Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 Source: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin (WA) Copyright: 2003 Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Contact: http://www.zwire.com/news/newslist.cfm?brd=1017 Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2619 Author: Kathleen Obenland POLICE DESCRIBE DYSFUNCTIONAL, VIOLENT DRUG HOMES AT FORUM Officials tell the audience at a forum on children and methamphetamine that the best things a community can do is build coalitions to fight the problem. The baby on the bed was so lethargic that law enforcement officers thought at first it was a doll. It slept as they searched the house and the nearby camp trailer for drugs. The baby was among five children officers found that day living in rooms piled high in trash, dirty clothes and filth. Drugs were stashed in the kitchen cupboard. "The house was basically uninhabitable,' Walla Walla Police Sgt. Dennis McKee told the crowd as he showed the search video at a methamphetamine and children forum at Walla Walla High School Wednesday night. The forum was sponsored by the Washington State Methamphetamine Initiative and the Walla Walla County Substance Abuse Task Force Methamphetamine Coalition. The crowd murmured in disgust several times as McKee's video rolled. The adults found in the drug house were arrested, McKee said. Five children were taken by Child Protective Services and placed in foster care. Cats and dogs were rounded up and sent to the Blue Mountain Humane Society. "That's just one case that we did here in Walla Walla,' McKee said. Last year, the local law enforcement officers removed 14 children considered to be endangered by drug use or manufacturing in their homes. In the early 1990s, it would have been highly unusual to find a child in a methamphetamine manufacturing lab. Now it's common, officers said. The difference is how easy it has become to make methamphetamine, officials said. Making meth used to require 12 to 24 hours, a lot of glassware and an extensive recipe of hard-to-obtain ingredients. Most manufacturers made it in remote areas. A new manufacturing method developed in the mid-1990s now allows anyone to cook up a batch in their kitchens in about the same time it takes to make cookies. Ingredients are easy to obtain, said Gary Bolster, detective with the Walla Walla County Sheriff's Office. In Walla Walla County, officers sometimes find people making it at home with the children underfoot. The ease of making it has fueled an increase locally in arrests for use and manufacturing, officials said. The methamphetamine made today is so potent it alters the neuropathways in the brain after even short-time use, officials said. The need for the drug supplants all other basic drives, including caring for the children. "As cops, we used to go in and arrest the bad guys,' McKee said after the forum. "We'd haul dad to jail, and leave mom to take care of the children. That doesn't work anymore. The moms quit feeding the kids, quit sending them off to school, quit changing the diapers. "...We always thought we could arrest our way out of the problem. We know now that we can't.' When children are removed from methamphetamine homes, they do not cling to their parents and cry like normal children would, said Roger Lake, president of the Washington State Narcotics Investigators Association. "There is no connection, no bond, no love in those houses,' he said. Given the choice between the drug and the children, the parents will choose the drug every time, he said. Drug use also promotes physical abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, assault, theft and a myriad of other crimes. Methamphetamine destroys areas in the brain, leaving extensive damage like a series of strokes. People who previously might have been bright, kind and caring will turn on those around them. Meth users have beaten their best friends to death in fits of paranoia, Lake said. "You see radical changes in them,' Lake said. "They will attack their children, mom, dad, anyone.' The children are left to raise themselves in violent, dysfunctional households. It vastly increases their chances of becoming violent, drug-using adults, perpetuating the cycle. Lake has tracked the fate of a few children, now adults, who were raised in drug households. One, for example, by age 36 was a drug addict who had given birth to 11 children. All of the surviving children were placed in foster care. Two died as infants while still with the mother. One was pulled apart during a tug-of-war between the parents, and one dropped head-first by the mother onto a sidewalk. Treatment of meth users is difficult. Many end up in outpatient treatment programs that only run 10 to 28 days, which is inadequate for the extent of their problem, Lake said. Meth users need at least 60 to 90 days of intensive inpatient treatment, and a year is preferred, he said. The best things a community can do is build coalitions to fight the problem as Walla Walla has, educate and try to prevent, officials said. Lake urged parents to learn as much as possible about drugs. "The number one way to prevent is to educate,' he said. "Educate yourselves so you can educate your children.' ON THE NET For more information about what is being done statewide to fight drug use, visit www.wsnia.org. For more information on methamphetamine and other drugs, visit mfiles.org.