They are scalded with hot water. They are forced to drink bad milk because no one remembered to buy fresh. They are left in hot cars for hours on end while their parents score a fix. They are sexually abused. They are beaten. They are abandoned. Sometimes they die.
They are the children of methamphetamine users and in counties across the country police and child welfare workers are grappling with ways to deal with these so-called meth orphans.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, in 2004 children were present at 20 percent of all meth lab busts. However law enforcement officials note that the number of children affected is probably much higher because although there may not be children present at the time of the bust, there is often evidence — clothes, toys, baby bottles — that a child lives in the home where meth is being cooked. Because of the toxic dangers surrounding meth labs counties have had to come up with new ways to deal with the children they find in these places.
"We weren’t prepared at all to deal with this," said Mathew "Jim" Atkinson, director of Social Services for rural Watauga County, N.C. "We’re a county agency but we administer state and federal programs and the state of North Carolina was unprepared to deal with the meth lab phenomena."
Atkinson said the very first thing his department did was contact other local agencies that had been dealing with meth lab problem and find out how they tackled the issue of children at meth labs.
"We were very, very fortunate in our county to have the sort of collaboration that we would need to tackle this problem," Atkinson said.
The county was able to develop a full protocol for dealing with meth labs that has subsequently become a model for the state.
After the Washington Legislature passed the Drug Endangered Children’s Law in 2000, Pierce County established its own set of protocols (see below) to deal with children found in or around meth labs.
In the late 1990s, Madera County, Calif. unexpectedly found itself to be the "meth capital of the world." This inauspicious title forced the county to come to terms with how to handle meth lab busts and in particular, the children they found there.
"Our staff would show up to pick up children [at meth busts] in regular clothes while everyone else was dressed in biochemical suits," explained Hub Walsh director of Social Services. "We really weren’t equipped to deal with the ramifications of it all."
So the department set out to create a protocol that can be called into play any time there is a narcotics bust in the county. The first order of business was to work with law enforcement officials on how and when to contact social services staff. From there, social services staff would take children to area medical facilities for a check up and once cleared medically, the children would be placed in the traditional foster care system.
"Creating the protocol was really a joint effort," Walsh said. "They [law enforcement] wanted us to be better at it, and we wanted to be better at it."
Interestingly enough, since the county was able to complete their protocol they have not had an occasion to really put it into play.
"The number of meth lab busts in our county has really diminished," Walsh said. "That doesn’t indicate that we don’t still have a meth problem in Madera, it’s just that much of the production has moved offshore."
Walsh was quick to point out that simply because the number of meth labs have decreased in the county does not mean that the county is still not faced with an alarming number of meth orphans.
"The number of meth families has not decreased at all," Walsh said. "Dealing with the meth orphans means dealing with the parents. Our experience has been that traditional drug and alcohol [treatment] approach does not work with meth. We need to deal with them or we’re going to see an increased number of children in foster care."
Children of meth addicts face a variety of problems, some similar to other children of addicted parents and some unique to the meth phenomena.
Many of the children taken from these homes are severely malnourished and lack many basic skills. For children exposed to the toxic drugs there are problems with hyperactivity, impulsivity and probable long-term learning disabilities.
Because the high created by meth also causes an elevated sex drive, many children are sexually abused. Atkinson said that much of the work his department does with meth orphans is completely self-taught.
"Even the new folks coming out of school aren’t prepared for dealing with these children," Atkinson said. Atkinson and his team often travel to other counties within North Carolina now to help the counties establish their own protocols and learn how to deal with the children once they are out of the toxic environment.
One thing no one seems certain of is how children born to meth addicts will be affected. The ’80s produced a generation of so-called crack babies and now authorities are bracing for a new generation of meth babies and the problems they bring with them.
"Meth is still so new that, frankly, we don’t know how these babies are going to be impacted," Walsh said. "We do know that children are impacted with other drugs and alcohol, so we have to assume that with meth we will have similar impacts, but we just don’t know yet."
• Drug Endangered Children (DEC)
In October of 2003, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) launched an effort to establish DEC programs nationwide. Currently there are nine states with laws pertaining to DEC programs.
"Our goal is to get a DEC program started in every state," said Scott Burns, deputy director for the ONDCP office of intergovernmental affairs. Burns also noted that currently there are more initiatives targeting meth than any other drug.
Late last year, the administration released a comprehensive national action plan to reduce synthetic drug production, trafficking and abuse. The plan specifically addresses best practices including protocols for dealing with children found at meth labs and safety procedures. The National Synthetic Drugs Action Plan can be found at the ONDCP Web site, www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov and click on "publications."
ONDCP also created an Internet blog, www.pushingback.com, which provides up-to-the-minute news on the drug czar and his staff. The site also details national efforts, including what local communities are doing to "push back" against the drug problem in America.