Pubdate: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX) Copyright: 2005 Austin American-Statesman Contact: http://www.statesman.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/32 Author: Joshunda Sanders Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) CHILDREN BECOMING VICTIMS OF METH EPIDEMIC Kids Found In Meth Labs Exposed To Drug, Neglect And Abuse Three-month-old Ariella Perez drank from a bottle laced with methamphetamine in June 2004 and died. Her mother, Gilda Casarez, admitted to Atascosa County sheriff's investigators in South Texas that she accidentally mixed the drug with Ariella's formula. The Lytle woman was charged with capital murder in August. Another child in her care was removed by Child Protective Services and is living with a relative. Methamphetamine, an extremely addictive and cheap synthetic drug, is not only dangerous to children who ingest it. It can singe the skin of those who touch it, and long-term exposure to its toxic fumes impairs neurological development. In addition, the drug leaves users high for days and makes them very aggressive, which may cause them to become abusive or make them too disoriented to care for children, officials say. When children are found in meth labs, the living conditions are often filthy. From Jan. 1 to Sept. 21, 1,247 children nationwide were found in clandestine and home-based meth labs, according to the El Paso Intelligence Center, which tracks drug trends. In 2004, 2,962 children were found in such circumstances.. Clandestine labs are large and often found in rural areas; small-yield labs are more common in urban areas, officials say. Austin Children's Shelter caseworkers said that in June and July they saw a spike in the number of children who arrived there from homes where meth was used or made. And Sgt. David Law with the Travis County sheriff's department said smaller, home-based labs are starting to be found in Central Texas. If there has been a local increase in meth production, however, he said, it has been a gradual one. Ten labs were found in 2003, four in 2004 and five through July 31. Last year, five children were found in labs in Travis County, Law said. The Austin Police Department did not have figures regarding children found in meth labs last year. If children are found in labs, they often need to be tested for addiction to meth and exposure to the drug.Their clothes and toys can become saturated with residue from the fumes and have to be decontaminated. In addition, the children may be neglected and sometimes sexually abused because the drug heightens arousal in users. "The poor kids get the worst end of the deal," said Lt. Joe Millhouse, an investigator with the Texas Department of Public Safety who spent four years investigating meth crimes in Southeast Texas. Smaller labs, which can be found anywhere, produce meth that "looks like little pieces of white clay, with a waxy texture," Millhouse added. "If it touches your skin, it'll soak through. If a little kid grabs it and they're small enough, it's enough to make them overdose and die." In the past, if adults were arrested at a lab, their children were given to relatives to care for. Now, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services can take custody of children at the scene because of a law that took effect Aug. 1. Of 14,059 children removed from their homes for any reason from Sept. 1, 2004, through June 30 in Texas, 54 percent were because their parents or caretakers abused alcohol or illegal drugs. On Aug. 28, meth became the only drug listed as one of 40 risk factors listed on the form the agency uses to determine whether a child should be taken out of a home. The change is one of several initiatives in the state geared toward tracking and counting children whose lives have been altered by methamphetamine. Another new law makes anyone cooking meth legally liable for the exposure of others to the chemicals used to make it. That law also called for the development of drug-endangered child initiatives throughout the state. Soon, state agencies will have plans for getting such children the special help they need. There are a dozen Drug Endangered Children Alliances throughout the country, and in June, Jenny Gomez, a counselor at the Betty Ford Clinic in Dallas, formed a Texas alliance. The task force plans to educate law enforcement agencies, emergency personnel and child welfare workers about the unique needs of children exposed to meth and other drugs. "Before, kids were falling through the cracks," Gomez said. During an arrest, for example, "Grandma would show up, and they'd give children to Grandma," an ill-advised move since relatives also may also be drug users, Gomez said. "We've created a protocol, so that it makes everybody's job easier, but we also keep children out of harm's way." But some say the new laws and initiatives centered around helping drug-endangered children don't go far enough. Children exposed to meth often experience developmental delays, non-responsiveness and behavioral problems, said Herbert Munden, who specializes in treating addiction at the Austin Children's Shelter. As these children enter the child welfare system and get older, they are also more likely to become addicts themselves, Gomez said. "It's an epidemic," Munden said. "It's just getting worse and worse. The problem is that we need treatment," he said. "They can spend all they want on enforcement, but until they spend more money on treatment, we're going nowhere." - --- MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman