Drug analyst can't keep up with rise in meth [View all]

Sometime in 2012, Richard Wold began going to the office six days a week. He also started coming in at 6 a.m., an hour ahead of most colleagues.

Wold, then 59, saw he got more done by starting early. For the first couple of hours, there were no phone calls, meetings or visitors to interrupt his flow. It was just him, his machines, some classical music and drug specimens.

As the only drug analyst for the Rapid City Police Department’s Evidence Section, Wold wanted to increase his output to keep pace with the growing number of local drug crimes.

By the end of 2012, he had conducted 2,605 drug analyses, a thousand more than the previous year. In 2014, he set a lab record of 3,233 analyses.

Read more: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/drug-analyst-can-t-keep-up-with-rise-in-meth/article_46f83771-2e19-513b-bc94-c93f0a7a0168.html