Treatment center lauds promises of meth bill

~ Methamphetamine remains scourge for young women, families.

With methamphetamine use in women increasing, politicians seek to provide more funding for some treatment facilities, something local centers can hardly wait to see.

"Meth is a big problem," said Jim Ray, clinical supervisor for Family Counseling Center Inc., 20 S. Sprigg St. "We turn people down all the time because funds are not available to increase the size."

Along with 17 other U.S. senators, Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., requested Congress provide $20 million in funding for family-based treatment centers to help pregnant and parenting women who are nonviolent ex-offenders addicted to meth.

The proposal was still pending Friday, according to Talent spokesman Erin Hamm.

Ray's center is one such location that provides treatment to women and allows their children to stay during the process. The center has 32 beds that are always full, half with meth addicts, and there could be as many as eight children in the center at any given time.

Women's abuse increasing

"It's a family disease," he said of meth. "Moms really need to be with their kids."

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the number of women admitted for methamphetamine treatment has doubled in eight years.

Between 1995 and 2003, the percentage of women admitted for meth as their primary substance of abuse rose from 4.6 to 9.1 percent, the administration stated.

Of those women, the number of pregnant women admitted increased from 10 percent to 18 percent in that same time frame.

Young women are also more at risk than men. Of all admissions to treatment facilities for teenagers 15 to 17 years old abusing meth, 56 percent were girls. For those ages 12 to 14, 71 percent were girls.

Women being treated at family-based centers for drugs and alcohol have a lower percentage of pregnancy problems than those not in such a center, administration spokeswoman Leah Young said.

"We know from our data that this type of treatment ... is very worthwhile," she said.

Based on a study in 2001, the rate of women in such treatment centers who have premature births was 7.3 percent. Those children with a low birth weight was 5.7 percent and infant mortality was 0.4 percent, she said. All the numbers were lower than the national rates of 11.4, 7.1, and 0.7 percents, respectively, according to Young.

While Ray admitted that the proposed $20 million was not as much as he would have hoped, he said that any additional funding would be nice.

"We can take any dimes we can get," Ray said.

kmorrison@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127