PARK CITY — They may choose to smoke it instead of injecting it directly into their veins, but that doesn't make methamphetamine any less devastating for women.

In fact, women are nearly twice as likely as men to make meth their drug of choice, become addicted more quickly and suffer greater negative physical effects from the drug. And because women are more often primary caretakers for their children, youngsters are impacted by methamphetamine more than most other drugs, said Kari Earle, program manager with the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare.

Which makes it important for those involved in the state's child welfare system, from individual case workers to family court judges, to understand the impact of the drug on families and available treatment options for the user, Earle said Thursday.

"Methamphetamine is a bad drug and a difficult drug to treat, but it's not impossible with the right system and treatments in place," she said, speaking at the "Methamphetamine Issues in Child Welfare" conference.

The two-day conference, which ended Friday, attracted those who deal daily with the problem of meth addiction in Utah.

"It's to improve the way that we deal with substance-abusing parents, meth-using parents," said 4th District Juvenile Judge Kay Lindsay, chairwoman of the Utah Court Improvement Program, which sponsored the conference. "How can we improve the outcomes for children through helping their parents?"

Nationally, among those undergoing substance abuse treatment in 2003, meth was the primary drug of choice for 11 percent of women and 6 percent of men. Utah has the fifth highest rate of methamphetamine use in the country, behind Hawaii, Nevada, Idaho and California.

Lindsay sees meth-addicted parents time and time again in her Utah County courtroom and said the drug's effects can be particularly devastating in child-welfare cases. For that reason, the judge said, it's important for policymakers and practitioners to work together to address the problem.

"It's just that act of getting everybody together," she said. "Because you have people in that mode that what we can do together is better than what we can do apart."

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E-mail: awelling@desnews.com