chem labs churn out drugs on the side, even if its only for self-consumption.

        I would imagine by now that the precursor chemicals for relatively easy synthesis are controlled, but I would think a good PhD in organic chemistry would merely take that as a challenge and attempt a more complex synthesis which made the precursors.

        Hell, if they were clever they may even be able to some of it (or even all of it) as a legitimate project if it somehow advanced

        • There's a good story about this in Making PCR, which is Kary Mullis's story of his life and career before the Nobel. He substituted a couple of positions on a psychedelic and ended up boosting the potency so much that he took a huge overdose by mistake.

  • It is essential that we determine exactly where the breakdown in protocol occurred and whether similar activities could be ongoing at other federal facilities.

    Sounds like the "protocol" might be changed from "treat everyone as suspicious" to "treat everyone as guilty".

    • You mean like everything to do with meth already is?

      Why do I *sneeze* need to give you my driver's license? *sneeze* All I want is allergy *sneeze* medication *sneeze*!

  • So a lab had some common chemicals, and someone had cold medicine. According to what I learned in D.A.R.E. I could probably make cocaine, meth, and heroin with what I found in the janitor's closet.
  • Meth. Not even BOOOOM!!!!!

  • Dude. Just take a stapler and some pens or something. Everything has limits.

  • Politics (Score:4, Funny)

    by drooling-dog ( 189103 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @04:07PM (#50170525)

    Here we go... A relatively routine law enforcement matter is going to become a political pseudo-scandal. Scientists are evil and corrupt, so how can we trust them about climate change or evolution? Perhaps the drugs were being made at Obama's personal request. Why else would Lamar Smith be taking and interest?

  • Administration Official: China did it.

  • Hardly surprising (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Demonoid-Penguin ( 1669014 ) on Thursday July 23, 2015 @06:34PM (#50171405) Homepage

    Not all "cooks" work out of caravans (what they call trailers in the USA). Chemistry labs in universities are frequently used by students, and occasionally staff, to produce illegal drugs. Even Lidcombe Analytical Labs where seized drugs are tested for court has had similar incidents.

    The (Oz) Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry used to occupy a building in Barton, Canberra. In the warren of large storage rooms in the lower basement filled with old furniture and equipment a cannabis grow room was once discovered. And two separate areas where people were living. No one was charged with the grow op, and it was quietly cleaned out. Two rooms along, sharing the same ventilation system was where the Quarantine Inspection Service dog handlers worked - and they would frequently do some of the "find the sock with the pot" training in the shared basement loading bays. Must of confused the hell out of the dogs (or maybe just the trainers). Especially given the number of IT staff who worked out of rooms in the same corridors and were known for using the same carpark for sharing a quick joint at lunchtime when it was raining outside.

    Several times I'd gotten out of a lift down to the basement with people that reeked of reefer and we've all had to walk past drug sniffing dogs being walked the other way along the corridors. I often wondered if AQIS detection rates at the airport could have been a little higher.

    That same building is now home to the Australian Federal Police - whenever I've visited the lower basement level I've wondered whether the tradition continues.

    • "Caravans"? Um, we don't call them that here in the US. The "Breaking Bad" vehicle would be called an RV (recreational vehicle), and a trailer would be called a trailer. Anyway, cheers mate!

      • "Caravans"? Um, we don't call them that here in the US. The "Breaking Bad" vehicle would be called an RV (recreational vehicle), and a trailer would be called a trailer. Anyway, cheers mate!

        A house in a van is called a camper-van here. A trailer is what we load with rubbish to take to a tip. A house on wheels that you tow we call a caravan. What you call a trailer park we call a caravan park. A 4-wheel drive is called an RV.
        "Cooking" in "trailers' parked in the "woods" is common [translates to] "Cooking" in "caravans" parked in the "bush". Have a good one buddy!

  • "Representative Lamar Smith (R - TX), chairman at the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, got involved today, expressing grave concern over the incident in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. NIST is part of the Commerce Department. 'I am troubled by the allegations that such dangerous and illicit activity went undetected at a federal research facility. It is essential that we determine exactly where the breakdown in protocol occurred and whether similar activities could be ongoin

  • If you want to know more about the risks involved in the production of illegal drugs, how to detect said production, and clean up the mess it makes, you have to make some yourself.

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