Pubdate: Sat, 03 Dec 2005
Source: Brainerd Daily Dispatch (MN)
Copyright: 2005 The Brainerd Daily Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.brainerddispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1110
Author: Steve Karnowski,  Associated Press Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

METH EPIDEMIC BURDENS CHILD PROTECTION SYSTEM

ANOKA, Minn. -- For a premature baby delivered by a woman addicted to 
methamphetamine, little Logan Meir was coming along pretty well.

Doctors treating his underdeveloped palate had removed the tracheal 
tube he was breathing through and had sewn up the hole. If all went 
well, he would be ready for adoption in just a few days.

"The doctors say he will never run a marathon or climb a mountain, 
but otherwise he should be normal," his social worker, Libbie 
Pelletier, told Anoka County Judge Jenny Walker Jasper.

Like most of the cases Walker Jasper handled that day, Logan's 
highlighted yet another consequence of the meth epidemic: the drug 
has become a huge issue in child protection cases anywhere the drug 
has taken hold.

Though national and state figures aren't kept, some Minnesota judges 
say as much as 80 percent of their child protection caseload is now 
meth-related. Child welfare officials around the country agree that 
the meth scourge is responsible for a growing share of their work.

Experts say that's because methamphetamine is so addictive, and meth 
users are more prone than other drug abusers to neglect and abuse 
their children. Not only do meth users behave erratically, they can 
sleep for days when they come off a binge.

"There is no drug better suited to making horrible decisions about 
your children than methamphetamine, which keeps you awake for days 
and then when you crash it's like the sleep of a coma, during which 
you have no idea what's happening with those kids," said Roger Munns, 
spokesman for the Iowa Department of Human Services.

In Minnesota, where child protection proceedings are generally open, 
Walker Jasper's courtroom is a good place to see the extent of the problem.

On one recent Friday, all but a handful of the 30 child protection 
cases on her docket involved meth. In some of the cases, the county 
was trying to terminate parental rights. In others, the county was 
keeping families under varying degrees of supervision. Some of the 
parents got stern warnings that they were on their last chance.

For those who faced their meth problems, Walker Jasper often played 
cheerleader. "Your daughter looks just like you," she told a woman 
who passed the judge a picture of her children. The woman had 
consistently been testing clean for drugs and Walker Jasper was 
allowing her more visits to the children, now in foster care. "You 
have very cute kids."

Even the judge's docket didn't give the whole picture.

Many child protection cases are handled without going to court.

In Anoka County, close to half the caseload involves meth. 
"Forty-nine percent of our child cases today are directly related to 
methamphetamine," said Bill Pinsonneault, the county's social 
services director. "Three years ago it was only about 3 or 4 percent."

The national picture is much the same. A survey released in July by 
the National Association of Counties said 40 percent of child welfare 
officials in 13 states reported increased out-of-home placements 
because of meth in the past year. And 59 percent of the responding 
officials said the particular nature of meth users made it harder to 
restore families.

"It's pervasive around the country," said Laura Birkmeyer, chair of 
the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children and executive 
assistant U.S. attorney for San Diego. "Every state that is seeing a 
large increase in methamphetamine manufacturing is seeing the 
concomitant problem of drug-endangered children."

Even where overall child protection caseloads aren't growing, 
officials say, the proportion that involve meth is often on the rise, 
and those cases are among the most difficult to handle.

Meth fuels domestic violence, and kids can get caught in the middle. 
They also fall victim to criminals and predators who hang out with 
drug-using parents.

"Those guys can be pretty mean and violent," said Ann 
Stackpool-Gunderson, supervisor in charge of child protection for 
Isanti County. "Kids will come to school with bruises. We've had 
calls to law enforcement from older children -- teens wanting to 
protect their youngest siblings."

And then there are people who carry out the dangerous process of 
making methamphetamine in homes where children are present, exposing 
kids to toxic and explosive chemicals as well as the drug itself.

In Minnesota, court and social services officials say, the problem 
seems to be worst in the counties surrounding the Twin Cities. They 
include sparsely populated areas where it's easy to set up meth labs, 
with metro customers close by.

Between cases, Walker Jasper said that Logan's mother, Michelle 
Sydow, once had been doing well in her struggle against addiction. 
She'd moved to northern Minnesota to get treatment. She'd gotten her 
teeth fixed -- a common side-effect of meth abuse is a disastrous 
collapse in dental health known as meth mouth.

"She looked like a million bucks," Walker Jasper recalled.

Sydow should have stayed up north, but she moved back to the Twin 
Cities metro area, fell in with her old friends and started using 
again, the judge said. Logan was born at 27 weeks -- roughly 10 weeks 
premature -- with meth in his system, she said.

Sydow didn't appear for the hearing on Logan, now 2. But she was in 
Walker Jasper's courtroom later that day to fight the county's 
efforts to terminate her parental rights to her daughters, ages 12 
and 6, who are in foster care.

The mother's attorney, Susanne Mahony St. Clair, acknowledged to 
Walker Jasper that her client had slipped, but said she had a job and 
a home and would be returning to treatment.

The 12-year-old sat in the courtroom, with her own attorney by her 
side, but mother and daughter kept their distance.

They exchanged uneasy glances but did not speak as they left after 
the judge set a pretrial hearing date for January.

"She's really disappointed in her mom -- and she should be," Walker 
Jasper said afterward.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman