METH COOKERS LOSE THEIR KIDS

CHATTANOOGA -- An increasing number of Tennessee parents caught cooking
poisonous chemicals to make methamphetamine and using the drug to get high
are paying the price by losing custody of their children.

The state has taken 488 children from parents caught making or using the
illegal, addictive stimulant since Jan. 1, 2002, according to the Tennessee
Department of Children's Services' first such report.

The children, who can be removed immediately from the parents, are then
placed with foster parents or relatives who can pass state evaluations and
home inspections.

Some meth users lose custody of their children permanently.

Of the meth-related removals of children, 273 were in rural Grundy, Marion,
Sequatchie, Bledsoe, Bradley, Franklin, McMinn, Meigs, Rhea and Polk
counties in southeastern Tennessee.

The mountainous region has seen a rapid rise in meth use and manufacture
during the past few years. Experts say the drug is more prevalent in
sparsely populated communities because it is easier to hide the offensive
odor of the labs.

"I don't think that in reality they really don't love their kids anymore,"
said Diane Easterly, the department's team coordinator for Grundy, Franklin
and Marion counties. "It is on a different wavelength. They just don't
think. This poses such a risk to children. You are just cooking poison."

Vapors from cooking meth can cause respiratory problems, headaches, nausea,
rashes and sores. Exposure to fumes can cause loss of consciousness and
even death, and the labs sometimes explode and burn. Long-term meth use can
create paranoia and hallucinations.

A year-old state law is making it easier to remove children who are exposed
to meth making by defining such cases as severe child abuse.

Clothing, toys and other belongings are considered contaminated by such
exposure. And when parents are arrested, often at night, children are
forced to leave home with nothing. Contaminated belongings must be removed
by workers wearing gas masks and protective suits.

Dr. Sullivan Smith, a Cookeville physician and police officer who has
worked for years to combat the drug, described the 488 removals of children
as the "tip of the iceberg."

Smith said parents who make the drug typically neglect their children's
health and emotional needs.

"Then you've got all that chemical exposure on top of it," he said. "I
can't think of a much worse place for a kid to be."

Child-protection case workers and law enforcement officers say profit is
not the reason people make meth.

Users get hooked and then pay for their habits by setting up home labs to
cook the drug, Easterly said. Meth is made with commonly available
materials such as ephedrine from cold tablets blended with hazardous
materials like drain cleaner, which provides sulfuric acid, and matchbook
striking pads, which provide red phosphorous.

"Physically, once you get on it, there's only about a 5 percent chance
you'll ever break it. It's about a 95 percent relapse rate," Smith said. A
report on high intensity drug trafficking in the Appalachian region shows
that 388 meth labs were raided in Tennessee last year, up from 353 in 2001
and 168 the year before that. The same report shows that 300 meth labs were
raided in Kentucky and 41 in West Virginia last year.

Overall, about 10,000 children are in the custody of Tennessee's
foster-care system.