Kansas saw a nearly 50-percent increase in methamphetamine lab incidents between 2010 and 2011, according to updated numbers provided by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Such incidents had declined in Kansas and across the country until recently, but Kansas saw meth lab incidents jump from 143 in 2010, to 204 last year.

In a March Journal-World article on the rise of meth labs in southeast Kansas, preliminary lab incident statistics stood at 187. However, the state received additional reports in early 2012, said Loretta Severin, drug strategy coordinator for the KBI.

National numbers of meth lab incidents for 2011 also increased from the preliminary statistics reported in January, up to 11,128 from 10,069.

Through the first three months of 2012, Kansas law enforcement have reported 24 meth lab incidents. Two of the counties profiled in the Journal-World article — Cherokee and Montgomery — lead the state so far this year with six and five incidents, respectively.

Officials from those counties have attributed the increase in meth lab incidents to the rise of the “one-pot,” or “shake and bake,” method that requires less equipment and quantity of pseudoephedrine to produce meth.