Meth emergency: Use soaring among Utah females

The little girl isn't home right now.

She's 3 years old, and when she comes back to the apartment in a few days, her tiny dresses will be right here, hanging on a cord just off the kitchen. Her plastic Playskool toys will ring the living room like they are tonight, and her toddler-size bed will still be tucked in the corner of the living room under layers of cigarette smoke and the residue of her mother's drug habit.

The absent little girl is the greatest presence in the crowded basement apartment in Glendale. You can almost see her kneeling in front of the pink-and-white doll house, or baking cookies on her pretend stove. On any other day, her little brother would be nearby, too, chattering the language of a 5-month-old and kicking in his swing. On any other day, her mother might be in the next room with a needle in her arm.

On a cool fall evening, the girl's mother, who we will know as Tina, taps her cigarette ash and tells a stranger she promised the landlord she wouldn't smoke and use drugs where she lives with her daughter, her baby boy and whomever else. The blond woman shrugs as she looks around the smoky room. It's one of many broken promises to herself and others.

After four years clean, she's hooked again.

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"Just talking about this. Just sitting here talking about meth is making me jones. I haven't gotten high in months, but my mouth is getting wet and I don't know why. That's how bad it is."— Jennifer Crue, 24, recovering meth addict, six-time convicted felon and mother of 5-month-old boy.

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With its cheap, addictive high, it is well-known that methamphetamine abuse is a crisis in Utah. But women are a skyrocketing part of the meth-using population, and Utah officials close to the children of these women say the next generation suffers from stunning amounts of neglect, abuse, neurologic damage and death because of their mothers' habits.

Further, Utah is losing the battle against methamphetamine addiction. The state's law enforcement, substance abuse, child welfare and treatment systems all are overloaded.

Consequently, the weight of this crisis falls on the backs of the children who live in the homes where meth is used, sold and cooked. They include:

• The toddler who nearly died after sipping toxic "meth oil" from a home lab located on a knee-high coffee table.