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Residual of meth effect child clothes?
| dmom |
Residual of meth effect child clothes?
Could a child get the effects of the drug
from wearing clothing that had been exposed to meth smoking in
the home or vehicle? If so would they not sleep just as the
users don't sleep. I am new to all this and trying to learn all
I can to help a young couple get help for the user and a reality
check for the other. |
| Sfj |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
Quote:
Could a child get the effects of the
drug from wearing clothing that had been exposed to meth
smoking in the home or vehicle?
No. |
| dmom |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
Thanks so much, I feel better.
Maybe it is just the change in living arrangements right now
that made the child sleep so fitful for about 3 hours and then
wake up at 1:30AM and not sleep again until 8:00. |
Paws
from hell |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
SFj gave you the right answer .
I just can't stop thinking that I would be more concerned about
second hand (meth ) smoke. |
imlost
inky |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
He didn't say that.
The question was can a child be affected by clothing that has
been exposed to meth - not being directly exposed to meth
smoke.
I agree with SfJ- no a child nor an adult will get high off of
being in contact with clothing that has been in contact with
meth smoke.
If that were possible, I would have been high as a kite for the
3 years my husband used.
He had some type of clothing on every time he hit the foil. I
had daily contact with him and his clothes.
Never once got high. |
JUST
CATS |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
I am sorry that my opinion
differs from the others, but yes, you can pick up a slight
residual affect from the meth. I wish I still had the articles
that I found off of the internet earlier this year...I will have
to, do some searching.
An old friend of mine who is very religious and does not do
drugs/alcohol... tested positive, when given a test for drugs.
Her niece that lived down the street was a meth addict, and meth
was being smoked in her house around her kids. When CPS tried to
take her kids, my friend, Thelma, was going to get temporary
custody of them.
Thelma was tested for drugs and came up, positive for meth. The
articles I had originally found, said that meth can be
transferred through direct contact of items that have residue on
them .(diapers, clothes...)
My friend also, described being jittery when watching the kids
or going to her nieces apartment... I will try to find the
article if I can. |
JUST
CATS |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
Here's one article, but this is
not the one I was looking for:
February 12, 2006
A child sleeps on the floor in a house on Orange Street while an
undercover Medford police officer searches the room for evidence
of drugs.
Mail Tribune / Jim Craven
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secondhand METH smoke
Local children test positive for the drug as users fill the air
with their toxins
By SARAH LEMON
Mail Tribune
With just a blow torch and his bare hands, Robert Davis can
crank out 40 methamphetamine pipes in an hour.
On probation for burglary, forgery, theft and possessing meth,
Davis, 26, was released just a couple of days ago from the
county's Community Justice work center. He smoked meth the same
day, he said.
Since his release, Davis found his way to an acquaintance's
Orange Street garage, where he's been camping out. Davis's meth
pipes found their way into the man's house and upstairs into his
sock drawer, where narcotics detectives discovered them
Thursday.
"And that's the same pipe we see with all the meth users," said
Medford police Detective Gary Hatten.
If he doesn't give them away, Davis sells the pipes for a dollar
apiece. Demand must be high, police say, because the majority of
meth on the street these days is the crystallized form known as
"rock" or "ice." More potent than the powdered variety, crystal
meth is primarily smoked.
But crystal meth isn't just giving users a quicker,
longer-lasting high. Health and child-welfare workers say the
smoke is invading the bodies of addicts? children, who are
testing positive for meth after they're taken out of their
homes. As local officials implement a new protocol advocating
urinalysis of children removed from environments of meth use and
sales, the drug is only expected to show up more often in child
victims.
"The highest levels (of meth) are in children who are around the
chronic users," said Curtis Oddo, pediatrician at the Children's
Advocacy Center in Medford.
"My assumption is the secondhand smoke is how they get exposed,"
Oddo said.
Testing and decontaminating children found in drug houses is the
focus of this week's Drug-Endangered Children Conference.
Child-welfare workers Tuesday will join police, educators,
medical professionals, drug treatment specialists and others at
Jackson County's first such conference, the third in Oregon.
