Meth Labs at an All Time High in Kentucky

http://www.wtvq.com/news/5987-meth-labs-at-all-time-high-in-kentucky

As the methods for illegally obtaining the ingredients to create methamphetamine evolve, it becomes easier to manufacture meth and law enforcement is seeing a spike in meth lab incidents. 
Kentucky State Police has released the October methamphetamine lab statistics.
The number indicates an all-time high in the Commonwealth.  KSP reports that there were 111 meth labs found during the month of October, exceeding all previous monthly totals, bringing the 2010 statewide total to 919.

The last record was set in 2009, when 741 labs were discovered during the course of a year.  The state is on track to exceed 1,000 meth labs this year.

Methamphetamine is not just a Kentucky problem. Occurrences of meth labs have been on the rise across the country and states are scrambling to find solutions.

KSP advises that if you suspect someone is making meth or you encounter a meth lab, call 1-800 DOPETIP (1-800-367-3847).  Callers can remain anonymous.

Stench of Alleged Meth Dealer's House Almost Makes Cops Puke -- Dealer Blames House-o-Filth on 13-Year-Old Daughter

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/11/stench_of_alleged_meth_dealers.php

When Chandler police served a warrant at the home of 47-year-old Teresa Ramirez, an alleged meth dealer now charged with -- among other things -- child abuse, the stench coming from the refrigerator in the home was so revolting it "nearly caused involuntary vomiting to all serving the warrant."

That description comes from court documents obtained by New Times -- the rest of the story is equally despicable because living in that dump with Ramirez was her 13-year-old daughter.


Cops got a tip last week from a "reliable informant" saying Ramirez was selling meth out of her Chandler home at 864 East Chandler Boulevard.

Officers served a warrant to Ramirez's digs on Friday and discovered the nastiness in which she and her daughter had been living.

Cops found used meth pipes, meth torches, and Oxycontin, all in places to which the girl had access.

As for the house: police describe the conditions as "horrid."

There was no electricity in the home aside from an extension cord that was plugged into an outlet in another apartment. Ramirez wasn't using the limited electricity she had to run her refrigerator, as you may have guessed, and police say it was full of rotting food that apparently made everyone who served the warrant want to puke.

Ramirez was using the hijacked electricity to run two televisions -- one of which was connected to a video camera that was pointed out a window. Authorities believe it was used to watch for police.

There was no gas for the stove, or other appliances, and the house is described as "extremely dirty, cluttered, and entirely unhealthy for any human being, let alone a minor."

Ramirez has a history of this sort of thing -- she was previously charged in California with drug possession and willful cruelty to a child.

When questioned by police, Ramirez admitted the Oxycontin was hers. As for the whole selling-meth thing, Ramirez says she aint no dealer. When told she was being charged with selling meth, she told the arresting officer "prove it."

Just to top it all off, Ramirez blamed the disgusting condition of the house on her daughter -- even though, as pointed out in the court docs, the rest of the house was far more disgusting than the 13-year-old's bedroom.

Ramirez has been charged with one count of possession of a dangerous drug for sale, one count of possession of drug paraphernalia, one count of use of electronic communication during a drug transaction, one count of child abuse, and one count of narcotics possession. She's being held without bail.

3 Mo. police officers sue over meth exposure

3 Mo. police officers sue over meth exposure

Associated Press | Posted: Saturday, November 27, 2010

Three Missouri police officers are suing their current and former bosses over permanent injuries they suffered during a raid on a methamphetamine lab.
Butler police officers Mark Frost, Harold Anderson and Kenneth Rush were hospitalized for about a week after the November 2007 raid. The lawsuit says they suffered from chemically induced pneumonia and heart murmers.
The Kansas City Star reports the lawsuit claims the city purchased breathing masks to protect officers from meth lab fumes, but didn't train them on how to use them. Current and former police chiefs are named in the suit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Kansas City.
All three plaintiffs continue to work in law enforcement. The suit does not specify the amount they are seeking in damages.

When parents use meth.....

Folks, this isn't just in Tennessee.  It is everywhere.  1 in 4 kids are exposed to substance abuse. These kids come to school dirty, tired, missing homework, with behavioral problems, and basically just a total mess.  Report it, people, sometimes you are their only hope to get out of the hell they are living in.

