METH LABS DECLINE, BUT KIDS STILL SUFFER

Now mostly imported rather than home-cooked, the drug figures in much
of Greene County's crime, and child neglect follows.

On the surface, Springfield may seem like it has recovered from its
ugly methamphetamine epidemic, but a closer look reveals lingering
scars.

The homemade speed, now often imported from labs in Mexico and other
states, continues to cause major problems for Springfield's law
enforcement, emergency rooms and children.

Meth is harder to create in Missouri now that drugs with
pseudoephedrine have moved behind the counter, but users and dealers
have become more creative in bringing the drug into town.

Meth labs in Springfield have decreased since 2005, when southwest
Missouri was known as "a meth center for the United States,"
according to the 2007 Community Focus Report, a "report card"
published every two years that summarizes the strengths and
weaknesses of Springfield and Greene County.

This year, no more than three labs were seized, a big change from
nearly two per week in recent years, according to Greene County
Sheriff Jack Merritt.

Yet 70 percent of inmates in jail are there because of meth or
meth-related activity, in Merritt's view.

"It's easier now to commit forgery or identity theft and get the
money (to buy meth)," Merritt said.

Likewise, the CFR says meth "plays a significant role in the
escalating number of property crimes."

Property crimes in Springfield and Greene County rose to 13,161 last
year, 1,000 more than in 2004, according to the report.

Undercover drug purchases, possession arrests and hospital emergency
room overdose reports also point to meth as a formidable, regional
problem, the report states.

Children suffer most

For Melissa Haddow, executive director at Community Partnership of
the Ozarks, those who suffer most from meth are children.

Although meth labs are harder to find now, children in homes where
meth is used continue to be abused and neglected, Haddow said.

"The user can ignore them for 24 ... 36 hours," she
said.

The CFR reports "Greene County's child abuse and neglect rate is 7.9,
still well above Missouri's rate of 5.3 per 1,000 children" and cites
"Greene County's longstanding issue with methamphetamine, coupled
with the increasing rate of child poverty" as major
contributors.

"One of the things that we see as a direct result of meth is
neglect," said Barbara Brown, executive director for the Child
Advocacy Center.

Because meth users can stay awake for several days straight, they
literally sleep for days to recover.

Brown said that another major issue not often talked about is the way
meth affects users sexually.

"It affects the pleasure center," she said. "It can really put
children in danger of being sexually abused much more than if there
had not been meth."

Eighty percent of the 614 cases the Advocacy Center has seen this
year have been related to sexual abuse.

Even the unborn are affected when their parents take
meth.

Since mid-2006, the Greene County Prosecutor's Office has filed six
charges of Endangering the Welfare of a Child in the First Degree (a
class C felony) against mothers of babies born testing positive for
methamphetamine.

Once they are born, "meth" babies can cry often, which can easily
aggravate their meth-using parents, whose tempers are shorter while
using the drug, Haddow said.

A hospital drain

In Greene County, admissions for meth treatment to drug-treatment
programs went from 358 to 512 from 2004 to 2006, according to the
CFR.

Treatment programs include those at Cox Center for Addictions and the
Burrell Behavioral Health Center, but not emergency rooms.

In fact, meth users who go to the ER are not sent to the hospital for
detoxification, according to Mark Beas, director for the Center of
Addictions at Cox South.

Beas said meth users generally do not have the "acute medical
conditions" that people recovering from alcohol or sedatives do, such
as increasing blood pressure and high respiration.

However, the emergency room is heavily affected by meth, he
said.

Methamphetamine makes users stay awake through extreme situations,
past the point when they would normally pass out. They often get into
domestic disputes or car accidents. That's when "the emergency
department comes into play," Beas said.

This can tie up hospital resources and personnel and creates longer
waiting periods.

"The Cox psychiatric units are over 90 percent capacity most of the
time," Beas said. "If you don't have a bed here, you have to find
another bed where a patient can be transported."

The hospital is responsible for arranging and providing
transportation to the nearest hospital, even to Joplin, Beas added.

Users often arrive in the middle of the night, in the early morning
or on weekends.

"This is when things start to break down for them," Beas said. "They
are trying to hold together normal lives in the day."

It's also the peak period at the emergency room.

In addition, addicts are often paranoid and can feel threatened by
hospital personnel. That's part of the reason full-time security
personnel are needed in emergency rooms during peak hours.

"Meth addicts are very demanding, very impaired," Beas said. "They
become volatile quickly."