Addicts’ children clog state foster care system

Innocent children of drug addicts sometimes pay a heavy price.

They get dumped into foster care.

In the 2014 fiscal year, more than 264,000 children entered the system, the most since 2008. Marion County Day Report Center director Ted Offutt says drugs are largely to blame, with usage of opioids and heroin skyrocketing.

"Even though they love their children, at times they love the drug more," said Offutt. "It's worse now than in my 28 years of law enforcement and my six years running the Day Report.”

And for children born addicted to mom’s drugs, their behavior often makes it difficult for society and foster homes to deal with them. So it’s a double whammy for the kids.

Marion County CASA Volunteer Coordinator Melissa Garcia Webb said that there’s a shortage of foster families in Marion County, further compounding the hell-on-earth for the innocent children.

West Virginia leads the nation in drug-overdose deaths, more than double the national average, with prescription drug oxycontin playing a major role. West Virginia averages 600 drug-overdose deaths a year over the past 5 years, when 3,000 died from the misuse.

Cases of hepatitis C, from unsterilized drug needles or unprotected sex, have tripled.