MEASURING THE FALLOUT

Who Is Taking Care Of The Children?

In a society with the ever-increasing epidemic of methamphetamine
manufacturing and use, a seldom mentioned factor in drug busts are the
children. What effect does the lab have on the children? What effect does
the child's removal from the home cause?

It is a well-known fact that children, no matter how badly neglected they
are, love their parents and naturally do not want to leave them, which is
exactly what happens when a child is found in a home where methamphetamine
is manufactured.

According to Melba Crawford, DHR Resource Development supervisor, children
are always removed from the home where methamphetamine is being
manufactured. To this date, none of the children have been returned to
those parents in Jackson County.

While there have been no long-term studies done on the effects of a child
raised in a home where meth is produced, the Department of Human Resources
claims that the children are always neglected - physically, emotionally and
even educationally.

Since the beginning of the year, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department
has made 55 methamphetamine busts. Fourteen busts have been made within the
Scottsboro city limits by the Scottsboro Police Department. A total of 13
children were taken from the homes during those busts. That is only 18
percent, a relatively low number but that total does not reflect the
children of those participating in the labs who were away at school or
staying with someone else at the time of the busts. They are also removed
from the home.

The Department of Human Resources has seen a dramatic rise in the number of
children taken from homes where meth labs are found.

"We have gone in during busts where the room was filled with gasses from
cooking and found young children there," said Jackson County Chief
Investigator Chuck Phillips. "We have masks and air filters that we wear,
but those children, like the parents that cook, inhale the fumes from the
chemicals mixed and cooked to make the meth."

Chemicals used during the cooking of meth are toxic and highly flammable.
Users are not the only people poisoned by the drug. Manufacturing is
extremely dangerous and involves many common household chemical products.
These chemicals and the various combinations used are potentially lethal
and toxic. When mixed, the household chemicals can damage the central
nervous system, liver and kidneys and burn or irritate the skin, eyes, nose
and throat.

"It is heartbreaking," Phillips said. "The kids are usually very upset when
we take them out of the home. Meth users don't see what they are doing to
their kids. They blame us for taking their children away from them. They
think they have done nothing wrong. The risk they put the children in
doesn't seem to concern them."

"Children who are taken from the homes are forced to leave everything
behind because of the contamination," Crawford said. "Not only do they lose
their family and their home, they lose everything they are accustomed to.
It is usually very traumatic for them."

Conditions sometimes found at the labs are at the least unsanitary. Often
acid spills have eaten holes in the carpet or flooring. The chemicals and
fumes permeate the walls, carpets, plaster and wood as well as the
surrounding soil. White walls appear to have a purple haze. The chemicals
are known to cause cancer, permanent brain damage, immune and respiratory
system problems. Reckless practices by the "cooks" can result in explosions
and fires that could also harm the innocent bystanders, the children.

A young teenager voluntarily talked with investigator Hal Nash after a drug
bust.

"She had the iodine stains on her hands from helping her dad cook meth. She
didn't like it but she was forced to help. She was glad to leave the home
because she feared her dad would kill her," Nash said. "She knew all there
was to know about cooking meth; she had seen it often. She also knew the
chemicals were toxic because of the skull and crossbones on them."

Fortunately, the child is no longer with the family. She, like others
caught in homes where meth was being produced, was placed with another family.

Those risks are only part of the problems children face who are raised
around methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine is an easy-to-produce, highly profitable nervous system
stimulant. A home where meth is produced is frequently visited at all times
of the day or night by those who buy and or use the drug. The users often
exhibit aggressive or psychotic behavior, irritability, anxiety, paranoia
and auditory hallucinations. Not only will children endure the odd behavior
of parents taking the drug, but also of those who visit the lab.

According to Crawford, a total of 78 children are now in foster care in
Jackson County. Approximately 40 of those have come from homes where meth
was being produced. Not included in that total are the endless numbers of
children who are taken from homes where meth is being produced and placed
with other relatives. Those children fall under the care of DHR Protective
Services where the children and their new households are monitored anywhere
from six months to two years.

The total number of children in foster care has doubled due to the meth
problem. The epidemic has become such a problem for the entire state that a
class was recently taught by the Drug Enforcement Agency to train DHR
workers how to recognize the presence of the drug and how to respond when
encountering the drug. Normally the department would be looking at half the
number of children in foster care. Case loads have doubled for the
department while they could be looking at budget cuts.

"We need more foster parents," Crawford said. That statement was reiterated
by Drenda King, Jackson County director of DHR and Mary Nixon, a child
welfare supervisor.

Someone has to care for the children.