THE ORPHANS OF METHAMPHETAMINES STRAIN FOSTER CARE

The Laura Dester Shelter here is licensed for 38 children, but at
times in the past months it has housed 90, forcing siblings to double
up in cots.

It is supposed to be a 24-hour stopping point between troubled homes
and foster care, but with foster homes backed up, children are
staying weeks and sometimes months, making it more orphanage than
shelter, a cacophony of need.

In a rocking chair, a volunteer used one arm to feed a 5-day-old boy
taken from his mother at birth, the other to placate a toddler who
was wandering from adult to adult begging, "Bottle?" A 3-year-old who
arrived at dawn shrieked as someone rubbed salve on her to kill lice.

This is a problem methamphetamine has made, a scene increasingly
familiar across the United States as the number of foster children
rises rapidly in states hit hard by the drug - the overwhelming
number of them, officials say, taken from parents who are using or
making methamphetamine.

Oklahoma last year became the first state to ban over-the-counter
sales of cold medicines that contain the crucial ingredient in making
methamphetamine. Even so, the number of foster children in the state
is up 16 percent from a year ago. In Kentucky, the numbers are up 12
percent, or 753 children, with only seven new homes. In Oregon, 5,515
children entered the system in 2004, up from 4,946 the year before,
and officials there say the caseload would be half what it is now if
the methamphetamine problem suddenly went away.

While foster populations in cities rose because of so-called crack
babies in the 1990s, methamphetamine is mostly a rural phenomenon,
and it has created virtual orphans in areas without social service
networks to support them. In Muskogee, Oklahoma, an hour's drive
south of Tulsa, a group is raising money to convert an old church
into a shelter because there are none.

Officials say methamphetamine's particularly potent and destructive
nature and the fact that it is often made in the home conspire
against child welfare unlike any other drug.

It has become harder to attract and keep foster parents because the
children of methamphetamine arrive with so many behavioral problems;
they will not get into their beds at night because they are so used
to sleeping on the floor, and they resist toilet training because
they are used to wearing dirty diapers.

"We used to think, you give these kids a good home and lots of love
and they'll be O.K.," said Esther Rider-Salem, manager of Child
Protective Services programs for Oklahoma. "This goes above and
beyond anything we've seen."

Although the methamphetamine problem has existed for years, officials
in several states say the number of foster children created by it has
spiked in the past year or two as growing awareness of the drug has
prompted more raids on laboratories and more citizens reporting
suspected methamphetamine use. Nationwide, the Drug Enforcement
Administration says that over the past five years, 15,000 children
were found at laboratories where methamphetamine was made.

Last week, the National Association of Counties reported that 40
percent of child welfare officials surveyed nationwide said that
methamphetamine had caused an increase in the number of children
removed from homes. The percentage was far higher on the West Coast
and rural areas, where the drug has hit the hardest. Seventy-one
percent of counties in California, 70 percent in Colorado and 69
percent in Minnesota reported an increase in the number of children
removed from homes because of methamphetamine.

Officials say the drug has made it harder to reunite families. The
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requires states to begin
terminating parental rights if a child has spent 15 months out of 22
months in foster care. It was intended to keep children from
languishing in foster homes. But rehabilitation for methamphetamine
often takes longer than it does for other drugs, and parents fall
behind the clock.

"Termination of parental rights almost becomes the regular piece,"
said Jerry Foxhoven, the administrator of the Child Advocacy Board in
Iowa. "We know pretty early that these families are not going to get
back together."

Methamphetamine is synthetic, cheap and easy to make at home using
pseudoephedrine, the ingredient in many cold medicines, and common
fertilizers, solvents or battery acid. Smoked, ingested or injected,
the drug produces a tremendous and long-lasting rush, with intense
sex em, officials say, taken from parents who are using or making
methamphetamine.

Oklahoma last year became the first state to ban over-the-counter
sales of cold medicines that contain the crucial ingredient in making
methamphetamine. Even so, the number of foster children in the state
is up 16 percent from a year ago. In Kentucky, the numbers are up 12
percent, or 753 children, with only seven new homes. In Oregon, 5,515
children entered the system in 2004, up from 4,946 the year before,
and officials there say the caseload would be half what it is now if
the methamphetamine problem suddenly went away.

