OCR Text |
Show " AG The Salt Lake Tribune WOMEN X& METH September Trent Nelson/The Tifney Smith, a former meth user,finds her “high” these days counseling other womenandfrolicking with son Chase Stack,10. SPEED TRAP Most abusers aren’t criminal types; they’re hooked with the bestintentions @ Continued from A-1 Smith started using meth after watching her boyfriend come home for treatment have dependent from a 20-hour workday andstill have i And most female users are energy to washhis truck. Sheendured between'the ages of 18 and 32; typical the eye-watering, gagging effects of child-bearing years. snorting before she Beene smokingthe Officials are sounding a warning: if the current rate of abuse by women, “Tm not going to lie, meth is a lot of particularly mothers, continues, ae says Smith, whois currently ina nearly all state agencies, from child tment program ‘at the Davis services to education and drug treat- can Jai's Work Center. ment, will be affected. Cappelli, a 32-year-old with auburn “T’ve worked with child protection curls and wholesomelooks, started for six years, and these are absolutely using drugs and alcohol at age 13, the most abused and neglected chil- moving onto cocainein her 20s. drenI’ve seen,” said Lisa Jorgensen, a Asingle mom,sheinitially pledged caseworker for the Division of Child to stay away from meth. Butfriends and Family Services. told her it produced a better high than cocaine, and lasted longer. Plus, she Skin : Smith, now said, it was cheaper. 29, was looking for more hours in the Friends told her she wouldbe fine if day when shetried meth four years she remembered to lie down for two ago. She had a 6-year-old son at home hours a day andto eat something. She in Clearfield and worked a full-time would sleep from 4 to 6 a.m., then have job. “It just seemed like there was al- acupofcoffee and a hit ofmeth before ways somewhereto be, something to waking her sonfor school. be doing,” she said. “T used to tell people I was a funcOn meth, she said, “Td feel I could tional drug addict because I could hold paint the side of the house with a down job,” said Cappelli, who held toothbrush.” various jobs — operating a cement Meth’s attraction to womenis sim- mixer, driving a truck — during her ple: a single dose — snorted, smoked, addiction. swallowed or injected — awakens a user’s senses and supplies them witha Good Intentions: West Valley City feeling of overwhelming vigor. They Police Lt. Charles Isley says meth stay awake for days or even weeks addiction follows a predictable cycle. during binges. “Tt starts outa well-meaning attempt Smith’s closet was a study in meth- to organize a household, to look better triggered obsession. Black shirts on and get a husband and to hold down a black hangers. Green ones on green job.” ; hangers. White on white. All of her Butthe love affair between women pants hung on rose-colored hangers. and meth sours quickly, T-shirts, also hanging on white hangThe 22-year-old Schmidt graduated ers, were alphabetized by the words on from Roy High School in 1998 with a them. 3.5 GPA. Shortly before graduation, “T don’t think a lot of[women] are she was introduced to meth by her trying it for ” said Smart, boyfriend’s mother. She became a who surveys incoming inmates at the manager of a warehouse for a serapSalt Lake Metro Jail and state prison book company, and her meth use ineach year, “They're taking it to clean creased — to as muchas a “teener,” a their homes after coming home from sixteenth ofan ounce,daily. working two jobs.” She'aoonlost that job because of Michelle Young, a motherof three mieth. Even as. her habit increased, from Kearns, initially found family Schmidt became a certified nursing happiness with meth. One morning, a. . assistant and worked at an assisted friend offered her a line of meth ‘to. ‘living center. But chronic “lateness, snort. Over the next several months; Whichishe blames on her meth use, got Young, a high-school dropout who had ‘her fired. earned a GED and become a gas sta- . Schmidt's habit was soon costing tion manager, began doing a line :or- her’ humdreds of dollars a day. She two oneother day, spending about started selling meth. At her peak, she $203a was selling an ounce ofmeth aday and “I could spend