Protecting Drug-Endangered Children
My wife and I have two little girls under the age of five. They are bright and happy, and we would stop at nothing to keep them safe. Every night, I tuck those two girls into their beds, and I say a little prayer that God would keep them healthy.
Not every child in BC is so lucky.
In hundreds of other homes across this province, children sleep in beds with hastily-wired electrical cables running past them. Toxic mould grows in the walls. Poisonous drug precursors litter the house. Dirty needles lay in the living room, and meth residue is all over the kitchen.
This is a new social issue in British Columbia, and it should break the heart of any one who cares about children. These are drug-endangered children, and there are hundreds of them living on borrowed time.
As a Langley Township Councillor, the issue of drug-endangered children first came on my radar when I received a memo from our fire chief. Like many other municipalities, Langley has put together a Public Safety Inspection Team, which inspects suspicious electricity users for safety violations. We do it because these homes are far more likely to burn than others, and we need to protect our neighbourhoods. In the memo, our fire chief reported that the team found evidence of children living in 36 of the 158 grow-ops they discovered.
As I tucked my two little girls into bed that night, I thought about those 36 grow-ops that children lived in. I thought of these kids, living in an environment with shoddy electrical work that could cause a fire at any time. I thought about the toxic mould growing inside the walls—often undetected behind the drywall. That’s why we had strengthened our Langley building bylaws to make sure that homes that had been used as grow-ops or meth labs were brought back up to a healthy standard. I thought about the dangers of living in a home that could be the target of an organized crime grow-rip.
I started reading, researching, and asking questions. I found the story of little Deon, Jackson and Megan White, three preschoolers killed in a meth lab explosion in California. I saw pictures of babies—the same age as my little Danica—with burns from meth precursors on their faces. I saw pictures of meth ingredients contaminating the same kitchens that kids eat in. I read about power cables running under cradles to grow-ops. I read about needles and drugs being found next to sleeping infants.
These drug-endangered children are being abused by the carelessness and high-risk lifestyle of their parents and guardians. And they deserve better protection than we are giving them in British Columbia.
I’m not the only one who thinks that. Police officers I speak with feel the same way. So does the BC Association of Social Workers. And criminologist Darryl Plecas. And the Government of Alberta, which has a law protecting drug-endangered children.
While the BC Government has moved to protect children from their parents’ second-hand cigarette smoke in cars, it has ignored the hundreds of children living in grow-ops and meth labs.
In 2006, Alberta passed a Drug-Endangered Children Act, which sent a clear signal to police officers, social workers, and the justice system: children growing up in grow-ops or drug labs are being abused. Their parents are subject to prison terms and fines. The children are seized and put with other family members or in another safe environment.
In BC, our social workers don’t even have a uniform provincial protocol on how to deal with children found in these homes. Each region makes its own policies, despite three years of lobbying by the BC Association of Social Workers for a province-wide directive.
We need to do more for these drug-endangered children. The health studies are staggering. “Children living in those labs might as well be taking the drug directly,” says John Martyny, a medicine professor with the National Jewish Medical and Research Centre in Denver. A US Attorney’s Office study shows that as many as 80 per cent of children rescued from meth labs in the US test positive for toxic levels of the chemicals used in meth production. These chemicals can cause cancer, severe skin conditions, tremors, lead poisoning, kidney, lung and liver diseases, and more.
On the grow-op side, the mould from the growing process can cause chronic respiratory problems, neurological damage, and cancer.
That doesn’t count the psychological harm from living in such an environment, or the elevated risk of fires and explosions.
Every child deserves a safe and happy place to grow up. When will British Columbia step up to the plate for our hundreds of drug-endangered children?
To help bring attention to the plight of these children, I have put together an information package. Click the links below to see more. I'm also working on preparing a resolution to bring forward to Langley Township Council and the Union of BC Municipalities.Drug Endangered Children Info Packet
Alberta's Drug Endangered Children Law and Info Sheet
Chilliwack's excellent crystal meth study
BC Association of Social Workers press releases and draft protocol
Wisconsin's Drug-Endangered Children Program (note: includes photos that will break your heart)
posted by Jordan Bateman at
1:42 PM
2 Comments:
From the March 28 Langley Advance:
Protection needed for kids in pot grow homes: councillor
Children's health and safety is at stake when they grow up in drug houses, Bateman said.
Matthew Claxton
Langley Advance
Friday, March 28, 2008
When Langley Township's Public Safety Inspection Teams visit a local home, they often find evidence of drugs. All too frequently, they also find toys and playpens.
Township Councillor Jordan Bateman said he was disturbed by a recent memo from the PSIT.
The teams are composed of bylaw officers, police officers and firefighters, using unusual power consumption patterns to locate pot grows.
The memo, which listed the 158 marijuana grow ops the team had found during the previous six months, also noticed evidence of children in the homes in 36 cases.
When the PSIT members find evidence of children in such a home, they alert the Ministry of Children and Family Development. In many cases, despite the criminal activities, children are not seized from their parents, Bateman said.
