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Meth: Endangered Children Group Focuses On Saving Kids From Homes

WASILLA -- Police investigators say every meth house includes these
three things: guns, toxic chemicals and porn.

Other household items in clandestine methamphetamine labs, according
to experts Wednesday at a statewide conference on the drug, include
exposed electrical wires; rickety, half-finished home-improvement
projects; and makeshift booby traps. It's not a nice environment for
the children who live there and who often suffer neglect, injuries
and sexual abuse at the hands of meth users.

Social workers, lawyers and troopers -- including scraggly undercover
officers who migrated around the room to avoid television cameras --
about 175 in all, attended the Drug Endangered Children Conference at
the Lake Lucille Best Western. They learned new ways to take care of
the children who are often found in Alaska's illicit drug labs and
how to make parents pay for their abuse.

Good timing. Last week troopers said they busted three labs in the
Butte, finding children under the age of 5 at two of them. Even
during the conference, Valley investigators ducked out to investigate
reports of a meth lab at another hotel.

It was a false alarm, said Lt. Keith Mallard, who supervises drug
enforcement for the troopers. But Mallard said meth is likely the
most popular drug in Alaska now, and because it's so expensive to
clean up labs, it eats up more state money and resources than any other drug.

The conference continues today. One goal is to teach investigators
how to collect evidence so that prosecutors can hit meth cooks with
child endangerment or child abuse charges in addition to drug
charges. Still, Palmer assistant district attorney Rick Allen said
Alaska's meth and child endangerment laws still lag behind other states'.

Allen said some states passed laws that make it a felony just to put
a child in the proximity of a meth lab. In Alaska, parents who don't
physically harm their child in the meth-making process may face only
misdemeanor reckless-endangerment charges, he said.

Sgt. Tim Birt, who supervises drug enforcement for the troopers in
Southeast, said modern methamphetamine production showed up in the
state about seven years ago, when its makers arrived here fleeing
warrants in other states.

Attendees said the problem is still a relatively new one for Alaska
law enforcement, social services and the courts, one reason the
Mat-Su Drug Endangered Children's Task Force brought this week's
conference to the Valley.

In the past, the state has focused mostly on prosecuting drug charges
when authorities bust meth labs, said Jen Downey, executive director
of a children's advocacy center in Wasilla called The Children's Place.

"We're now realizing, yes, there may need to be child-endangerment
charges as well," she said.

Many meth cooks are about 25 to 35 years old -- the age most likely
to have young children in the house, said Ronald Mullins, training
coordinator for the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children.

Even for thick-skinned troopers, doctors and social workers,
Wednesday's presentations provided a sobering look into the world of
meth labs and child abuse.

One speaker, Emilio Mendoza, showed the photo of a California girl
about 4 years old on a large screen in the conference room. The girl
wore a T-shirt decorated with cartoon butterflies. Red marks circled her mouth.

Investigators originally thought the girl simply had peanut butter
and jelly smeared on her face, Mendoza said.

Instead, they learned the marks were sores, created by a combination
of dangerous chemicals that coated the house and by the girl's
persistent scratching. In addition to the home being infested with
roaches and vermin, Mendoza said, its residents had scabies, an itchy
skin disease caused by mites burrowing under the skin and laying eggs.

Phoenix police Detective Timothy Ahumada, another speaker , said some
meth addicts start taking the drug because they believe it improves
their sex lives. But living in a home with impaired adults with
supercharged libidos can be a nightmare for children.

"Kids become vulnerable to sexual abuse," Ahumada said.

The speakers also talked a lot Wednesday about the need for social
workers and police, two groups who sometimes see themselves at odds,
to work together to help children found in the homes of meth addicts and cooks.

"What we cannot afford to do," said Public Safety Commissioner Bill
Tandeske, "is raise second-generation meth cooks and drug dealers."