Pubdate: Sat,  8 Mar 2003
Source: Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Copyright: 2003, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: John J. Sanko

CHILD'S ART GOES RIGHT TO HEART OF METH BILL

A drawing by a 4-year-old Adams County boy was the only thing members of 
the Colorado Senate needed to see Friday.

It wasn't a picture of a stick family, flowers, animals or any of the usual 
things a youngster might draw. It was a drawing of a meth lab his mother 
had set up in their home.

Sen. Ken Arnold, R-Westminster, showed it to his colleagues to urge their 
support for House Bill 1169, which expands the definition of child abuse or 
neglect to include setting up a lab for creating illegal drugs in a home 
where children are present.

A voice vote for the bill, which already had been approved in the House, 
was unanimous. It will be up for a final vote next week.

It's a companion bill to another measure, HB 1004, that imposes stiffer 
penalties on manufacturing methamphetamine or other drugs in a home with 
children.

That bill, making it a crime that carries a maximum 12-year prison 
sentence, awaits action in the House Appropriations Committee. But it 
carries a hefty price tag - more than a half-million dollars by 2007-08 
because of the cost of carrying out the longer sentences.

Arnold's bill will make it easier to prove abuse or neglect and get a child 
out of a dangerous environment.

The danger, proponents argue, stems not just from a potential explosion or 
fire, but from the impact that chemicals can have on meth-exposed children, 
including chemical burns, respiratory problems, lung and tissue damage, 
developmental delay and brain damage.

Colorado shut down 468 meth labs in 2002.

The drawing that Arnold displayed came from a child in a home that was 
raided by the North Metro Task Force.

The task force's Lt. Lori Moriarty said the child was at the front door of 
the home that had been targeted for an early morning raid. He was in his 
Halloween costume - a skeleton.

He told police that his school was having a Halloween party. "Since I can't 
wake up mommy, I'm just looking for the bus so I can run out and catch it," 
Moriarty said the boy told them.

Moriarty said the youngster also knew what mommy was doing: "She's making 
drugs." And the youngster drew the lab, complete with cooker, distiller and 
distilling pipes.
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