time with mychil- turning at least a $400 profit in-just dren.I had time for my husband. I was minutes while sending $900 to her getting all ofthe housework done. Ev- meth cook. erybody washappy. ~ Besides the easy money, Schmidt “I was foster parent. I was a room fell in love with the methamphetmother. You name it, I was doing it. aminelifestyle that included plenty of That's why I liked meth so much.It powerand no responsibilities. made me supermom.” S“Quick money. Fastothae People That was in 1994. By the time she will do anything to get high,” said was arrested six years later, Young Schmidt, who is completing the final * eeee weeks of the court-ordered drug treat- Utah Fifth in Meth Labs Per Gapita sure you know something’s going on.” In meth homes, contamination showsuponobjects like baby bottles or children’s beds. “That’s notjust in Labs* Per Jab homes. That’s in high-use homes,” Jorgensen said. One of her photos shows an open drawer with a meth pipe laying next to a pacifier. Some children experience withdrawal after being removed from a meth home. “We had onelittle 5-yearold — the shelter mom didn’t know whatwas wrong with him. He slept for 48 hours,” then began to vomit and shake,she said. Bartschi’s son, the one stuck in frontofa television so his mom'could get high, tested positive for meth and marijuana when he was removed from “Lab seizures reported to the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1999, 97 percent her homein March 2000 after her arof which are methamphetamine labs. rest for meth. Admissions to Public Drug “The only time they took, [the my Neneh Admissions a Treatment Centers handcuffs]off was so I could pack him L: 3,448 TOTAL: 21,383 a little suitcase,” she said. “I couldn't say, T'll see you soon’ because I didn’t know when Id see him.I could just el 6,553 _ Say, ‘Mommyloves you.’ “He was going down thefront walk lookingoverhis shoulder. I don’t ever wantto see that look on myson’s face again, as he’s leaving with a stranger andhis suitcase and his teddy bear.” Rhonda Hailes Maylett/The Salt Lake Tribune Effects of meth on children have not been widely studied. But Karen looking through her’ blinds. She Pittman said she knew immediately Buchi, associate professor of pediat: picked at her face until it bled. She the baby’s death was her fault. She rics at the University of Utah,said rechased one woman with a crowbar.“I could not look her husbandandeldest cent studies show adults’ brains-are thought-I was 10 feet tall and bullet- daughter,23, in the eyes. permanently changed after chronic proof,”she said. Acounselortalked her into holding meth use.“If it can do thatto an adult, In the grips of addiction, many the baby. “Ijust rememberit being the whatis the effect on a more immature womenare unable to keep their jobs, worst moment in mylife,” she said. nervous system?” she said. clean their homes or even take care of “Lookingather, it made mesick. Children in meth homes also bethe basic needs of their children. “Howcould I be so sick to ignore a come used to neglect, paranoia and Their behavior turns compulsive. human inside me? It nauseates me,” sometimes violence, Buchisaid. JorCappelli spenta lot of time taking Pittman said) =. gensen estimates she found guns and her car apart,trying to fix itand make Pittman had used meth in the past, Pornography in some: 95 percent of it run “I know absolutely but began relying on it in 1996, when meth homes. nothing arcats,” she said. “Butif her husband,a concrete worker, broke Trouble may be in the future for you would have asked me then, I his pelvis and could not work. She children of addicts, as well — those would have told you exactly what I wentfrom being a stay-at-home mom who were exposed to the drug, or to was doing.” to their daughter, 15, and son, 14; to chemicals used to make it, may be Longtime meth users become in- working twojobs— hotel housekeeper predisposed to become addicts creasingly recognizable, authorities andrestaurant cook — whilealso sell- themselves. . say. Their teeth fall out. Their hair ing tamales out of her family’s mobile “This is a monster. You should be thins. They become malnourished. home. preparing nowfor these kids,” Stalcup “Everybodytalks about the people _ Meanwhile, she