Castaway kids: when parents use meth, children become casualties

By Matt Lakin

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

CROSSVILLE - They come to school with chemical burns and can recite Mom and Dad's recipe for methamphetamine along with their ABCs.
Diapers, baby bottles and crayon drawings mingle with blister packs and shake-and-bake bottles at dump sites and burn piles. Officers sometimes have to step around toys and bicycles on the way to serve warrants or batter down doors.
"You can't imagine it if you've never been in the jail at 2 or 3 a.m. and seen these kids waiting on somebody to come get them," Cumberland County Sheriff Butch Burgess said. "When you see the places where these kids are coming out of and what they're being exposed to, it makes you sick."
Meth labs have affected more than 1,200 children statewide in the past decade, according to the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force, although exact figures remain elusive. Police have found more than 800 of those children during lab busts - some as young as a few days old.
"It breaks your heart," Athens police Detective Scott Webb said. "That child didn't ask to be there. That baby didn't have a choice."
Those numbers don't always include children removed from meth-addicted families for other reasons - a child found with no car seat inside a weaving truck driven by a father who's later arrested in a meth bust, for example.
The state Department of Children's Services has no detailed statistics available on kids removed from homes because of meth, DCS spokesman Rob Johnson said.
The numbers vary from county to county, year to year.
"We don't really see as many kids in labs anymore, because so many of our repeat cooks have already lost their kids," said Conway Mason, drug investigator for the Monroe County Sheriff's Department.
Some children end up in state custody, some with relatives. Some go home to Mom and Dad, only to be taken away again.
"I'd estimate about 75 percent of the kids I see taken into (state) custody are due to meth in the home," Monroe County Juvenile Court Judge Reed Dixon said. "We've had parents who have gone through the process and got the child back. That's a pretty long path to follow. It can take as long as six months to a year. Not too many lose their kids on a permanent basis anymore, but many times they'll fall back off. I want to ask some of these adults what they're thinking."
Some parents struggle to stay clean and see their children again. Others don't bother.
"I'll order clean drug screens, and they won't even take the drug screens," Anderson County Juvenile Court Judge Brandon Fisher said. "Some of these parents have been on drugs so long their conscience has been fried. When a child's old enough to understand what's going on and sees a parent choose a drug over them, it's devastating."
Orphans in playpens
Meth kids learn early how to live on their own. Mom and Dad often can't be bothered to keep up with grocery shopping, supper, laundry or baths.
"We had one case where the parent was on meth and kept doing, doing and doing," said Dixon, the Monroe County judge. "When the kids came into court, they asked to eat. They described the method for making (meth) and talked about watching their mother suck it up with a straw."
Authorities say meth's effects - paranoia, aggressiveness, lack of sleep, a heightened sex drive - create an environment ripe for abuse, physical and sexual.
"I had a 3-year-old boy who took me by the finger and led me around one of those houses," said Lt. Gary Howard, former chief investigator for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department. "He showed me the bullet holes in the walls and the floor. He showed me where his daddy did target practice on his toys."
Haley Spicer, a 3-year-old Campbell County girl, became the face of child abuse in Tennessee after deputies found her beaten and burned by chemicals and cigarettes at the home in Jacksboro where her father and his girlfriend used meth in 2004. The case brought officers to tears and led to passage of Haley's Law, which increased penalties for some abuse and neglect cases.
Children from a meth home might miss class or show up for school in the December cold wearing shorts and tank tops. School nurses in the counties along East Tennessee's meth-lab belt have learned to look for the warning signs of meth exposure: agitation, lack of sleep, unexplained burns and sores.
"They look almost like bug bites," said Michelle McJunkin, a Monroe County nurse who has served as a foster mother to children from meth homes. "It's from the particles in the air that irritate their skin. The younger ones will tell you everything. Sometimes they know the recipes. The older ones try to hide it. They've learned to be afraid."
Some children grow up determined to avoid their parents' mistakes. Others follow the only path they know.
"It's bad enough to see the scars on the outside of these children," Howard said. "But you know the scars on the inside are going to be even worse. We're arresting our second generation of meth cooks now."
Aerosol addiction
If anyone in the home does meth - Mom or Dad, aunt or uncle, big brother or big sister - chances are the children do, too.
Cooks have stored chemicals, lab components and the drug itself in diaper bags, in cribs and beside baby food in refrigerators. Officers don't show surprise anymore when children test positive for meth.
"We found an entire lab (this spring) in a child's room covered up with toys," Campbell County Sheriff's Office Lt. Brandon Elkins said. "That's where the kids sleep. This stuff doesn't just disappear. It's there long after the lab's gone."
Studies indicate every time someone in the house cooks meth or even smokes it, the reaction creates an aerosol cloud that coats every nearby surface from the toy truck on the floor to the sippy cup on the kitchen counter. The fibers found in carpet, clothing, blankets, baby bibs and stuffed toys soak up those particles and pass them on.
"Young children spend most of their time on the floor," said Dr. John Martyny, a professor of environmental medicine at the National Jewish Children's Hospital in Denver who oversaw studies on the effects of cooking meth. "Any toddlers walking or crawling around and brushing up against the walls will be getting meth in their system. You end up seeing kids who are on at least a low dose of this stimulant all the time. We think we can see behavioral and learning differences in these kids. We don't know all the effects and probably won't know for years."
Unborn children aren't spared. Some mothers smoke, snort or shoot up while pregnant or nursing.
"I know one girl who had two meth-positive babies born dead, and she's got a third in the hospital now," said Burgess, the Cumberland County sheriff. "When you carry out a baby's body that looks like a porcelain doll in your arms, it makes you a little more determined to do the right thing."
A place to go
The right thing for the sheriff meant finding a way to offer children some comfort, if only temporarily.
"They can't bring anything with them out of these houses," Burgess said. "They can't bring their clothes. They can't bring their toys. For a while we were laying down pallets on the floor at the jail until DCS or somebody from the family showed up to take them."
The sheriff and others scraped together donations of money and supplies to open the House of Hope in 2004. The privately operated center in Crossville serves as a waystation for children removed from homes in drug, abuse, neglect or other cases.
"We've never at any time known where the money was coming from," Burgess said. "It's all based on the generosity of people in this community. Some of the kids that come through ask if they can go back."
Denise Melton, a former preschool director, stepped in to run the center. She stands by to open the doors at any time, day or night.
"Since we've been open, we've provided 5,300 services for kids," Melton said. "I've seen about 250-300 face to face. They don't have anything when they come. We offer whatever they need to get started, whether it's school supplies, food, clothes, diapers or toys. For some it's like Christmas morning. The first place most go is the refrigerator."
She knows firsthand the damage drugs can do. Her adult son has battled meth addiction for years.
"It's almost like there is a rotating black cloud that surrounds him," Melton said. "Even though he's off it now, just because you quit, it doesn't stop."
A place to stay
Efforts such as the House of Hope might help ease the separation but can't give children a permanent place to stay. That leaves family members or a state foster-care system already swollen with cases.
"The state does the best they can at finding foster homes, but eligible foster parents seem to keep getting further and further away," said Dixon, the Monroe County judge. "In most cases, they do find placement with relatives."
The most eligible relatives tend to be grandparents - older, sometimes retired and on fixed incomes. Men and women in their 60s, 70s and 80s might find themselves as sole caretakers of an emotionally damaged 5-year-old.
"These kids don't get to act like normal kids, because they've never had a chance to be kids," said Burgess, the Cumberland County sheriff. "The only people they know how to associate with are people from the same meth environment. The earlier you can get them in a safe, stable place, the best chance they've got."
The sheriff has served as a foster father to more than 30 children over the years, most from meth homes. He and his wife, Vicki, call one of them son.
"We got Nick when he was 3 years old," Burgess said. "The first two months we had him, all he did was scream. He hadn't ever bonded with his mom or anybody else. He's 11 now, and he's been on the A and B honor roll at school every year."
The couple draw on their experience to offer training for other foster and adoptive parents. Studies show children can recover from long-term meth exposure. Doctors still debate the extent of learning disabilities and other permanent damage from such exposure.
"We've seen so many little things," the sheriff said. "When Nick was little, if we told him to do two different things, he might not understand. It's a shame, but all the money for these studies and counseling has been spent on the adults instead of the kids."
Matt Lakin may be reached at 865-342-6306.

