Rush, C.J.
“A person who knowingly or intentionally manufactures . . . methamphetamine, pure or adulterated . . . commits dealing in methamphetamine, a Class B felony.” Ind. Code § 35-48-4-1.1(a) (2008). The crime is enhanced to “a Class A felony if the amount of the drug involved weighs three (3) grams or more.” I.C. § 35-48-4-1.1(b). “Manufacture” includes either “production [or] preparation . . . of a controlled substance.” I.C. § 35-48-1-18(1). Accordingly, Indiana courts have consistently held that the manufacturing process need not be complete to violate the manufacturing statute. Caron v. State, 824 N.E.2d 745, 754 n.7 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005), trans. denied; Traylor v. State, 817 N.E.2d 611, 619 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), trans. denied; Bush v. State, 772 N.E.2d 1020, 1023 (Ind. Ct. App. 2002), trans. denied.
While the statute criminalizes the “preparation” of methamphetamine, it does not specify how courts should weigh an intermediate mixture that a manufacturer is caught preparing. The entire mixture certainly cannot be weighed as “pure” methamphetamine. And the statute is ambiguous on whether that mixture is “adulterated” methamphetamine. Several panels of the Court of Appeals, including the one in this case, have struggled to resolve this ambiguity and construed the term “adulterated” to include an intermediate mixture that contains methamphetamine. See Hundley v. State, 951 N.E.2d 575, 581 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), trans. denied; Traylor, 817 N.E.2d at 619–20. But that approach is not without disagreement. Harmon v. State, 971 N.E.2d 674, 683 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012) (Vaidik, J., concurring in result), trans. denied.
Resolving this ambiguity here is even more critical in light of the General Assembly’s recent overhaul of Indiana’s criminal code. The revised methamphetamine statute now defines a four-tier offense progressively enhanced by several weight increments, not just a two-tiered offense with a single three-gram threshold. [Footnote omitted.] However, the key language—“pure or adulterated”—remains the same.
After careful consideration, we hold that “adulterated” methamphetamine is the final, extracted product that may contain lingering impurities or has been subsequently debased or diluted by a foreign substance—not an intermediate mixture that has not undergone the entire manufacturing process. Thus, the weight of an intermediate mixture is probative of the weight enhancement only if the State presents evidence that establishes how much finished drug the intermediate mixture would have yielded if the manufacturing process had been completed. In this case, the thirteen-gram sample of the intermediate liquid mixture taken from one of Buelna’s reaction vessels falls outside the definition of “adulterated” methamphetamine, and no evidence of the mixture’s final yield was presented. Nevertheless, co-manufacturer Slabach’s testimony establishes that Buelna manufactured six grams of final product in addition to the thirteen-gram intermediate sample at issue here, and we affirm Buelna’s conviction on that basis. On all other issues, we summarily affirm the Court of Appeals decision. App. R. 58(A)(2).
Dickson, Rucker, David, and Massa, JJ., concur.