While foster populations in cities rose because of so-called crack
babies in the 1990s, methamphetamine is mostly a rural phenomenon,
and it has created virtual orphans in areas without social service
networks to support them. In Muskogee, Oklahoma, an hour's drive
south of Tulsa, a group is raising money to convert an old church
into a shelter because there are none.

Officials say methamphetamine's particularly potent and destructive
nature and the fact that it is often made in the home conspire
against child welfare unlike any other drug.

It has become harder to attract and keep foster parents because the
children of methamphetamine arrive with so many behavioral problems;
they will not get into their beds at night because they are so used
to sleeping on the floor, and they resist toilet training because
they are used to wearing dirty diapers.

"We used to think, you give these kids a good home and lots of love
and they'll be O.K.," said Esther Rider-Salem, manager of Child
Protective Services programs for Oklahoma. "This goes above and
beyond anything we've seen."

Although the methamphetamine problem has existed for years, officials
in several states say the number of foster children created by it has
spiked in the past year or two as growing awareness of the drug has
prompted more raids on laboratories and more citizens reporting
suspected methamphetamine use. Nationwide, the Drug Enforcement
Administration says that over the past five years, 15,000 children
were found at laboratories where methamphetamine was made.

Last week, the National Association of Counties reported that 40
percent of child welfare officials surveyed nationwide said that
methamphetamine had caused an increase in the number of children
removed from homes. The percentage was far higher on the West Coast
and rural areas, where the drug has hit the hardest. Seventy-one
percent of counties in California, 70 percent in Colorado and 69
percent in Minnesota reported an increase in the number of children
removed from homes because of methamphetamine.

Officials say the drug has made it harder to reunite families. The
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requires states to begin
terminating parental rights if a child has spent 15 months out of 22
months in foster care. It was intended to keep children from
languishing in foster homes. But rehabilitation for methamphetamine
often takes longer than it does for other drugs, and parents fall
behind the clock.

"Termination of parental rights almost becomes the regular piece,"
said Jerry Foxhoven, the administrator of the Child Advocacy Board in
Iowa. "We know pretty early that these families are not going to get
back together."

Methamphetamine is synthetic, cheap and easy to make at home using
pseudoephedrine, the ingredient in many cold medicines, and common
fertilizers, solvents or battery acid. Smoked, ingested or injected,
the drug produces a tremendous and long-lasting rush, with intense
sexual desire. As a result of sexual binges, some child welfare
officials say, methamphetamine users are having more children.

The drug binges tend to last for days or weeks, and the crash is
tremendous, leaving children unwashed and unfed for days as parents
fall into a deep sleep. "The oldest kid becomes the parent, and the
oldest kid may be 4 or 5 years old," said Mike Stratton, a
pediatrician in Muskogee, who is involved with a state program for
children exposed to drugs, run in conjunction with the Justice
Department. "The parents are basically worthless; when they're not
stoned, they're sleeping it off."

The police who raid methamphetamine laboratories say they try to
leave the children with relatives, particularly in rural areas, where
there are few other options. But it has become increasingly clear,
they say, that often the relatives, too, are cooking or using methamphetamine.

After the ban on over-the-counter pseudoephedrine was enacted in
Oklahoma, the number of children taken out of methamphetamine
laboratories and into the foster care system declined by about 15
percent said Yvonne Glick, a lawyer at the Department of Human
Services in Oklahoma who works with the state's alliance for
drug-endangered children. But she said the number of children found
with parents who were using the drug had more than compensated for any decline.

At Laura Dester, three new children arrived on a recent morning, the
3-year-old being treated for lice and two siblings, found playing in
an abandoned house while their mother was passed out at home. The
girl wandered with a plastic bag over her hair to keep the salve from
leaking. She hugged her little brother, then grabbed a toy phone out
of his hand, leaving him wailing.

"Who's on the phone?" asked Kay Saunders, the shelter's assistant
director. "My mom," the girl said, then turned to her little brother.
"It's ringing!"