  © 2010 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online

"Story of the Month" Faith and Truth Ministries, Topeka, KS

This is a story we ran across about David's trip to Topeka, KS in September 2010.

http://www.faithandtruthministries.org/Story-of-the-Month.html

A Man of God and his journey with God, a man that goes out into the world and tells stories that are true and real for the cause to tell the truth about a drug called Methamphetamine.

There is a Man of God who is named David Parnell, this man is no ordinary man, he is a man of Faith, he is a man’s man, a father, a son, a husband, and a child of God, etc., but most of all, he is on a mission from God.  The mission from God is of this, to go out into the world to spread the truth about a drug called Methamphetamine; it is a drug that is tearing the fabric of our nation and nations all around us.  This drug has no discrimination towards anyone; it will destroy anyone who gets in its way.  You can be rich, famous, a doctor, a teacher, a minister, or even a child under 9 years old.  This drug almost destroyed our Brother David and his family, but God had better plans for David and his family.  Yes, it was God that saved David, not any self help book or a shrink that has a worldly view on saving an addict, but God alone.   

David has been for some years going to schools, churches, prisons/ jails, and into the community all-round the states and abroad in other countries, telling his stories about how meth. almost killed him.  David tells us that there is no hiding this, “The devil is behind this drug and the devil is trying to use this drug (Meth.) to destroy God’s children”  Yes, it is true that Meth. is a tool that the devil uses to keep us from knowing the truth.  It may seem that the war on drugs is a lost cause but it is if our Lord Jesus Christ is not put first on stopping Meth. or any illegal drug coming in our country or anywhere where it is wreaking havoc in our streets and communities. I tell you this, “David Parnell is not scared of the devil or the punks that put the drugs on the streets…David has God on his side and he puts on the full armour of God on (Ephs. 6:10…)”. 

