GRANT PROVIDES METH-FREE HOUSE FOR CHILDREN

Center will be safe haven from 'poison'

CHATTANOOGA - Misery and suffering that methamphetamine causes for children
has the Cumberland County sheriff working to open a safe house with toys,
beds and volunteers on call.

"Right now, the only place we've got to deal with kids is here in the jail,"
Sheriff Butch Burgess said.

Burgess, himself a foster parent, said children are being exposed to the
poisonous vapors from cooking the illegal drug in his county along the
Cumberland Plateau.

The Tennessee Department of Children's Services last year removed almost 500
children from the custody of parents who were using or making meth.

Burgess said he has grant money and a building for his planned child
advocacy center. He said retirees have volunteered to stay with children who
are removed from meth-making parents.

In McMinn County, Sheriff Steve Frisbie is having a shower building
constructed to wash off people who are considered contaminated from exposure
to cooking hazardous chemicals including brake cleaner.

Frisbie said the shower building also is for his officers who might be
exposed to the poisonous chemicals.

While the long-term health effects from such exposure or from using the
highly addictive stimulant drug are not known, researchers say children
commonly suffer respiratory problems, tremors, difficulty with coordination,
an intolerance to human touch and a susceptibility to learning disabilities.

Federal records in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis reflect
what agents describe as a growing popularity and an apparent eastward
migration of the drug. In Knoxville, police say, thieves earlier this year
went so far as to siphon anhydrous ammonia from one business's tank into
containers ranging from kerosene tanks to milk jugs to make meth.

"It has spread to the plateau and then to the east," said Joey Reece,
resident agent in charge at the Drug Enforcement Agency office in Knoxville.
"We got it from both ends, from the Sequatchie Valley and the Cumberland
Plateau."