METH CHOKES FAMILY LAW SERVICES

Telluride, Colo. - As more and more families struggle with the impacts
of methamphetamine addiction, finding even the simplest of support
systems is a challenge.

Just ask Richard Harding, an Olathe resident well-known for his
interest in local politics and community service. Harding and his wife
have joined a support group called "Kinship Families," designed to
help those whose loved ones have become entangled in the web of meth
addiction. Kinship Families is sponsored by the Mental Health Center
in Montrose.

"I am interested because our adopted grandchildren have been taken
away from us," Harding said. "We are no longer allowed to have any
contact with them because our adopted daughter began living with a
meth dealer, writing hot checks, and got interviewed by the CBI . So
we understand what grandparents who are raising their grandchildren
because of meth are going through."

Indirect relatives who are picking up the slack for parents who've
slipped into meth addiction may face an additional dilemma.

"Some of them are not eligible for any assistance," Harding said,
adding that he is working on a grant designed to help such families
obtain legal services.

Support of all kinds is available through Kinship Families, which
meets on the first and third Thursday of each month from 6 to 9 p.m.
at the First United Methodist Church in Montrose.

"This is a support group for those who are raising children they did
not expect to be raising," said coordinator Sabrina Zeise, who serves
as the early childhood specialist with the Mental Health Center. "It
is primarily for grandparents, but it is not exclusive. There is a
huge need."

In addition to legal issues, such families face problems with grief
and loss because they do not get to be grandparents, but must spend
their retirement years raising young children. Financial difficulties
are also common.

"We usually offer an educational component, as well as time to share,
because there is nowhere else they can really do that," Zeise said.
"Next Thursday we will have (local attorney and guardian ad litem)
Bard Remmenga come to talk about legal issues."

Zeise said that while the support group, which will be a year old in
January, has drawn some regulars, she believes that there are many
other families who have not yet come forward to take part.

"I think there is a very significant need," she said. "But it can be
really hard to find the time - many of these people are working
grandparents."

Families come from throughout the region, and childcare is provided at
the meetings, Zeise said.

"Just show up," she said. "We have materials to share, and we go in
whatever direction the group chooses. Lately we have been doing a
series of educational pieces related to reactive attachment disorder,
which is when children don't bond with their primary caregiver in a
positive way because of all the problems they have had."

While income-qualified families are able to obtain some legal
assistance through Uncompahgre Volunteer Legal Aid, the Montrose-based
non-profit recently limited the services it will provide, a
development that could impact at-risk families.

"For the first time in 20 years, we are not handling post-divorce
cases," UVLA director Patty Bennett said. 'It is all we can do to
cover those involving divorce and parental responsibility."

Many attorneys are opting out of family law entirely, she
said.

"The attorneys in my volunteer pool have done so much for so long,"
she said. "But more and more of them are not doing family law, and
Montrose is really growing. I could use about two dozen more family
law attorneys."

The problem of mothers leaving their children to pursue drug habits is
a relatively new one, according to local attorney Peggy Carey, who has
practiced law for the past 30 years. When she began her career,
finding an unfit mother was a rare occurrence, Carey said.

"Now, it is more common than not," Carey said. "It is a truly
horrifying sociological shift. Meth is a very serious issue - we are
starting to see more and more middle and upper class families with
wives who are addicted - and more and more woman who are leaving their
children behind."

Carey said she has seen three recent cases in which men have gained
custody of their children due to their wives' meth addiction.

One reason for the drug's appeal to women is just beginning to be
understood, Carey said.

"Meth hooks into the estrogen receptors on the cell surfaces," Carey
said. "That may be one reason women are more easily affected."

The sudden need for increased family legal services comes at a time
when those who have been providing such services already have all they
can handle, she added, echoing the need expressed by Bennett.

"We are all overwhelmed," Carey said.