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Tragically, among the bucolic hills and rapid growth and expanding business base and future promise, the Inland Empire has become known for something sinister methamphetamine. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has called meth “the most dangerous drug in America.” Users call it by names that include “speed,” an ironically appropriate definition. Meth combines the elements for a runaway drug: easy to make, cheap, plentiful, provides a quick high, highly addictive. Dr. Kiti Freier of the Loma Linda University Medical Center is a clinical pediatric psychologist who often deals with the youngest victims of meth abuse. She estimates that 30% of children in Inland Empire public schools are in some way exposed to meth, a number that mirrors the Inland Empire’s national reputation as one of the hotspots of its manufacture and abuse. That math is troubling when one considers that Riverside and San Bernardino county schools have a total K-12 enrollment of nearly 885,000; that would put more than a quarter-million schoolchildren at risk to some degree. The Associated Press reported in December that the most recent statistics, from 2004, indicate one-third of California’s meth lab busts that year were in the twin counties. Cpl. Dennis Gutierrez of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department reports that 764 meth labs were seized in that county in 2004. So, if young students are not users themselves, they often live with parents who are; they often live in a home where meth is being made; or they may know someone who is using meth. Coming to your neighborhood We have all read or heard the stories of quiet neighborhood homes that were meth labs when raided by the police or when they exploded into a ball of fire and debris from unstable materials. The rescued children are among the drug’s most innocent and saddest victims; others are left on the curbside of neglect. Dr. Freier says, “So many of these kids, at 4 or 5, are the caregivers for the other kids. When you place them in another home, the foster parent gets upset because the 5-year-old won’t play like a 5-year-old and is trying to boss the situation around.” It is the result of a family consumed by an addiction. Freier recalls one case: “A little 5-year-old girl named ‘Sarah’ has been the parent for her two younger siblings; one is 3 and the other is a baby. The mom was a meth user. The 3-year-old had only two forms of communication, was a selective mute who could talk but refused. The only word she used was ‘bitch’ and her only non-verbal communication was to flip the bird.” The children are in foster care, but Dr. Freier reports, “The older one is frustrated because they want her to be a 4- or 5-year old, but she doesn’t know how to be a 4- or 5-year-old. It’s going to take a long time for her to be a child again.” Kathy Estes, who works with violence and drug problems for the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, has an insight into this phenomenon of little children being thrust into the role of parents. She has found research on drug addiction that indicates that at whatever age someone starts using on a regular basis, that is where a person’s emotional development freezes. “What happens with parents who have an addiction,” she says, “if they start using at a young age and then have children, the children become the parent in the family because their parents are still operating at the emotional age of a 15-year-old or whatever age they started using on a regular basis. Many of the kids can’t be kids because they are parenting the parents.” Across all groups While the image of a meth abuser and lab is of a shack in the high desert, the reality is more varied. For example, Freier has concerns for another class of meth addiction victims, the so-called “super moms.” This would be a middle- or upper-middle-class woman who wants to be the good wife, the good mother, the do-everything. “She gets on meth because it gives her that extra charge so you don’t have to sleep. You don’t sleep for days so you feel like you’re productive and you’re doing all this stuff, taking the kids here, taking the kids there, making the muffins and brownies for school and, because it affects the libido part of your brain, you can still be sexually pleasing to your husband.” This mom can feel like she is on top of the world until the addiction kicks in and everything, including parenting, starts to go downhill. “You do really ridiculous things with all this energy,” Freier says, “and without sleep you become irritable and that’s where abuse begins. They get into it for what they think are the right reasons, but end up in a really bad place.” Reaching the young Cpl. Gutierrez says that there is good news. By making the ingredients that make meth those include over-the-counter cold medicines more difficult to buy, the number of home meth labs in the area has shrunk. He warns, though, that the number of addicts in the Inland Empire has remained fairly constant due in part to the amount of finished product now coming in from Mexico. The number of local meth labs seized has nearly been cut in half since 2001, but the amount of meth seized in the same period has nearly doubled, increasing the chances that kids will be exposed to the drug or to someone affected by the drug. According to the DEA, methamphetamine seizures along the southwest border went up 96% between 2001 and 2004. Local law