KIDS OFTEN VICTIMS OF METH ADDICTION

Many users' children wind up in foster care

OPKINSVILLE, Ky. - The physical withdrawal from methamphetamine wasn't so
bad. It was knowing what she had done to her children, then ages 7 and 10,
that made Teresa Cannon cringe in her jail cell.

"I forgot about my kids," Cannon says of the four years she spent cooking
and smoking meth while her children fended for themselves. "Looking back at
the way they had been treated, you hate yourself. I was so ashamed - so
ashamed."

When Cannon went to jail, her children, now ages 9 and 12, lived with her
sister-in-law. Now they're back with their mother.

But others aren't so lucky. Authorities have seen foster-care cases multiply
because of the spread of methamphetamine in Kentucky, Indiana and other
rural states in recent years.

With meth, "the parents are the users and the children are basically the
innocent victims," said Larry Marchino, director of the Knox County Office
of Family and Children in southern Indiana.

Marchino estimates about half the children on the rural farming county's
foster-care roster are there because their parents used, made or sold meth -
a drug that is often snorted for its rush of euphoria and energy. Counties
with the highest unemployment rates and fewest resources appear to be most
affected by the meth plague, said Glenn Cardwell, director of the Vigo
County Office of Family and Children in southern Indiana.

Nearly 40 of Vigo County's 180 foster children have parents involved with
the drug, costing the county about $150,000 annually. Foster-care costs from
$16 to $20 per day, depending on the age of the child.

"Our frustration is that it is taking up a lot of resources that we really
don't have," Cardwell said. "We don't have the budget to deal with it. If we
deal with additional kids here, that means we're shorting kids somewhere
else."

Nationally, the Drug Enforcement Administration reports that children are
nearby as the drug is made 20 percent of the time.

Earlier this month an eastern Kentucky man was arrested on child
endangerment and drug charges after a working meth lab was allegedly found
in his car - along with a child.

Because of the danger of the household chemicals and the anhydrous ammonia
fertilizer commonly used in the production of the drug, children can be more
at risk than with most other drugs since it is often made at home.

In 2001, a 15-month-old boy died in Rossville, Ga., of injuries suffered
from a meth lab explosion when a space heater was turned on, authorities
said. His parents were charged in the death.

Jackie Hofmann, a family case manager in Vigo County, said she has counseled
scared children whose parents were injured in meth lab explosions.

"We get more and more reports every day," Hofmann said.

Parents high on the drug are beyond considering logical problems that may
result from their children being around the drug, authorities say.

"When someone's addicted to a drug, it becomes the most important thing in
their life," said Cheyenne Albro, director of the Pennyrile Drug Task Force
in Western Kentucky. "It takes precedence over sex, their family and jobs,
morals, beliefs, and it changes their entire life."

Cannon met Albro when he kicked down her door one night and arrested her
husband. After serving 51/2 months in jail, she now assists the
Hopkinsville-based drug task force in training law enforcement about the
meth-cooking culture.

"You'd sell your soul, and I guess you do, really. God, family - no one
matters," Cannon said, describing what a person feels on meth.

Cannon said she justified her drug cooking by saying it was to provide for
her children after her husband started serving a 10-year sentence on drug
charges.

"But it wasn't for anybody but me and my habit," Cannon said.

The side-effects of methamphetamine use can reduce abusers' ability to be
good parents, Marchino said.

"They're very easily excitable. They can become paranoid on the drug,"
Marchino said. "Then when they come down from their meth high, they can
crash out for several hours at a time and basically they're completely out
of it."

In Kentucky, police try to call child-protection officials before a drug
bust, said Joseph Abel, an official with the seven-county Green River Region
of Kentucky's Cabinet for Families and Children.

A parent's arrest is "extremely traumatic. Unfortunately, sometimes it can't
be handled as sensitively as we like because of the situation," Abel said.
"If you have police officers getting ready to arrest the parent, we have to
be there in terms of the aftermath."

Child-protection officials say they try to place children taken from their
homes with a relative, but if none is available, a child will go into foster
care.

Cannon cries each time she recalls the day she made pancakes for her son
after getting out of jail.

"He says, you're a real mommy now," Cannon said.