KIDS PAYING PRICE IN METH EPIDEMIC

State Averaging 40 Reports A Month

Mat-Su - The recent busts of three meth labs in the Butte removed two
toddlers and a 6-year-old from harm's way. But those children aren't the
only ones in danger in the Valley.

From July 2004 through June 2005, the state Office of Children's Services
received an average of 40 protective-service reports a month that were
connected to methamphetamine in some way, according to James Steele,
manager for the Southcentral region. Some reports were about children whose
parents who were using the drug, some had parents who were manufacturing
it, Steele said.

"We had eight reports of children living in active meth labs," he said. "We
proved to the courts that 10 children were in danger in the labs. If you
think in terms of child development, at a certain age, everything goes in
the mouth. There's a full gamut of toxic substances in meth labs -
oxidizers, poisons, corrosives. And they're not rocket scientists who are
mixing these chemicals."

The Valley's Drug-Endangered Children's Task Force formed a couple of years
ago to address the physical and mental problems of children raised in meth
labs. The task force includes people from several agencies that provide
care for the children, either on scene or later, such as the Alaska Bureau
of Investigation, the Mat-Su Borough's emergency services department, the
OCS and hospital staff, according to Steele. Right now, the task force is
reviewing its response plan for meth lab children.

"With all these different agencies involved, we get lots of community
perspective," Steele said.

"Obviously a drug environment isn't good," said Jen Downey, executive
director of The Children's Place in Wasilla. "But in these places, the
walls, the furniture, carpet and clothes get saturated with the chemicals
and fumes."

The toxins in meth labs can be absorbed through the skin, Downey said.

"Think of the crawlers," she said, "the babies on the carpet on their hands
and knees. And then those hands go in their mouths, too."

Alaska meth cooks generally use the red phosphorus method of making the
drug. According to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation,
wastes generated from this meth-cooking technique include flammable
extraction-process sludge, phosphine gas, iodine, hydriodic acid, hydrogen
chloride gas, phosphoric acid and yellow or white phosphorus.

None of these chemicals or gases are active ingredients in the final
product. Meth's only active ingredient is ephedrine. All the other
chemicals used are there to convert and crystallize the ephedrine into a
usable product. Pure ephedrine is actually extremely dangerous; in its pure
form, it is a controlled substance.

Converting ephedrine to methamphetamine produces volatile and toxic
chemical waste. A 2003 study of chemical exposures at meth labs conducted
by Dr. Jefferey Burgess at the University of Washington stated that the
persistence of iodine in the environment of the cook, "is very important to
the children that are present in clandestine laboratories as well as
children who inadvertently become residents in a building previously used
as a methamphetamine laboratory. Children crawling on contaminated carpet
may pick up high levels of iodine."

Aside from waste chemicals produced from cooking, meth contamination was
found in every one of the 16 buildings tested in the study, all of which
housed meth labs at some point.

"Even labs that had been busted several months prior to testing still had
contamination levels of methamphetamine present on many surfaces within the
building," the report stated.

In one controlled meth cook, researchers placed a teddy bear 12 inches from
the cook area and afterward checked the bear's pH level and tested the
bear's "fur" for meth contamination. The teddy bear had an extremely acidic
pH of 1, and was highly contaminated with meth.

According to the study, "Children playing with such toys may be exposed to
strong acids contained within the toy, causing severe burns to the skin and
mucus membranes, and also be exposed to significant concentrations of
methamphetamine - particularly if the toy is placed in the mouth."

Because the meth scourge is a relatively recent phenomenon, studies on
long-term damage are incomplete, according to Downey. But it is known that
damage to the children includes brain damage.

When the Mat-Su Narcotics Team plans a bust and suspects children are
involved, its members tell the OCS in advance, so the agency is on alert,
according to Steele.

"If the child has difficulty breathing or is lethargic, they get EMS
involved and our people meet them at the hospital," Steele said. "If the
exposure is lower, if the materials are there but there's no meth cooking,
maybe the kid's clothing needs to be removed and the kid put in a hazmat
suit. We get them a medical evaluation as soon as possible after that."

So far, 170 people have registered for a Drug-Endangered Children's
Conference that will be held at the Best Western Lake Lucille Inn in
Wasilla on Monday and Tuesday. National experts will be speaking about
national standards dealing with children raised in meth labs.

"The intent of the conference is to provide and assist in response
protocols," Steele said. "We need to make the public more aware of how much
kids are affected by being in meth labs. These kids have no choice about
being there."