Children deserve better than this

There are many victims of the meth epidemic those who use this highly addictive and destructive drug and the communities where they live. However, the youngest victims, the children, are at great risk for physical, emotional, and developmental damage because of exposure to harmful chemicals and lack of critical care during their developing years, which will have a long-term effect on their lives.

Schools and especially teachers need to become more aware of things that can signal a child is exposed to meth use or manufacture in the homes and in some cases simply just exposure to previous meth contamination of the home. For meth use in the home teachers may observe a lack of adequate parenting, children may be misbehaving in class and this can be due to a need for attention. They may be unusually tired due to lack of sleep or disturbed nights. They may also suffer from a lack of cleanliness, inappropriate clothing for the season. There could be irregular attendance, frequent or untreated illnesses, lack of academic progress, poor social skills, and delinquency may signal lack of parental attention to the needs of the child. Alert signals should be headed if the child smells of strange odours as this can the result of exposure to the byproducts of meth production. Having said this if a child is exposed, unknowingly, to meth contamination in the home there may be no signs of neglect because they come from a loving home with no drug use but there can be signs of poor performance, mood issues, headaches, illness, lack of sleep due to disturbing sleep or nightmares. They may have an asthmatic cough or frequent sore throats.

At present governments (possibly because they fear that their housing stock is badly contaminated and the costs to rectify will be exorbitant) and sadly some of the drug agencies themselves (because they don’t want the drug addict stigmatised) seem more concerned with covering up the issue of meth contamination of the home and the dangers of exposure to young children than actually dealing with it, raising awareness and assisting those who innocently fall victim to this crime by purchasing or renting a contaminated property. It is the youngest members of our communities that are being exposed to the meth epidemic who should be our major concern. These are the innocent victims whose health and lives are damaged by this drug and exposure to it.

We should be motivated to educate the community to enable us all to learn more about the problem and resolve to seek a solution. Apart from the need for prevention programs and treatment programs for those addicted to this destructive drug we also need legislation that supports research into the harmful effects of third hand exposure (living in a meth contaminated property) and research into how to remove meth safely and inexpensively from contaminated surfaces. We need legislation to mandate positive action by the Real Estate industry, government departments such as Health, Police and Housing and support for home insurers by insurance companies. We need registration and competency based training of the industries involved such as testing companies and remediation companies to enable property to be tested and remediated accurately and to remove the ‘cowboys’ as they are called from the industry.

This is a national and international problem and it does not go away by governments and drug agencies ignoring the issue or hiding behind flawed research. We can no longer continue to allow innocent people’s lives to be devastated by our inaction on this topic. We need action and we need it now.