While David was in Topeka, KS., not too long ago,  David went all-round the Capital, into schools, churches, jails, prisons, and other detention centers speaking about Meth. for his speaking tour called “Facing the Dragon, One Man’s Battle Against Methamphetamine”.  It went very well; wherever David went there were lots of eyes on him and his stories that proved to be captivating, especially when the graphic images showed the truth of the dangers of using or manufacturing Meth.  I went to many of his speaking engagements, and every time I went I kept on learning and was never bored a bit. 

You would think that David’s disfigured face would distract you, but it did for just a moment, but God gave you the ability to look past his scars and marks, David looked normal, because he is, his flesh and bones is of this world but his spirit is of God and that is what you see, you see Jesus Christ when you see David, you see a perfect image of David speaking the truth of what everyone needs to hear about.   There was another Godly Man, named Chuck Wilson who met David a while back; who met David on one of David’s speaking engagement.  Chuck was so impressed with David’s stories and format on how he tells the truth about Meth., that Chuck got David to come to Topeka, KS.  Chuck who was the head Chaplin at the Topeka County Jail for about eight years, has also been an impact on his testimonies on his life but supports others on their journey on spreading on the truth on the evils in the world and the good that Jesus Christ brings into this world. 

Chuck was the MC for David and introduced David to the speaking engagement in Topeka.  The both of them were very key to bring the whole event of ”Facing the Dragon Program”.  God had them together for His glory and honor.  Amen to that!!!  God is so great!!!  I was able to interview David at the “Central Park Church”, it was David’s last stop before he headed on to other places, doing the same thing he has done in Topeka.  It was such an honor and a humbling experience to meet a man with such gifts of serving the Lord and speaking to people.  I was impressed that David was soft spoken and mild-mannered, with a very respectful approach, it must be that southern gentleman inside of him.  Whatever it was, you could feel the presence of the Holy Ghost in Him, as you could feel in many people that tagged along with him on his speaking engagement, and at Central Park Church. 

Chuck was one of many that I felt that presences of the Holy Ghost in him and around him.  I can see why God brought them together.  Well, what I got out of David in the interview was of this:  David is 43 years old, he was born in 1966.  Born in Fulton KY, he has two twin sisters, and his parents divorced when David was six years old.  David was raised by his grandparents.  As a youth he lived on a farm with cattle’s, pigs, chickens, which he calls, “The Good Life”.  One day his grand dad got sick and had to sell the farm, than became a drinker, then died of cancer when David was at age 12. 

His teenage years, was full of rebellion, didn’t like school until in his high school years.  David played sports, such as basketball, was into sex, drugs, and did what he wanted.  Married high school sweetheart, his first wife gave birth to a baby girl, and then went to prison when she was 1 ½ years old.  David has seen her since he got out of prison but has no contact with her.  He lost custody when he was in prison.  His daughter thinks he left her, but that was not the case.  From what David expressed about his daughter, it really seems he loves her very much.  David has been in Prison just one time, but has been in the County Jails over 12 times.  David was once a drug dealer got one DUI, possession for illegal substances, public intoxication, but now is a child of God doing the will of our Lord.  He now has a family of seven, children from 6 to 18 yrs old, his wife is Amy.  They have been married for 16 yrs.  February 21, 2003 is the day he shot himself, and from that day forward was the day that changed his life forever and has made him a man on a mission for God.  When you hear that a man named David Parnell is in town, it would be in your best interest to go see him speak and bring a friend or two.  You do not need to miss him speak.

  

David is coming out with a book called, “Facing the Dragon”, it will be out soon.  The publisher (HCI) who is printing the book are the same publisher who has published “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, “A boy called It”, and even Sarah Palin’s new book that is coming out soon as well.  For additional information on his new book that is coming out, and his ministry, please do not hesitate to contact David, he would love to hear from you.  You can get in contact by the following approach: write to him at P.O. Box 762 Dresden, TN 38225, call (731) 469-9105 or cell (731) 514-7589, e-mail david@facingthedragron.org or www.facingthedragon.org. 

Written By:

Minister Timothy W. Sanders

Russell Springs, KY

David will be at the new Russell County auditorium across from the high school tonight at 5:00pm in Russell Springs, KY.  Tomorrow morning (Friday, November 19th) he will be speaking to the student body, grades 7-12 about the dangers of methamphetamine and other drugs.  We were at this school 4-5 years ago and are looking forward to this return visit!

First Post!

Welcome to our brand new blog!  Here we will be giving updates about David's speaking events and sharing methamphetamine related news among other things.  Please visit often and feel free to leave comments.