METH BECOMES FACTOR IN CASES OF CHILD ABUSE

Inside the house, police found three children -- all younger than 5.
Their parents were taken to jail in handcuffs, and the kids were
whisked off to a hospital. When they got there, their clothes were
removed, double bagged and prepared for special disposal as highly toxic waste.

The children were checked for breathing problems, chemical burns,
malnutrition and signs of abuse. Their urine was tested.

Next, they were taken to a decontamination room, where they were
bathed and shampooed in an effort to remove residual chemicals from
their skin and hair, dressed in hospital gowns and sent to Cedars
Home for Children for emergency shelter.

These kids were not in a house with high levels of radiation. They
hadn't been exposed to anthrax or some other deadly substance.

They lived with meth addicts who'd turned their home into a meth lab.

Their mom was released from jail the next day and social workers said
she could have the kids back, but they couldn't go home because the
house had been sealed and deemed unsafe for human habitation.

"The house was not decontaminated for approximately 45 days," said
James Blue, president and CEO of Cedars Home for Children Foundation.

Statistics and anecdotal evidence show this family's story is
becoming far too common for Nebraska, where child abuse and neglect
cases have hit a five-year high, more and more children are staying
in foster care longer and nearly half of them are bounced from home
to home while their parents either try pull their lives together or
lose the right to call their children their own.

"Methamphetamine really has begun to change the face of child
welfare," said Blue.

Meth abuse compounds issues faced by families, said Kathy Bigsby
Moore, executive director of the nonprofit advocate Voices for
Children in Nebraska.

"It interferes with the economics of a household, the ability to
parent," she said.

Todd Landry, president and CEO of Child Saving Institute, which
provides emergency shelter and foster care for kids in the Omaha
area, said meth use is a crisis for Nebraska.

"And, it's not going away," he said. "One-third of all children in
our foster care program and one half of the children in our emergency
shelters are victims due to methamphetamine abuse."

Seventy percent of adolescents and teens in Journeys substance abuse
treatment programs in Omaha cite meth as their primary or preferred
drug, Landry said. Three years ago, drugs of choice were fairly
evenly distributed between alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other
illicit street drugs, he said.

Almost all of the girls at Journeys for substance abuse treatment are
meth users.

"They say they lose weight and feel great," Landry said. "That's very
true when they first take meth, but it has an incredibly detrimental
impact on the body."

While meth addicts often are easy to identify by their emaciated,
sore-riddled bodies, the relationship between meth addiction and
child abuse and neglect is difficult to ascertain.

Child welfare statistics don't distinguish between meth and other
substances being abused.

But following the death last summer of an 8-month-old girl who
suffocated after her mother crawled into her playpen as she crashed
from a meth high, the Douglas County attorney's office and Voices for
Children studied 94 child abuse and neglect cases over a three-month period.

Of those, 34 cases involved 74 children whose parents were on meth.
In 13, babies were born with meth in their systems, meaning their
mothers ingested meth one to three days before giving birth,
according to the 2005 Kids Count Data Book released last week.

Applied statewide, the numbers indicate 36 percent of all child abuse
and neglect cases are tied to methamphetamine.

According to Bigsby Moore, county attorneys and judges say that
number is on target -- if not low -- for what they are seeing.

Meth alone cannot be blamed for the increase in child abuse and
neglect reports, which for the first time topped 20,000 in 2004 -- up
from 16,000 in 2003, said Blue.

But meth certainly is a factor, especially in child neglect, say officials.

"Neglect is the unseen part -- someone whose life is so overtaken by
chemical abuse that their children become secondary," said Carl
Valenti, administrative manager of BryanLGH Medical Center's
emergency department.

Parents forget to feed their kids, take them to school, and, in some
instances, they forget they even have children, said Landry.

"When they are that sick, they are not competent to take care of
their children. Otherwise these kids would not be exposed (to the
drug)," Valenti said.