said, she was said. in New Yorkorthe guy living under drinking dozens of beers a night and the railroad bridge whois shooting using meth to keep her upright. End of the Line: Thefinal straw for heroin into hisgums because he can’t After her release from prison, she Cappelli began with a strange flutterfind a good vein. That’s disgusting,” wants to show other women the tiny ing in her stomach. A nurse acquainsaid Patrick Fleming, director of the casts of her dead daughter’s hand and tance asked her if she might be state Division of Substance Abuse. “If foot and urge them to prevéntfuture pregnant. you see a person that’s used metham- deaths, In reality, she. was in her sixth phetaminefora long time, they're not month. She had had noidea. much different.” Smallest Victims: Thelittle gir! Cappelli confessed. her drug use Like Schmidt, many women turn to ve adamant —herparents didn't during pregnancy to her doctor, who selling the drug to fund their own gs. alerted the Division of Child and habits. Some help manufacture it. But, she told Jorgensen, the DCFS Family Services. Her daughter, now 18 “I couldn't stop,” Young said. “I caseworker, they frequently con- months old, was taken into state cusstarted running out of energy.,My ducted “science experiments. tody as a newborn. She weighed 5 wholelife became chasing crank. Jorgensen sawa different story in- pounds,7 ounces and was severely deBy 1997, after three years of meth side the child's home. A container of hydrated atbirth. use, she’ was selling the drug and acetone on the floor andiodinestains Cappelli got her back after proving helping cooks get the chemicals to on the stove pointed to a clandestine she had been clean for a month and "There's eleo another attraction for really was at. one makeit. . meth lab. et recently, Jorgensen attending court-ordered treatment. loss. Meth Schmidt said. “Being high all “My world was crumbling,” she took care of children while the Salt “The fact that she’s healthy is a mirathe time — it's got to do something to said. “I was losing my house. I lost my Lake Police Department executed cle,” she said. you.” « husband. I was aboutto lose my car. search warrants and busts of homes Bartschi also completed a treatToday, she thinks she has attention Pacey after that, I lost myjob.” suspected to contain drug labs, She ment program in order to get her son deficit tyeceanin disorder and is She eventually wentto jail. But estimated 75 percent of those cases back.“It was either drugs or my son,” . hagged by some addicts — an children — were meth-related. shesaid. “For me,it was very easy.” Meth o “ping al nail anybody who pay an even higher price, Most mothers using meth try to Smith nearly killed herself before fools around witH it for more than two Dayna Pittman, 42, of La Verkin, keep the drug from their children. or three months,” said Alex Stalcup, gave birth to a stillborn daughter on Cappelli did not allow drug deals in she stopped using meth. In 2000,Smith entered drug court “medical director of the New Leaf Jan.17, 1998. The medical examiner’s the house — unless her son wasn't Treatment Center in Concord, Calif., office found methamphetamine in the there or was asleep — and kept the and passed every drug test for 10 who is widely regarded as an interna. baby’s system. Pittman was charged kebedi Her stash was months. She was still using meth, but every day she ate a toxic dose oftwo tional expert on methamphetamine. with felony child abuse faeay the kept in drawer, too high for chlorine tablets — the ones used to As addiction’ takes hold, users. be- first, Utahn hi rane Cappelli would retreat to keep hot tubs clean — in a successful gin consuming miore and more, bet related death ofa fetus, desta strategy for passing urine tests. Pe,wack yt omapibrnySade peoene family, home and work. contest and was imprisoned for up to “It was like having the flu so horrithing you've ever done of sleep, coupled with drug use, 15 years. said. bly bad I couldn’t move. My eyelids thao arat hemes” Smith ae paranoia. In a recent telephone interview. “When Mom goes and hides in the Cappelli saw people following her, from ‘Utah State Prison, a tearful bedroom for four hours at a pop,I'm See next page ——y y * y State Population aL, |