BOTTOM LINE: METH PUTS CHILDREN IN HARM'S WAY

ASHEVILLE -- In the methamphetamine labs where children live, kitchen
counters are strewn with murky Mason jars, bottles of sulfuric acid and
discarded boxes of Sudafed.

Meth, which is released as it cooks, sticks to the floor and sides of
walls, leading to direct exposure for the often-overlooked and most
vulnerable victims of North Carolina's new drug scourge.

Authorities found children in about one-fourth of the 243 methamphetamine
labs busted in the state. About two-thirds of the labs were in Western
North Carolina, where the operations and their pungent smell are better hidden.

Also called a poor man's cocaine, or speed, meth is easy to make and cheap
to produce. A pound of the drug yields five to seven pounds of toxic
leftovers that require decontamination of the home or hotel where it's
produced.

Users operate most of the labs, which are kept small scale, increasing the
likelihood that children will be nearby.

"You wouldn't even want your pet to stay there," said Dr. Cindy Brown, a
forensic pediatrician and child maltreatment specialist at Mission
Children's Clinic in Asheville.

In Buncombe County, 14 children were found in the 23 labs busted during 2004.

Answering the dangers, Buncombe County and local governments nationwide
have started putting response plans in place. The strategy being put
together in Buncombe would send health care and social workers to the scene
of a meth lab bust soon after emergency workers arrive.

A meth lab's hazards Mary May, a guardian ad litem coordinator in Western
North Carolina, said that about 95 percent of the cases she sees involve meth.

"If people could just could see the pain and the torture that these
children go through," May said.

Most of the older children from the meth cases are fidgety and have
attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (AD/HD), May said. They have psychotic episodes and a lot of
respiratory problems.

"They are just sickly children," she said. "It's usually a lot of the same
symptoms that other children have but they occur more."

Babies and younger children often have sensory problems, she said. They
don't like to be touched or held. They have trouble with loud noises and
their eyes are very light sensitive.

"We have seen where parents had a lab set up in their children's room or in
their kitchens," May said. "We've seen some where they moved the children
to one room and used the spare room to make meth. We've seen where the
parents are using vans to cook--the same van in which they take their kids
to and from school."

"The kids are the saddest part of methamphetamine," May said. "We just
don't know what their future will be. I just look at these little babies
and think, 'Oh my ..., I just don't what will happen to you.'"

Sen. John Snow, D-Cherokee, who has been fighting to make Sudafed harder to
buy, said his first experience with meth in his area was when the
Department of Social Services called him about a newborn baby who already
had meth in its system.

"They were trying to find the mother because they had heard she was trying
to sell the child somewhere in South Carolina," he said.

In Buncombe County, Brown has most often seen children with burns from meth
lab operations, a common injury nationwide.

Meth use during pregnancy can lead to premature births and deformities.
High doses can raise blood pressure to the extent it causes strokes or
brain hemorrhages before birth. Some babies are born without arms or legs.
Meth-addicted mothers also have delivered babies with intestines outside
their bodies.

In Colorado, two babies died after their mothers mistakenly fed them from
bottles storing liquid meth.

Lt. Steve Dalton, supervisor of an anti-meth task force in southwest
Missouri, said federal bureaucrats responsible for anti-meth funding
efforts do not grasp the full range of the problems. The Bush
administration has proposed cutting funding for fighting meth production.

"They've seen pictures but have never been to a meth lab bust," he said.
"Pictures ... don't show the tears running down the faces of children
because Mommy and Daddy are being hauled off to jail. Or the children are
being taken away for decontamination. This melts it into your heart."

Brown has treated at least 20 children exposed to meth, with most reports
coming from social workers.

"A lot of kids who have been around a meth lab are coming from homes that
are very chaotic, with no food and no heat and no parenting," Brown said.
"It's a very neglectful and dangerous environment with toxic materials."

A response plan Buncombe County Department of Social Services wants to have
its plan in use within the next two months, with a lot of it based on what
is done in Watauga County.

Watauga Sheriff Mark Shook has responded to seven meth labs this year.

"Meth is the biggest problem in my county," he said. "But it has really
become the biggest problem for the whole western part of the state."

Watauga County busted 34 meth labs last year. And Shook has seen the effect
of the drug on its users and on the children who are around it.

"It's an extremely dangerous drug," Shook said. "It has a stronger
addictive nature than crack cocaine. It has a longer high, which has some
people up for days at a time."

People often act more aggressive while they are high on meth and often have
hallucinations, Shook said. The users are always extremely paranoid.

Shook has taken 17 children out of meth labs in the past two years.

He said a first-grader told his school teacher how to cook meth. In another
case, authorities found that parents were cooking meth in their child's
bedroom.

The sheriff also said he handled a case in which a mother abandoned her
three children, telling authorities she would not give up meth. She gave
her kids away to use the drugs, Shook said.

"It's a drug that will ruin lives and families, and more so than other
drugs," Shook said. "It's a drug that makes people feel like Superman."

"But after that high, there is a severe bout of depression," he said.
"That's the reason children will get neglected and people's appearances go
downhill. It's just something these people feel they have to have."

Gannett News Service contributed to this report.