BILL WOULD AID CHILDREN EXPOSED TO METHAMPHETAMINE

San Bernardino County will share in $10 million earmarked in a state Senate
bill to help children exposed to methamphetamine by parents or others
arrested for manufacturing the drug in their homes.

The bill's money will help children endangered by methamphetamine labs in
San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Butte and Shasta
counties.

On Wednesday in Sacramento, the Central Valley lost a showdown with Southern
California over the money.

Senators approved a bill to take the $10 million from a $30 million effort
to shut down methamphetamine labs in the Central Valley.

State Sen. Charles Poochigian, R-Fresno, said he hopes Gov. Gray Davis, who
originally proposed the $30 million for the Central Valley, will veto
Assembly Bill 41 by Assemblyman Carl Washington, D-Paramount.

Methamphetamine is produced by small-time criminal entrepreneurs and by
major drug dealers in farmhouses, suburban homes, warehouse and other hidden
locations throughout the state.

Law enforcement figures show that from half to 80 percent of the nation's
meth supply comes from California.

Law enforcement officials have said a lot of the methamphetamine is produced
in San Bernardino County's High Desert.

Since 1995, Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, said Southern California has
received $157 million to deal with methamphetamine while the Central Valley
has only received $3.8 million.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, argued that the regions have programs
that are worthwhile and should share the money.

An explosion in a methamphetamine lab in Ontario four years ago led to a
similar effort in the Assembly to provide funds to help children exposed to
the drug.

That measure was pushed by the Ontario Police Department's narcotics squad
after a 9-year-old girl was injured in drug-lab explosion inside a Vesta
Street home.

A man who police said was cooking methamphetamine in his kitchen on that day
in May 1997 sustained third-degree burns over most of his body.

But it was the damage officers couldn't see that perhaps disturbed them the
most.

The man lived in the house with his wife and the girl. A doctor who examined
the girl after the fire found scarring in her lungs.

The scarring was caused by consistent inhalation of the toxic chemicals used
to make the drug, said Ontario police Detective Diane Gallindo, an officer
at the scene of the explosion.