Meth is dangerous on numerous fronts. It is brewed with volatile,
caustic, extremely toxic chemicals -- often in bathtubs and sinks.
And it is highly addictive.

"From a cop's standpoint, it is by far the most addicting drug I have
seen and it has the most destructive effect on people that I have
ever seen," said Capt. Todd Duncan, of the Lancaster County Sheriff's
Offfice's criminal investigation division.

There is no such thing as a recreational meth user, said Duncan. One
use can leave a person hooked.

"These people cannot conduct lives for themselves, there's no way in
hell they can be a parent," he said.

Children living in homes where meth is manufactured or living with
parents who manufacture the drug elsewhere are at risk from the toxic
chemicals they breathe in or come into physical contact with.

"The physical effects of methamphetamine are well-documented and
horrifying,"Duncan said. "To think a child can be in that environment
and not be equally physically harmed or more so ... do the math. It's
pretty bad."

Steve Beal, assistant director for the Lincoln/Lancaster County
Health Department, recalled a case in which officers found
hydrochloric acid -- a chemical used for cleaning metals and an
ingredient in meth -- in a child's sippy cup.

People do drastic things to hide the evidence of their meth cooking, Beal said.

A preliminary study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found
significant changes in the brain structure of meth abusers.

Scientists know a child's brain continues to develop into the late
teens, and while they theorize that exposure to meth takes a toll on
a still-maturing brain, it remains unknown.

But Landry said his staff is finding that infants exposed to meth
before or shortly after birth seem to have an increased incidence of
reflux disease and tend either be very quiet for long periods of time
or cry for very long periods of time.

"Also, we are seeing, initially, that they are slower developmentally
than babies raised in a healthy environment or with mothers who were
healthy during pregnancy," Landry said.

Whether the effects are long-term or permanent is unknown. It may
also be hard to separate the effects of meth exposure from neglect.
Scientists know neglect and lack of nurturing can cause brain
neuro-receptors to die off.

There is little doubt, however, that if meth can eat the enamel off
of human teeth, permeate walls and carpeting to make a building
uninhabitable, it is hazardous to children crawling on the floor,
putting putting their contaminated hands in their mouths and
breathing toxic fumes.

Gregg Wright, researcher and associate professor at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln's Center on Children Families and the Law, helped
develop a protocol for drug teams, emergency medical workers and
health officials who remove children from homes where meth is manufactured.

Called CHEM-L for Children Exposed to Methamphetamine Laboratories,
the protocol is not consistently used throughout the state, but it is
in place in Lancaster County.

While the protocol stresses decontamination, Wright is quick to point
out that exposed children do not pose an immediate health threat to others.

"They are not going to be a hazard for people who come in contact
with them," he said, unless they have had chemicals actually spilled on them.

Health officials don't know what to expect as kids who have been
exposed get older.

"The short-term risks are easy to see," said Wright. "The long-term
hazards ... we just don't know.

"The parenting failure is probably bigger than any chemical risk --
and the chemical risks are really big."
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Facts On Meth

What It Is

A highly toxic, volatile drug made from a variety of easy-to-buy
substances including battery acid, drain cleaner, antifreeze, lantern
fuel and pseudoephedrine (found in over-the-counter cold drugs).

How It Works

It works in the brain and gives users a sense of energy that can make
them push their bodies faster and further than they are meant to go.
Even in small amounts, meth makes a person feel more awake and more active.

It also makes people lose their appetite, become irritable and
aggressive. It can increase blood pressure and heart rate.

The extreme euphoric high is usually followed by a severe crash.

Why It Is So Prevalent

Meth is cheap, easy to get and can be made in homes, garages,
basements or even fields.

It produces an immediate, euphoric high.

Women and teen girls are attracted to meth because it suppresses
their appetite and helps them lose weight.

The Problem For Children

Children in homes where meth is cooked are exposed to toxins that can
cause neurological, emotional and health problems.

Kids whose parents use meth frequently are neglected.