YOUNG, VERY YOUNG ARE 'ICE' VICTIMS

They Start Young And Can't Beat Addiction; Some Have Babies With Health
Problems

HONOLULU -- They started as children. Many were in their early teens or younger
when they got sold on the high from a drug that's cheaper than marijuana and
more addictive than cocaine.

Now the women at the Salvation Army's live-in treatment center in Kaimuki have
children themselves -- underweight infants, toddlers with learning
disabilities, teenagers at a high risk of following their mothers' leads and
joining a second generation of crystal methamphetamine users.

''I wanted to stop, I just didn't know how,'' said one woman at the center,
Denise Mejia, whose infant is oversensitive to light, touch and sound because
her mother smoked crystal meth while pregnant.

''It's the plague.''

In a state where the drug known as ''ice'' has become a statewide epidemic,
increasing numbers of young people are the victims and the newest users. For
many, it's the drug of no choice.

Those most vulnerable to its effects are exposed to the drug in the womb or and
the home, in their neighborhoods and at school.

Kiana Johnson, another mother at the center, also took ice while she was
pregnant and later smoked the drug while cradling her son, letting the baby
inhale the noxious fumes.

Gavin -- who at 2 now has a chronic cough -- doesn't seem to hold it against
her.

The child, wide-eyed, scrawny for his age, jumpy and shy, playfully wears his
flip-flops on his hands as he runs to hug his mom on a recent day at the
center's nursery. When Johnson picks the boy up, he giggles at his joke and
buries his face in her shoulder.

''My son is always sick,'' the mother had said earlier. ''And I think it's my
fault.''

Gavin's health problems aren't uncommon for children whose mothers used crystal
meth while pregnant. And the difficulties usually start at birth, said Dr.
Mariailiana Stark of the University of Hawaii.

According to a seven-year study recently released by the nurse practitioner,
babies exposed to ice in the womb are more likely to require longer hospital
stays, cry more and suffer from sleep problems, tremors, seizures and changes
in respiratory rates.

Anita Barshaw is an expert at taking care of those irritable infants.

That's because over the past 15 years she has short-term foster parented 57
medically complex infants, many of whom were ice babies. Their average stay in
her home was six months, just long enough for them to almost completely
overcome their repulsion any kind stimulation, especially touch and sight, that
healthy babies crave.

''You have to introduce anything that has to do with sensory input slowly,''
she said. ''Some of these babies can't even handle the bath.''

The first ice baby she cared for cried 22 hours a day for three straight weeks,
she said.

Now Barshaw is the coordinator for a Catholic Charities unit that handles
infants with special needs, helping over 90 foster parents in Hawaii learn how
to take care of ice infants who in most cases will have to be swaddled, fed
away from the body and kept in a dark, quiet room for the first few months of
their lives.

Once the babies -- who are part of an increasing number of children taken away
from their homes because of drug abuse -- are stable, they're either reunited
with their parents or put up for adoption.

The state Department of Human Services reports that of the 2,723 children taken
away from their parents in 1992, 24.3 percent were removed from their homes for
drug-related reasons. Ten years later, 49.4 percent of the 3,801 Hawaii
children taken into custody were from homes where drugs were present.

''Ice has gotten significantly worse,'' said state social worker Jalene-Ann
Mastin. ''This drug has such an extensive grip, I will close a case and then
find out it comes back to us because of ice.''

Many of the 57 cases of child neglect on Mastin's desk relate to parents who
inhale ice, she said.

''I get angry. This baby didn't ask to be born. I've got munchkins who tell me,
'Mommy was smoking again today.' They should be worrying about what's for lunch
today.''

It's almost time for dinner at the Salvation Army center in Kaimuki and the 20
women staying at the home's cottages get their children ready for a quick trek
to the grocery store, where the women learn how to shop on a budget and pick
out healthy meals for their surrogate families.

The mothers say they're lucky to be with their kids.

They could be in jail or on the streets or on ice -- all places most have been
before. But instead, they're staying with their young children in the center
for six months, ''parenting sober for the first time'' and learning how to live
without they high they once thought they could never give up, said Claire
Woods, the center's executive director.

Some of the moms have older children whose custody they've lost because of
their addiction. Others admit that under the influence of ice they were
monsters, not mothers.

Kate, who did not want her last name used, said she's experienced both.

The 31-year-old has lost custody of seven of her eight children. She said she
took crystal meth just moments before opening the door to social workers and
shoving her children -- the oldest at 14 -- out as they screamed, ''Mama, no.''

Kate even offered her baby -- the only child she has left -- to a drug dealer
in exchange for another crystal meth hit. Luckily, she said, he refused.

Statistics suggest that kids whose parents have been addicted to ice are more
likely to go after the drug themselves. That's why the state funds Hina Mauka,
a school-based treatment program that serves about 600 students from eight high
schools on Oahu and three on Kauai.

The drug treatment and counseling program is one of a number of such programs
offered in 29 of the state's 42 public schools and it attracts teens by keeping
their substance abuse confidential from their teachers and peers, even their
parents.

Colleen Fox, director of adolescent services at Hina Mauka, said about 35
percent of the students enrolled in the program during the 2002-2003 school
year were steady ice users.

''The crystal meth problem has been ongoing for so long,'' she said. ''We
expect to see much more.''

So does Elaine Wilson, the chief of the alcohol and drug abuse division at the
state Department of Health.

''People are beginning to see it's people they know,'' she said. ''These people
aren't in somebody else's neighborhood. They are not living in a bubble
somewhere. They are living across the street from you. They have children. They
have grandchildren.''

But there is some hope.

A recent student survey by Wilson's division showed that the use of crystal
meth among adolescents and teenagers who are not known to have tried other
drugs has dropped off in recent years, probably because kids have less access
to the drug.

That doesn't reassure the women at the center -- a one-of-a-kind treatment
program that fills the gap between detox and a job.

Chantell, 25, who asked that her last name be withheld, didn't find out she was
pregnant until she was arrested for ice and cocaine abuse at seven months.

''I'm glad that I got caught because it gives me a second chance to get my life
back together,'' she said. ''Now my fear is someone is going to offer my son
ice.''