Children in meth labs were the primary concern when the Oregon
Alliance for Drug Endangered Children formed in 2004. The group
urged counties to develop and implement their own comprehensive
responses.
Meth labs have since declined dramatically in Oregon, a trend
officials attribute to tougher state laws that put cold pills
containing pseudo ephedrine used to make meth in
secure locations at retail sites. But that doesn't mean kids are
no longer at risk.
"There's still a lot of meth in the valley," said Jackson County
District Attorney Mark Huddleston, who helped spearhead the
local Drug Endangered Children protocol.
Last year, child-welfare workers for the local office of the
Department of Human Services removed 308 children from homes
where meth was being used. Meth was a factor in about 55 percent
of the agency's total cases.
Since September, urinalyses of five children taken into
protective custody came back positive for drugs, said Karla
Carlson, local intake supervisor for DHS. Four had levels of
meth while one was unconfirmed but suspected as cocaine, Carlson
said.
"I think we know all these parents at some point were smoking
the drug," Carlson said.
The most recent case was a several-weeks-old baby who seemed to
show symptoms of meth withdrawal, she added.
"The children are very irritable," Oddo said. "They may be
jittery; they cry more; they don't feed well."
The only way a child so young could have detectable levels of
meth is through breast milk from a mother who's using or by
inhaling secondhand meth smoke, Oddo said. As meth is
metabolized fairly rapidly, children testing positive for the
drug likely were exposed within the previous 12 hours, the
doctor added.
While testing and decontaminating children are major components
of the Drug Endangered Children response, the new protocol also
highlights other hazardous home environments, making police and
child-welfare workers more aware of overall risks, Huddleston
said.
"We're looking for a global assessment," he said.
More practical matters, such as where everyone sleeps inside a
suspected drug house, are part of the training. It's a question
DHS worker Stacie Piels asked Thursday at the Orange Street
house. After getting a call that drug use was threatening
several children there, Piels and Medford police officers went
to investigate, rousing about a dozen relatives, friends and
acquaintances of the primary renter, a man named Donald (his
last name has been withheld to protect the identities of his
children).
"There's just a ton of people crashing," Piels said.
Most of those who staggered from the home's four bedrooms at
about 9:30 a.m. didn't live there. Some said they were homeless.
Donald said he didn't even know he had so many house guests.
"It's like every frickin door that was opened there was another
family living behind," Piels said.
One woman stayed the night with her 6-year-old son after her car
wouldn't start. But crashing on the floor covered with a
comforter is no kind of sleeping arrangement for the woman's
child, Piels said, pointing out a space heater perilously close
to a mattress.
"If you lived here, I would remove your child," Piels told the
woman.
"There's nothing in this house that you need to come back here
for."
Pop cans and candy wrappers littering the living room, the house
is typical of those DHS workers see whether or not drug use is
suspected in a child-welfare case, Piels said.
A pile of couch cushions and chairs teetered in a corner. Dirty
pots and pans littered the stove and green laminate counters. A
chainsaw had taken up residence in the shower. Donald, 59,
complained that someone stole $1,400 out of the house last week.
"There's stuff going on in here that you have no idea about, I'm
sure," Hatten told him.
When detectives found the sock drawer stash of pipes, Donald
claimed he confiscated them from visitors and then washed them
out.
"I have never seen a meth pipe this clean," Hatten said.
It soon became apparent that the pipes were brand new, likely
Davis's handiwork. Detectives also located one clouded with meth
residue inside a plastic container along with Donald's blood
pressure medication. It was the only evidence of meth in the
house.
"I don't know if there's ever a lot (of meth) here, but there's
definitely a lot of using going on here," Hatten said.
Several people in the house were ordered to take urine tests at
OnTrack Inc., a local drug treatment center. Having admitted to
using the day before, Davis shuffled off to the parole and
probation office for his own test. He was arrested that
afternoon for violating probation.
"A lot's going to depend on the UAs (urine analyses)," Piels
said.
The social worker couldn't complete her investigation before
speaking to Donald's wife, who wasn't at home. At this point,
the family's two elementary-school-aged kids will stay with
their parents, Piels said, but their father was facing a
possible meth-possession charge.
