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KIRKSVILLE, MO -- With the seeming increase in meth labs, the Kirksville Police Department is asking for the public’s help.

In the past couple of months alone, Adair County law enforcement officers have busted a dozen meth labs. That’s up 25% from this time last year.

Detective Jeremy Cordray of Kirksville Police says it’s gotten easier to make meth and dealers are showing others how to make it.

That’s why tips from the public are vital to cracking down on meth labs.

“There have been cases that we worked on where it was initiated by the citizens giving us a tip.” Cordray said. “So we followed up on that and that actually helped made our case or maybe somebody that we weren't looking at before that we were able to identify somebody that's manufacturing meth.”

Detective Cordray also told us you can report information without investigators knowing who you are.

“People can come forward anonymously. They can call the bust line 627-BUST. They don't have to leave their name or anything like that. But if they can leave as much detailed information as they can. No one will call them back or put them down in a report. We've used it several times and made several cases off of that.”

Cordray and the whole police department are hoping this can be a community wide effort. Police is also working with local area businesses to help crack down on meth dealers.

“For quite sometime we've been going around checking the Sudafed logs and things like that. We still do that. But we also rely on businesses to call and report that people are buying chemicals, liquefiers, and some of those things that somebody doesn't get on a daily basis. The businesses report that to us, that's extremely important as well.”

Police say the most common signs that someone is operating a meth lab are chemical odors or suspicious activity such as people coming and going from a certain location at all hours of the day and night.

Missouri is the number one state in the country when it comes to the number of meth lab busts. Last year, law enforcement officers shut down 955 of them across The Show-Me-State.