CHILDREN BECOMING VICTIMS OF METH EPIDEMIC

Kids Found In Meth Labs Exposed To Drug, Neglect And
Abuse

Three-month-old Ariella Perez drank from a bottle laced with
methamphetamine in June 2004 and died.

Her mother, Gilda Casarez, admitted to Atascosa County sheriff's
investigators in South Texas that she accidentally mixed the drug
with Ariella's formula.

The Lytle woman was charged with capital murder in August. Another
child in her care was removed by Child Protective Services and is
living with a relative.

Methamphetamine, an extremely addictive and cheap synthetic drug, is
not only dangerous to children who ingest it. It can singe the skin
of those who touch it, and long-term exposure to its toxic fumes
impairs neurological development.

In addition, the drug leaves users high for days and makes them very
aggressive, which may cause them to become abusive or make them too
disoriented to care for children, officials say. When children are
found in meth labs, the living conditions are often filthy.

From Jan. 1 to Sept. 21, 1,247 children nationwide were found in
clandestine and home-based meth labs, according to the El Paso
Intelligence Center, which tracks drug trends. In 2004, 2,962
children were found in such circumstances..

Clandestine labs are large and often found in rural areas;
small-yield labs are more common in urban areas, officials say.

Austin Children's Shelter caseworkers said that in June and July they
saw a spike in the number of children who arrived there from homes
where meth was used or made.

And Sgt. David Law with the Travis County sheriff's department said
smaller, home-based labs are starting to be found in Central Texas.
If there has been a local increase in meth production, however, he
said, it has been a gradual one.

Ten labs were found in 2003, four in 2004 and five through July 31.
Last year, five children were found in labs in Travis County, Law said.

The Austin Police Department did not have figures regarding children
found in meth labs last year.

If children are found in labs, they often need to be tested for
addiction to meth and exposure to the drug.Their clothes and toys can
become saturated with residue from the fumes and have to be decontaminated.

In addition, the children may be neglected and sometimes sexually
abused because the drug heightens arousal in users.

"The poor kids get the worst end of the deal," said Lt. Joe
Millhouse, an investigator with the Texas Department of Public Safety
who spent four years investigating meth crimes in Southeast Texas.

Smaller labs, which can be found anywhere, produce meth that "looks
like little pieces of white clay, with a waxy texture," Millhouse
added. "If it touches your skin, it'll soak through. If a little kid
grabs it and they're small enough, it's enough to make them overdose and die."

In the past, if adults were arrested at a lab, their children were
given to relatives to care for.

Now, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services can take
custody of children at the scene because of a law that took effect Aug. 1.

Of 14,059 children removed from their homes for any reason from Sept.
1, 2004, through June 30 in Texas, 54 percent were because their
parents or caretakers abused alcohol or illegal drugs.

On Aug. 28, meth became the only drug listed as one of 40 risk
factors listed on the form the agency uses to determine whether a
child should be taken out of a home. The change is one of several
initiatives in the state geared toward tracking and counting children
whose lives have been altered by methamphetamine.

Another new law makes anyone cooking meth legally liable for the
exposure of others to the chemicals used to make it.

That law also called for the development of drug-endangered child
initiatives throughout the state. Soon, state agencies will have
plans for getting such children the special help they need.

There are a dozen Drug Endangered Children Alliances throughout the
country, and in June, Jenny Gomez, a counselor at the Betty Ford
Clinic in Dallas, formed a Texas alliance.

The task force plans to educate law enforcement agencies, emergency
personnel and child welfare workers about the unique needs of
children exposed to meth and other drugs.

"Before, kids were falling through the cracks," Gomez said.

During an arrest, for example, "Grandma would show up, and they'd
give children to Grandma," an ill-advised move since relatives also
may also be drug users, Gomez said. "We've created a protocol, so
that it makes everybody's job easier, but we also keep children out
of harm's way."

But some say the new laws and initiatives centered around helping
drug-endangered children don't go far enough.

Children exposed to meth often experience developmental delays,
non-responsiveness and behavioral problems, said Herbert Munden, who
specializes in treating addiction at the Austin Children's Shelter.

As these children enter the child welfare system and get older, they
are also more likely to become addicts themselves, Gomez said.

"It's an epidemic," Munden said.

"It's just getting worse and worse. The problem is that we need
treatment," he said. "They can spend all they want on enforcement,
but until they spend more money on treatment, we're going nowhere."