KIDS CAUGHT IN CRYSTAL METH CAULDRON

She Was A Meth Addict. Up Until A Few Months Ago, That Was The Worst Of Her
Problems.

This happened right here in Edmonton. The woman, a 29-year-old mother of
two, described herself as an occasional speeder when she showed up on the
doorstep of the Lurana women's shelter with severe head wounds, a couple of
broken ribs and a bad case of the shaking terrors.

"Her common-law was a meth addict. He called her up one day, all paranoid
and throwing all these crazy accusations at her," said Karen Long, an
employee of the City of Edmonton's Community Services office and a member
of the Edmonton police spousal violence intervention team. She and her
partner, Det. Jeff Kerr, were delivering a cautionary lecture yesterday to
a room full of social workers.

"He beat her for seven hours, choked her, threatened her with a gun. She
spent six weeks in the shelter. One day a dozen roses showed up. She left
that night, taking the kids with her. We have no idea where they are now."

It wasn't love that got the couple from hell back together - it was speed.
Crystal methamphetamine will probably end up killing them both, just as it
will drastically lengthen the odds on her kids living into their teens.

The message Kerr and Long brought to the Family Violence 2003 conference
yesterday was that Edmonton's white-hot meth market is creating a growing
army of collateral victims - children, mostly.

They're getting beaten and neglected, they're having their lungs scorched
by toxic fumes and their brains turned to mush by the meth residue that
collects on their clothes, the carpets, the cutlery - everything.

"Take a look at this," said Kerr, pointing to a slide projection of a
crayon drawing a four-year-old Edmonton boy had made of daddy's kitchen
lab. He had it all down in detail, from the beaker on the stovetop to the
tubing.

"When we go into places where meth is being cooked, we're wearing full
contamination suits and breathing gear. And we're finding little kids,
living in all this," he said. "We've got to treat these kids like they're
contaminated, because they are, and everything they're wearing.

"We're seeing kids coming into hospital with chemical burns on their knees,
elbows and hands, from crawling around on carpets saturated with these
chemicals."

Meth's different from most drugs - it's almost as dangerous to make as it
is to take. There are two methods of manufacture - anhydrous ammonia and
red phosphorus - and they both involve a witch's brew of chemicals that are
either toxic, volatile, inflammable, caustic, or all of the above.

Childhood exposure to this stuff causes lifetime learning disabilities and
behavioural disorders - the sort of background you find overrepresented in
our nation's prisons.

How addictive is it? Heavy meth use causes the renal system to fail; the
body can't excrete the poison fast enough, so it starts to collect in
nodules under the skin.

Hardcore speeders have been known to cut these nodules open to get at the
drugs buried in their flesh.

If mommy's mining her own body to get a free hit, how much attention is she
paying to her kids? If she's addicted to a drug that's turning her mind to
jelly, how well will she cope when the baby's screaming?

"Meth doesn't make domestic violence. But it exaggerates the tendencies
that are already there," said Long. "Paranoia. Poor anger control."

"With meth addicts, we see a much higher level of violence," said Kerr.
"The beatings get worse, and the abuser is convinced everyone's out to get
him."

The trick for social workers who deal with meth addicts is to recognize the
signs of addiction - the incoherence, the exhaustion, the suspicious flesh
wounds, the chemical reek that most people liken to cat urine - so they can
call cops for backup.

As for the labs themselves, Kerr and Long have one iron rule: if you see
one, get the hell away from it.

"Don't go near it. Evacuate everyone from the area and call 911. Don't try
to shut it down," said Kerr. "These things generate toxic gas, they catch
fire, they explode.

"You know one way the narcotics cops have of figuring out where the meth
lab is on a street? If they see a lot of dopers going outside to have a
cigarette, they know which door to knock on."