enforcement’s battle against meth was not made any easier when Congress reduced funding for Byrne Grants, a federal grant program that helps finance drug task forces, by $200 million. The Press-Enterprise reported in January that California received $31.6 million in Byrne Grant funds in 2004, but state law enforcement officials are bracing for a reduction of as much as 35% in 2006. The paper quoted Lt. Greg Garland of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Narcotics Division as saying that the county’s drug task force has had to redistribute personnel and resources due to earlier grant cuts and “we get cut, somebody’s got to go.” Freier points out another innovation by drug dealers. “Some narc officers have told me that there was a little concern in the drug industry that they weren’t getting as many meth addicts, so right now they’re having the marijuana dealers lace some of the marijuana joints with meth.” She also says that it is being promoted to teenagers as a “do-it-yourself Viagra.” “The addicts do say that if you want to be sexually active a whole night long and have the best experience ever, this drug will do that for you. It’s very addicting in that way as well.” As with most addictions, there are many victims. Sen. Dianne Feinstein last year lent her name to a bill aimed at studying the ties between meth use and identify theft. Multiple news reports note that the need for continual use has created a cottage industry that stretches from Canada to Mexico. As USA TODAY reported in December: “Identity theft has fast become the crime of preference among meth users for three reasons: It is non-violent, criminal penalties for first-time users are light…and the use of computers and the Internet offers crooks anonymity and speed with which to work.” However, this choice of crime doesn’t come from the meek and mild. Meth use is known to lead to violent, destructive behaviors, turning some into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Before she took her current position with the county, Estes was an interventionist for San Bernardino City Schools, dealing with youngsters who had been identified by the court for drug, alcohol or violence problems. “I had one kid who was the most kind, gentle and respectful young man you would ever want to meet. He was a seventh-grader. It came out during the time that I spent with him that when he was on one of his methamphetamine highs, he would find dogs and throw them off of overpasses onto oncoming cars. So here’s this kid who is by nature gentle and kind, and he becomes a monster.” Offering help in the Inland Empire The National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children has been established to help those children who have been physically and psychologically harmed by drugs or by being in a drug environment. Communities in a dozen states have formed DEC Alliances, including the Riverside County Drug Endangered Children Program and the San Bernardino County Children’s Network. The Riverside County program is a cooperative effort by several agencies, including the district attorney, the Sheriff’s Department and Child Protective Services. It has its own mobile unit that follows narcotics officers on raids of meth lab homes and immediately begins to care for rescued children. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department reports that about 140 children were rescued in 2005, but that may be just the tip of the iceberg. One of the pillars of the San Bernardino County Children’s Network is the Screening, Assessment, Referral, and Treatment (SART) Process. SART targets at-risk children through age 6. Mothers Against Meth is a grassroots intervention effort to combat this menace and has chapters all over the country, including nine in California. Any individual or group interested in starting a chapter is encouraged to contact Mothers Against Meth for more information. But parents and the community as a whole are still the best weapons to keep children safe. “It is an overwhelming issue in our community,” says Freier. “We need to be aware of it and, rather than making it everyone else’s problem, we need to get involved and do something. It can work. It’s relationships that put us down the bad trajectory, it’s relationships that can put us down the good one.” Adds Kathy Estes, “It goes back to the old parenting philosophy to stay in your child’s life. I think it’s so critical for parents to model what they want from their children. Always talk to them and explain those expectations to them.” Michael J. Medley is senior writer at Inland Empire Family Magazine. For Letters: mmedley@churmpublishing.com Help and info Resources to turn to if you or a family member is struggling with a meth addiction or other substance dependence, and for more information. Riverside County Drug Endangered Children Alliance 877.955.METH(6384) http://dec.co.riverside.ca.us San Bernardino County Children’s Network 909.387.8966 www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/childnet/ Mothers Against Meth 866.293.8901 www.mamasite.net National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children www.nationaldec.org Teen Challenge International, Riverside/Inland Empire Headquarters 951.683.4241 www.teenchallenge.com/Riverside On the “Sources of Help” found on the main page, click on “Drug Information.” For specific information on meth, find “Club Drugs” and click on “Speed.” |
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