2 Year Old Child.

[anneasquith]

sorry cant do links.................a 2year old child dead following ingestion of methadone from ( allegedly) a baby cup ?, any child residing with known drug addicts should be removed from the household,

[Frank97]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sophie-jones-drank-heroin-substitute-3216056

[anneasquith]

thank you frank.

[anotheoldgit]

Is this the story?

http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/07/dead-toddler-may-have-been-given-methadone-to-sleep-say-police-4463166/

[anneasquith]

yes aog.

[anotheoldgit]

A similar case over a year ago.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260084/Toddler-Riley-Pettipierre-died-sipping-mothers-methadone-beaker-ingested-heroin-cocaine.html

[andy-hughes]

I can see your point annasquith, but you have to consider that every case is different.

These parents were obviously inadequate, and the child died not because a family member is a drug addict, but because they misused prescription medicine - if it had not been methodone, the chances are they would have used something else.

Plenty of recovering addicts use methodone sensibily to ween themselves off heroin, and manage to live responsible lives doing it, so a blanket removal of children is not appropriate in my view.

For methodone to be available to an addict where they do not have to take their dose at a designated pharmacy, there has usually been a level of care established - that the addict can be trusted with the methodone at home.

It is clear that in this case, that was not the case - although the report does not specify that the supplier lived at the family home.

A terrible tragedy - poor little soul.

[anneasquith]

andy. I have worked with recovering addicts who used methadone very successfully. but if the addict has care of children then social services are duty bound to ensure the safety of the children, which would mean daily/spot checks of the house,,,,,,,,now we all know that is impossible to manage, so while the addict is 'using' remove the child/children give them parents daily contact (supervised) until they can prove they are drug free........but that is impossible to manage , because social work department (by there own admission ) do not have enough foster carers, so its a bit like, fingers crossed, lets hope these children don't come to any harm, tragic situation and preventable.

[andy-hughes]

Thank you for your reply anneasquith - you obviously have far more experience in this issue than I.

It appears that this poor little soul has died because of the age-old problem of lack of funding from central government - even more of a tragedy, were such a thing possible.

[mikey4444]

I am tending to agree with you anneasquith, but the sheer numbers of children involved may be far too much for the Social Services to handle. They are swamped with the need to take children into care as it is, without making it compulsory for addicts to lose their kids. I am not sure how many drug users we have in Britain, but it must run into 10,000's at least. Where would all these kids go !

That is not to say that we do nothing. We can only rely on the Social Services, Teachers, etc, etc to be as vigilant as possible. A very sad case, which has happened before and will no doubt happen again in the future.

What stupid people drug addicts are !

[Peter Pedant]

.
This is a case from a few years ago
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2071557/Four-month-old-baby-crushed-death-television-topples-him.html

Mother off her head at the time with either crack or heroin

verdict - later - manslaughter by gross negligence and four or five years in clink

[Peter Pedant]

Anne you will also be aware that crack heads may get a dodie and lick it and dip in heroin powder ( and then shove it in the kids mouth to quieten him )

Yikes how do any survive to school age ?