Children Are Silent Victims in Meth Epidemic

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From NPR News this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. It's called a war and an epidemic. Methamphetamine use is a major problem facing communities around the country. We're going to meet three women in Southern California whose lives are affected by that drug every day. Two mothers who are addicted, and a sheriff's detective who spends her days fighting meth. Here's reporter Gloria Hillard.

GLORIA HILLARD, reporting:

For the 11 new residents of MF High, a residential drug recovery center for women, it's introduction day.

Unidentified Female #1: So let's start over here on this end.

HILLARD: 11 women with a similar story.

Ms. DANIELLE BAKER: I was going to help, but I never did. So they took my kids.

HILLARD: Danielle Baker is a 30-year-old mother of three children. As she talks, her right leg is in constant motion.

Ms. BAKER: And to see them so afraid when they took them.

HILLARD: Baker is like many of the mothers at the center. Arrested for either possession, use, or the manufacturing of methamphetamine. But what this story is really about is the children who are under the influence, the influence of meth-addicted moms. Danielle Baker.

Ms. BAKER: My middle son, I think, has emotional disorders. He's very angry. He's very violent, and sometimes it's scary. He burned my daughter with an iron one time, and he had no remorse. None at all.

HILLARD: She's talking about her four-year-old son. She also has an 11-year-old girl, and a toddler. This is Baker's first week at the recovery center. She is gaunt and nearly disappears beneath the man's jacket she is wearing. When they arrested her, she weighed just 98 pounds, and was wearing her daughter's clothes. She loves her children she says, and believes she's a good mom.

Ms. BAKER: And like the kids get taken away, that wasn't supposed to happen to me. You know, I was a good mom. I thought I was. I was a soccer mom. I did all the school activities. I did all that.

HILLARD: The woman behind the wheel at the minivan looks at bit like a soccer mom. She's 32 with shoulder-length blonde hair, jeans and a t-shirt. But over that shirt is a protective vest and a .40 caliber Glock strapped to her leg.

Detective BRANDI SWAN (Drug Endangered Children's Program, Riverside Sheriff's Dept.): Robert 41 follow up. (Walkie Talkie)

HILLARD: Detective Brandi Swan runs the Drug Endangered Children's Program for the Riverside Sheriff's Department. In just the last few months, she's removed more than 50 children from homes where their parents were using or manufacturing meth.

Det. SWAN: And we've removed many a children coming out of meth labs that are just, you know, inundated with burns and exposed to all these chemicals. And they're having respiratory problems and liver damage, and tooth decay. Because a lot of this drug, these chemicals simply attack those parts of your body.

HILLARD: The body and the psyche. Physical and sexual abuse are often inherent in a home with meth use, she says, and neglect. Mostly neglect.

Det. SWAN: That's one thing you see in a lot of these reports. They don't ever have cribs, or sleeping on floors, or, you know, just sheets. Rarely they have blankets. Dirty clothes. It's terrible. It's always the same conditions. Usually deplorable houses.

HILLARD: But don't draw any conclusions, she says. Methamphetamine use crosses all social boundaries and appearances.

Det. SWAN: We've been to the beautiful tract homes or the beautiful, you know, huge estates. We find children and drugs there as well. And we just prosecuted a defense attorney for a drug lab with children. And he lives in a very nice home, very nice area.

HILLARD: We turned down a dirt road. Two investigators from Child Protective Services are behind this. Swan's partner, Detective Aaron Kent, is in the lead. There is a report that a 5-year-old boy is living in a camper trailer with two adults reported to be using and on probation.

Behind a one-story stucco home is a deep lot littered by car parts, tangled rusted metal, empty paint cans and children's toys. Swan's partner, Aaron Kent, already has two men in handcuffs. He's found a plastic bag filled with what looks like fine pill crystals inside an empty package of Marlboros.

Detective ERIN KENT: I'm guessing this isn't sugar.

Unidentified Male #1: I have no idea.

Det. KENT: I don't either.

HILLARD: A woman in torn sweats steps from the camper trailer and is met by Swan.

Det. SWAN: Just out of curiosity is there anything in the trailer or do you have anything that you shouldn't have? Nothing?

HILLARD: Her child is at his grandmother's house a few blocks away she says.

Det. SWAN: We're going to arrest the mother, which is the whole reason why we came here. The mother of the 5-year-old, and we're arresting her for under the influence. She admitted to using and she is showing signs of being under the influence. But, you know, luckily the child isn't here to see this.

DELANEY (Child): I don't know where it is.

DARCY INGLES(ph)(Methamphetamine User): Slow down no running please.

HILLARD: Darcy Ingles' 6-year-old daughter, Delaney, an elflike girl in jeans and tennis shoes, wasn't so lucky.

Ms. INGLES: she had to watch me get handcuffed in front of her. You know, and I told the police, I said, don't handcuff me in front of my little girl. You know, please. They had her in a CPS van and they were letting her watch TV and stuff, and I told her to be a good girl.

HILLARD: After completing a 30-day program at the residential recovery center, Ingle is allowed to have Delaney with her. There are two twin beds in this room. One overflowing with stuffed animals.

DELANEY: Where's me and Buster?

Ms. INGLES: You and Buster?

DELANEY: Yeah.

HILLARD: Buster is Delaney's dog back home, a place her mother promises she'll be soon. Ingles' 90-day recovery program ends in a month. She has a two year suspended sentence. If she starts taking drugs again, she'll go to prison, she says, and Delaney will be put up for adoption.

Ms. INGLES: I don't know, I can't even think about what that would do me. I mean, it would just devastate me. It's not even an option. I can't even comprehend it.

HILLARD: Ingles, a 42-year-old woman with a steady job and a ranch home with horses, knows that this is her last chance. That she could lose it all everything.

Ms. INGLES: Even though you got all that hanging over your head, it's so powerful. Scary.

HILLARD: The drug that is, a drug you can find on nearly every block outside the recovery center, she says. A drug she started snorting, then smoking, then injecting. For now, she'll attend her workshops and spend precious time with her daughter.

Ms. INGLES: She's my little angel.

HILLARD: And for now, Delaney looks forward to going home to see Buster and likes riding the red tricycle in a place that she thinks is her new school.

DELANEY: I can't mom.

Ms. INGLES: Alright.

HILLARD: For NPR News I'm Gloria Hillard in Riverside, California.

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