"If you don't know who's sleeping in the bedroom downstairs, how
do you know that your child is safe?" Piels asked.
"No 10-year-old should have to live like that."
Social workers decontaminate kids
Under a new Jackson County protocol, drug-endangered children
undergo a decontamination process.
Decontamination is automatic when children are removed from
methamphetamine labs. The process is at child-welfare workers?
discretion when kids are removed from a house where drug use is
suspected.
To prevent transfer of toxic chemicals, decontamination is done
before children are taken away from their home. Child-welfare
workers use the following steps:
Exposed skin is washed using packaged, pre-moistened wipes.
If contamination is obvious, workers may change children's
clothes before transporting them.
Children are taken to the local Department of Human Services
office or the Children's Advocacy Center, showered and given
clean clothing.
The transport vehicle should have disposable covers for infant
and child safety seats.
No items from the home are taken with the children.
For more information, visit www.oregondec.org or
www.nationaldec.org
Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can find this story online at: www.mailtribune.com/archi...1local.htm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . |
Savannah
05 |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
Yes you can test positive if you are around
people who are SMOKING it, but it would take a lot of smoke to
test positive. You can not however test positive by coming in
contact with the drug. That would mean a lot of cops would test
positive and that I could hold dope in my hand and get high. |
luve
piphany |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
I'm starting to get a little more interested
and maybe concerned now that there are so many differing
opinions. It's looking a lot like know one knows exactly how
possible exposure from meth smoke is. Considering it is really
not down to an exact science-meth use, I mean, I think we might
keep an open mind and do some more investigating.
gee, it could certainly explain why I, who have never seen or
smelled meth being used that I knew of, have acted like I was
having meth psychosis quite a few times when dealing with meth
addicts that were driving me CRAZY!!! Considering it doesn't
smell...how would anyone know?
oh, and if meth can be absorbed through mucous membranes in the
nose, then it could be absorbed through the skin.
especially if kiddos touched a pipe or something that had meth
residue on it then picked their sweet little noses. Then there
is the issue of sharing hand towels...I also wonder about the
residue from cookin meth then touching things that kids in the
home might touch.
Goodness, what a powder keg. but maybe not at all-maybe just
urban legend |
imlost
inky |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
I can see indeed where second hand smoke
would play a part.
It would indeed be possible I suppose to get high.
Especially for a small child as it would not take very much at
all.
But there is no way you will get high off of playing with
clothes that have been in contact with meth smoke.
Sorry but there isn't.
You have to ingest meth to get high.
It has to come into your body in some measurable quantity.
As Savannah said, that would mean I could just hold the rock and
get high.
It doesn't work like that.
Quote:
gee, it could certainly explain why
I, who have never seen or smelled meth being used that I
knew of, have acted like I was having meth psychosis quite a
few times when dealing with meth addicts that were driving
me CRAZY!
Explain your experience please.
This has me confused.
What do you mean by acting like you were having meth psychosis? |
mary
mary1 |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
The playing with clothes that have been
around meth may have some ill effects, but it would not show up
for quite some time. I knew of a young woman who just died in
the past 5 years who contracted cancer from the asbestos that
was on her father's clothes. She played near them when she was
young. |
Savannah
05 |
Re: Residual of meth effect child clothes?
Quote:
oh, and if meth can be absorbed
through mucous membranes in the nose, then it could be
absorbed through the skin. especially if kiddos touched a
pipe or something that had meth residue on it then picked
their sweet little noses.
What I am saying is someone can not get high
or test positive merely by touching meth or coming into contact
with an object that has meth residue on it.
I suppose that in theory there could be affects from touching a
meth pipe then picking your nose, but the chances of getting
high off it or testing positive are almost impossible.
I mean if I get a little gasoline on my hands and I stick my
fingers in my mouth I am not going to get sick and die. Probably
wouldn't even get a tummy ache.
I am not a doctor or a scientist, but these are things that are
simple to figure out and your going to learn something about the
drug you used to use. |
See also:
How long does meth stay in your hair follicles?
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