METH MESSAGE: BE ALERT

Communities Must Protect Selves, Says Conference Planner

CHATTANOOGA - With methamphetamine destroying Tennessee families and
costing taxpayers, organizers of a conference for government
professionals trying to fight it want them to take a message home.

"Communities have to look at what they can do themselves," said Diane
Easterly, a state Department of Children's Services' Southeast region
team coordinator.

Easterly helped organize three days of workshops and discussions about
methamphetamine at a conference that starts Monday in Nashville.

She said the people who attend - social workers, law-enforcement
officers, emergency medical-care personnel, prosecutors and court
officials - can't protect their communities alone.

One scheduled speaker, Butte County, Calif., narcotics investigator
Sue Weber-Brown, developed a drug-endangered-children's program that
has become a model for agencies involved in rescues from "drug homes."

"You have all these addicts now who are now raising kids. It is
learned behavior," Weber-Brown said in a telephone interview. "There
needs to be a huge public-awareness campaign. We have to get into the
schools."

With meth breaking up families by the hundreds in Tennessee and the
state having the highest federal cost of cleaning up toxic residues
from clandestine labs - $5 million in the last two years - all
residents and taxpayers have an obligation to recognize and report it,
Easterly said.

Dangers include exposure to _the toxic, potentially explosive
chemicals that are cooked to make meth. That exposure causes
respiratory problems, headaches, nausea and rashes and can cause loss
of consciousness and even death.

Unpredictable, aggressive behavior by users is common, and their
children are often abused or neglected.

In a Bradley County case last month, a 12-year-old girl's burned toes
prompted her school guidance counselor to call investigators. They
discovered she was injured by chemicals used to make the drug in her
home. Investigators arrested her parents. She and a younger brother
were placed in state protective custody.

Since the start of 2002, more than 600 children in Tennessee have been
taken from parents charged in meth cases.

"I don't see that it's getting any better," Easterly said. "Our
numbers statewide and regionwide continue to rise."

Weber-Brown said children removed from meth addicts who have exposed
them to the toxic labs should remain separated from their parents at
least six months to a year, the minimum time required for an attempt
at treating the addiction.

"We're not sure we know how to rehabilitate people" who are addicted
to meth, said Susan Steppe, Tennessee's director of child protective
services.

Steppe said uncertainty about meth cases is causing a "staggering
problem" for case workers who do everything they can to keep families
intact while also doing all they can to protect affected children.

Easterly said the conference is intended to move people who see it
affecting children to "tell somebody I am concerned about this child,
help be part of the solution in their own community."

Gov. Phil Bredesen, who was invited to speak at the conference but
declined because of a schedule conflict, said he was considering a
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation request for additional funding to
pay for officers to work meth cases.

The governor said is "certainly something I'll look hard at if we have
the capability to do it at all."

Bredesen also said requiring retailers to monitor large-quantity sales
of ingredients used to make the drug, such as Sudafed and other
products that contain ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, is "something
we're going to have to pass at some point."

Tennessee lawmakers refused this year to follow the lead of several
other states and require such monitoring.

The governor said, "That seems to me one of the things we should look
at restricting."