Pubdate: Thu, 25 May 2000 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Website: http://www.sacbee.com/ Feedback: http://www.sacbee.com/about_us/sacbeemail.html Address: P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento CA 95852 Contact: http://www.sacbee.com/voices/voices_forum.html Copyright: 2000 The Sacramento Bee Author: Mareva Brown, Bee Staff Writer HELPING METH'S YOUNGEST VICTIMS: CONFERENCE FOCUSES ON CHILDREN OF USERS Thousands of California children are living in toxic waste sites as their parents cook, use and sell methamphetamines, making them among the most critically at-risk children for abuse, neglect and medical problems, a parade of experts warned this week. Last year alone, more than 1,000 children were found living in clandestine "meth" labs seized by law enforcement officers in California. Of those children, between one-third and one-half showed traces of the drug in their systems, according to data presented at a Drug-Endangered Children conference. The session, which drew nearly 500 participants from across the nation, was held Tuesday and Wednesday at Sacramento's Doubletree Hotel. Violent outbursts associated with methamphetamine use often are targeted at children and others living in the household, experts also noted. Surrounded by photographs showing young children who were bruised, filthy and living amid bottles of chemicals used to brew the drug, law enforcement officers and child welfare experts urged communities to create special task forces to focus not on the abusers but on the children. For years, "we hooked (handcuffed) and booked the suspect, put the kids with the nearest person and moved on," said Mitchel Brown, an assistant chief with the state's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. "But you can't leave a kid in that home." Brown was honored at the conference along with his wife, a Butte County district attorney's investigator, for helping start the state's premier Drug-Endangered Children task force, which incorporates social workers, law enforcement officials and prosecutors to ensure children taken from meth labs are protected. He described methamphetamine addicts who routinely sell or inject the drug in front of their children, or hide drugs in their babies' diapers. Brown said children get high on meth by inhaling secondhand smoke from their parents' pipes. Others eat food that is contaminated by being refrigerated next to chemicals used to make meth or "crank." "Unless you break the chain of events in their lives, these kids are our future felons," he said. Methamphetamine, with its relatively cheap, long high, has long been considered a California drug, although its popularity has begun to spread east. Between 1994 and 1998, the number of labs seized nationally increased sixfold from 263 to 1,627, said Sue Foster, research director of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. She described the problem as most acute in rural areas, where law enforcement officers are far-flung and communities often lack the tax base to provide comprehensive medical, mental health and other resources to specifically address the needs of children in meth homes. "Meth has come to Main Street today," Foster, the conference's keynote speaker, said Wednesday. "And there is cause for alarm." In seven of 10 child abuse or neglect cases in the United States, substance abuse was either the cause or a contributing factor, according to researchers working under Foster who surveyed nearly 1,000 social-work professionals nationally. About 22,000 infants annually are abandoned at birth in hospitals nationally by addicted mothers, she said. Most of those babies also test positive for drugs. And the numbers of children in long-term foster care have skyrocketed. "It is alarming to realize that the most unsafe place in our society is in the home," said California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who spoke at Tuesday's dinner. "Although it's still generally the case that that's where children are nurtured and loved, statistically, that's (also) where most kids are killed -- at home." Lockyer and others -- including a deputy in U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's office who spoke via video -- lauded the California communities that have created DEC programs. Seven of those counties are supported by grants from the state Office of Criminal Justice Planning. Several other counties, including Placer and Solano, started programs independently, "because it's the right thing to do," said Sue Webber-Brown, the Butte investigator who spearheaded the state's first program. "You have to do it out of hide if you don't have the (grant) funds." Dr. Ed Melia, a pediatrician and adviser on children and youth for the state, urged listeners not to miss the opportunity to effect change. "This moment in history, where there is an impetus to create safe families, is critical," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk