Pubdate: Wed, 27 Apr 2005
Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC)
Copyright: 2005 Asheville Citizen-Times
Contact:  http://www.citizen-times.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863
Author:  Lindsay Nash
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

BOTTOM LINE: METH PUTS CHILDREN IN HARM'S WAY

ASHEVILLE -- In the methamphetamine labs where children live, kitchen 
counters are strewn with murky Mason jars, bottles of sulfuric acid and 
discarded boxes of Sudafed.

Meth, which is released as it cooks, sticks to the floor and sides of 
walls, leading to direct exposure for the often-overlooked and most 
vulnerable victims of North Carolina's new drug scourge.

Authorities found children in about one-fourth of the 243 methamphetamine 
labs busted in the state. About two-thirds of the labs were in Western 
North Carolina, where the operations and their pungent smell are better hidden.

Also called a poor man's cocaine, or speed, meth is easy to make and cheap 
to produce. A pound of the drug yields five to seven pounds of toxic 
leftovers that require decontamination of the home or hotel where it's 
produced.

Users operate most of the labs, which are kept small scale, increasing the 
likelihood that children will be nearby.

"You wouldn't even want your pet to stay there," said Dr. Cindy Brown, a 
forensic pediatrician and child maltreatment specialist at Mission 
Children's Clinic in Asheville.

In Buncombe County, 14 children were found in the 23 labs busted during 2004.

Answering the dangers, Buncombe County and local governments nationwide 
have started putting response plans in place. The strategy being put 
together in Buncombe would send health care and social workers to the scene 
of a meth lab bust soon after emergency workers arrive.

A meth lab's hazards Mary May, a guardian ad litem coordinator in Western 
North Carolina, said that about 95 percent of the cases she sees involve meth.

"If people could just could see the pain and the torture that these 
children go through," May said.

Most of the older children from the meth cases are fidgety and have 
attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity 
disorder (AD/HD), May said. They have psychotic episodes and a lot of 
respiratory problems.

"They are just sickly children," she said. "It's usually a lot of the same 
symptoms that other children have but they occur more."

Babies and younger children often have sensory problems, she said. They 
don't like to be touched or held. They have trouble with loud noises and 
their eyes are very light sensitive.

"We have seen where parents had a lab set up in their children's room or in 
their kitchens," May said. "We've seen some where they moved the children 
to one room and used the spare room to make meth. We've seen where the 
parents are using vans to cook--the same van in which they take their kids 
to and from school."

"The kids are the saddest part of methamphetamine," May said. "We just 
don't know what their future will be. I just look at these little babies 
and think, 'Oh my ..., I just don't what will happen to you.'"

Sen. John Snow, D-Cherokee, who has been fighting to make Sudafed harder to 
buy, said his first experience with meth in his area was when the 
Department of Social Services called him about a newborn baby who already 
had meth in its system.

"They were trying to find the mother because they had heard she was trying 
to sell the child somewhere in South Carolina," he said.

In Buncombe County, Brown has most often seen children with burns from meth 
lab operations, a common injury nationwide.

Meth use during pregnancy can lead to premature births and deformities. 
High doses can raise blood pressure to the extent it causes strokes or 
brain hemorrhages before birth. Some babies are born without arms or legs. 
Meth-addicted mothers also have delivered babies with intestines outside 
their bodies.

In Colorado, two babies died after their mothers mistakenly fed them from 
bottles storing liquid meth.

Lt. Steve Dalton, supervisor of an anti-meth task force in southwest 
Missouri, said federal bureaucrats responsible for anti-meth funding 
efforts do not grasp the full range of the problems. The Bush 
administration has proposed cutting funding for fighting meth production.

"They've seen pictures but have never been to a meth lab bust," he said. 
"Pictures ... don't show the tears running down the faces of children 
because Mommy and Daddy are being hauled off to jail. Or the children are 
being taken away for decontamination. This melts it into your heart."

Brown has treated at least 20 children exposed to meth, with most reports 
coming from social workers.

"A lot of kids who have been around a meth lab are coming from homes that 
are very chaotic, with no food and no heat and no parenting," Brown said. 
"It's a very neglectful and dangerous environment with toxic materials."

A response plan Buncombe County Department of Social Services wants to have 
its plan in use within the next two months, with a lot of it based on what 
is done in Watauga County.

Watauga Sheriff Mark Shook has responded to seven meth labs this year.

"Meth is the biggest problem in my county," he said. "But it has really 
become the biggest problem for the whole western part of the state."

Watauga County busted 34 meth labs last year. And Shook has seen the effect 
of the drug on its users and on the children who are around it.

"It's an extremely dangerous drug," Shook said. "It has a stronger 
addictive nature than crack cocaine. It has a longer high, which has some 
people up for days at a time."

People often act more aggressive while they are high on meth and often have 
hallucinations, Shook said. The users are always extremely paranoid.

Shook has taken 17 children out of meth labs in the past two years.

He said a first-grader told his school teacher how to cook meth. In another 
case, authorities found that parents were cooking meth in their child's 
bedroom.

The sheriff also said he handled a case in which a mother abandoned her 
three children, telling authorities she would not give up meth. She gave 
her kids away to use the drugs, Shook said.

"It's a drug that will ruin lives and families, and more so than other 
drugs," Shook said. "It's a drug that makes people feel like Superman."

"But after that high, there is a severe bout of depression," he said. 
"That's the reason children will get neglected and people's appearances go 
downhill. It's just something these people feel they have to have."

Gannett News Service contributed to this report.
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