The opioid crisis has been at the forefront of many discussions across the nation; however, there are other drugs still affecting society, such as methamphetamine.
Spectrum News spoke with the Cortland County Sheriff's Office who receives data from the New York State Intelligence Center. Overall, the lab instances involving meth has gone down statewide.
In 2015, there were 350 meth lab instances. By 2017, it increased to 479.
This year, as of October, the number stands at 321.
In Cortland County, the number of meth lab instances has decreased as well.
In 2014, there were 39. This year, Cortland County has seen just 10 so far.
Here is a list of other counties in 2017 and 2018:
County: 2017 2018 (as of 9/30/18)
Cortland 33 10
Herkimer 6 5
Jefferson 71 53
Lewis 46 14
Madison 12 16
Oneida 46 40
Onondaga 2 1
Oswego 38 13
The Sheriff's Office said part of the reason could be because the substance use tends to shift from one drug to the next.
Authorities say they are seeing an increase in synthetic drugs like bath salts and molly. Experts also say heroin usage is also on the rise.