Pubdate: Tue, 16 Oct 2001
Source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Contact: http://www.caller.com/commcentral/email_ed.htm
Website: http://www.caller.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/872
Author: Mary Moreno

CHILDREN REMOVED FROM HOME TEST POSITIVE FOR DRUGS

Daughter Says Mother Left Crack Cocaine In The Kitchen

The smell of the drug she smoked was always around her and her 
children, ages 4, 6, 10, 16 and 17, her oldest child said.

They saw her and her friends smoke crack cocaine regularly, according 
to police reports.

The 34-year-old mother of five had stopped smoking crack cocaine 
once, but her mother's death drove her back to it, her 17-year-old 
daughter said Monday. And sometimes she would leave the crack cocaine 
in the kitchen and in her bedroom.

"It was harder for me because the kids really don't know what's going 
on," the 17-year-old Carroll High School student said.

"I didn't like it. She knows I didn't like it. I told her, 'Look what 
it's doing to us and to you.'

"I had been telling her, one day the people are going to come and 
take the kids away."

True to her warnings, last week, the people of Child Protective 
Services took her and her three youngest siblings from their mother's 
home after receiving reports of drug use by the mother and children. 
The four children tested positive for cocaine. The 17-year-old with 
the long brown hair and the 10-year-old boy with the large eyes and 
curly eyelashes also tested positive for marijuana.

The children are now in foster care, living in a comfortable, two- 
story brick home in South Corpus Christi. The woman's 16-year-old 
daughter is listed as a runaway in a police report.

Their mother is at the Nueces County Jail charged with one count of 
child endangerment. Her bond was set at $50,000.

"We're doing fine," the 17-year-old said. "I'm not mad at her. She 
just needed some help and she didn't get help in time."

Child Protective Services Public Information Officer Marina Yzaguirre 
said it's not often that children test positive for drugs. Earlier 
this year, though, Child Protective Services did remove 22 children 
from area homes suspected of dealing drugs during a sweeping August 
drug raid. Many of them tested positive for drugs.

"It's not very common, but we are starting to see it more and more," 
Yzaguirre said.

The younger children miss their mother, especially the 4-year-old boy 
who asks his older sister when he'll get to see his mother.

"I tell them I'm going to be mom for a while," she said. It's a role 
she said she's familiar with.

When money for food was scarce, it was up to the 17-year-old girl to 
find a way to feed her four younger siblings. It also was her 
responsibility to make sure they had clean clothes and went to 
school. Their mother was too strung out on drugs to look after them 
properly, the girl said.

"It was real hard," the 17-year-old said. "For me, (taking care of 
four children) is too much."

Occasionally, she said, her mother would give her $10 or $15 that she 
would use to feed or clothe the children. Her mother didn't work, but 
the daughter wouldn't question where the money came from.

"I knew it was dirty," the 17-year-old said. "But it was all we had."

The 17-year-old said she doesn't know how the drugs entered their 
bodies. She was told the younger children had higher concentrations 
in their systems than she did. Too high, she was told, for it be from 
second-hand smoke.

"Maybe they could have seen it and picked it up," she said.

Walter Roberts, senior staff member at the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, 
said inhaling second-hand smoke usually doesn't show up in a drug 
screening.

"(The mother) would have to be smoking an awful lot to make that 
detectable in the test," Roberts said. "That's really highly, highly 
unlikely, though if it's for a long enough period of time, it's 
possible."
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