Homes used to create illicit drugs are known to contain many dangers.
The PSIT members check for problems such as dangerous wiring, mold growing in drywall and chemicals, all of which can be common in a grow op. The homes modified to grow pot suffer fires at a high rate because of badly done wiring to avoid power meters or to serve high-powered lights.
In homes where crystal methamphetamine is being made, there are numerous toxic chemicals, Bateman said.
The dangers can include death. Three children in California died when a meth lab exploded in their house.
Everyone in a pot grow also faces at least some danger from a "grow rip." Armed criminals sometimes invade homes they believe house grow ops to steal the crop.
On the plus side, not every house with toys has children.
"We think some of the evidence is staged," Bateman said. Some growers try to make the upper portions of a home look normal and occupied while growing pot in the basement or crawlspace.
To protect the children who do live in such conditions, Bateman wants senior levels of government to take action.
"We just need some level of government to take the lead," he said.
He hopes the federal government could implement legislation that would be uniform across the country. Keeping children in a drug production home could be an aggravating factor in sentencing, an idea suggested by senior RCMP officers, Bateman said. Failing that, B.C. could change its own rules quickly.
This is not the first time that changes have been called for to protect children endangered by drugs.
The B.C. Association of Social Workers has already called for a province-wide protocol to cover drug endangered children.
It suggests simply that police contact the ministry every time a grow op is found with children in residence, that police and social workers attend the home together, and that alternate placement is found for children if parents are arrested.
In April, Bateman will make a motion calling for the Union of B.C. Municipalities to support the social workers request for regulations.
© Langley Advance 2008
By
Langley Advance, At
March 28, 2008 9:08 AM
Drugs put babies at risk Councillor calls for better protection of drug-endangered children
By Natasha Jones - Langley Times - April 02, 2008
Township counsellor Jordan Bateman says that legislation is needed to protect children, like the one in this photo, from being injured by illicit drug manufacture and use in their homes.
photo courtesy National Alliance for Drug-Endangered Children
The newspaper photo showed three brothers at bath time. The toddlers were Jackson, two, and Deon, aged three. Older brother, seven-year-old Jimmy, sat with them.
Not in the bath at the time was their baby sister, Megan, only one year old.
There was nothing out of the ordinary about three siblings enjoying playtime in the bath together, and nothing in the photo betrayed the danger to which these children were exposed in their own home.
The photo above it, however, showed how the lives ended, horrifically and cruelly, for Megan, Deon and Jackson.
All three died when a meth lab exploded, levelling their house, which had been situated in a California town.
When he saw press clippings of the tragedy, and realized that Megan was about the age of his daughter Danica, now 16 months, Jordan Bateman was spurred to act.
As a Langley Township councillor, Bateman receives regular updates on municipal affairs and he found a report from the Public Safety Inspection Team was troubling and mind-boggling.
The PSIT, comprised of bylaw enforcement and police officers and fire fighters, was formed to investigate properties shown to use a suspiciously high amount of electricity, an indicator of an illegal marijuana grow-op. These properties present a heightened risk of fire and, in the case of meth labs, explosions which could impact other properties.
The report noted that in six months, PSIT investigated 158 grow-ops and found evidence that children lived in 36 of these properties.
The startling statistic was enough for Bateman.
“That night, I started reading, researching and asking questions,” he said.
That led to the story of Deon, Jackson and Megan, and more heart-wrenching images. One was of a nearly-naked, terror-stricken baby being rescued by police officers wearing breathing masks.
Another was of a toddler (shown above) who had suffered severe burns to the cheeks, chin and lips. Other images showed drugs and drug-making paraphernalia under a baby’s crib and on a stove top.
He saw pictures of meth ingredients contaminating the same kitchens that children eat in, and he read about power cables running under cradles to grow-ops, and of needles and drugs being found next to sleeping infants.
Stunned by the images and reports, Bateman was determined to act.
“I can’t turn a blind eye,” he said.
“These kids, growing up in homes with grow-ops and meth labs, are called Drug-Endangered Children (and) they are being abused by the carelessness and high-risk lifestyles of their parents and guardians,” Bateman said.
“They deserve better protection than we are giving them in British Columbia.”
Noting the growing interest in establishing a law which protects these children, Bateman said that Canada needs tougher laws and strengthened protocols for the police officers and social workers dealing with these situations.
Bateman supports a national Drug-Endangered Children Act, a provincial statute that would follow the same principles of a federal act, and he also sees a role for municipalities.
He said local authorities must ensure that clear procedures for police and public safety teams are laid out. This would require the B.C. Ministry of Children and Families to become involved whenever children are found on premises housing illicit drug operations.
Bateman would also like to see police officers and social workers trained especially to deal with child abuse issues.
The Township and Langley City have bylaws that govern the re-occupancy of a dwelling in which there is evidence of a grow-op or meth lab.
Bateman said that legislation must go further to protect children who live in these circumstances.
Bateman will raise the issue with council this month.
By
Langley Times, At
April 2, 2008 10:58 AM
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