Two chemistry professors in Arkansas have been charged with making methamphetamine in a college science laboratory.
Terry Bateman, 45, and Bradley Rowland, 40, from Henderson State University, were arrested on Friday and are accused of manufacturing the drug known as “ice” and using drug paraphernalia.
Tina Hall, a spokeswoman for the Arkadelphia-based university, said Bateman and Rowland had been on administrative leave since October 11.
She added that three days earlier police were alerted to a chemical odour in the campus science centre. The building reopened on October 29 after a company filtered the air.
The arrests have drawn comparisons with the hit TV series Breaking Bad, in which a cancer-stricken high school chemistry teacher begins making methamphetamine to pay for his treatment.
According to reports, Rowland was once nicknamed “Henderson’s Heisenberg” by the college’s newspaper, a nod to Bryan Cranston’s character Walter White’s nickname on the show.
He once told the paper that he liked the TV show because it helped students become interested in chemistry.
