Mother reflects on heavy price of her addiction to meth

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

KA'U, Hawai'i — Living in the country on the Big Island, crystal methamphetamine was readily available for 19-year-old Leinette Reyes, and she used it. Now she curses when she talks about ice, and curses the people who smoke it.

A two-week drug binge put Leinette Reyes into a sleep so deep, she couldn't hear her 4-month-old baby screaming. When Reyes awoke, her baby was dead. Kevin Dayton • The Honolulu Advertiser

She had been smoking ice for two weeks straight, getting an average of about an hour of sleep a night, and she was exhausted.

They smoked the last of the meth they had, and Reyes went to sleep at about 10 p.m. "My boyfriend was out," she said. "When you smoke drugs for days and you no sleep, when you finally lie on the bed, it's just, coma."

At about 11:30 p.m. the 4-month-old baby girl Tehanimia was coughing and wheezing on the bed next to her. She recalls giving the girl to her boyfriend, and going back to sleep.

"I got up at 5 in the morning, looked on the side of me and my baby was lying face first on the bed, right by me. I touched her and she never moved. She never sleeps on her stomach. When I grabbed her, she came off the bed exactly like she was lying on the bed — stiff."

Reyes kicked and screamed to wake her boyfriend, but Tehanimia was already dead. Child Protective Service took 1-year-old Kymani from Reyes at the hospital, and the boy is now in foster care with Reyes' cousin.

Yesterday While the state increasingly focuses on the thefts, burglaries and violent crime associated with methamphetamine addiction, experts say the harm to children of addicts is often overlooked.
•	Drug's youngest victims see families torn apart
•	Trauma of ice both physical, emotional
•	Crystal meth Q&A
•	Chart: The crystal methamphetamine crisis
•	Chart: Indicators of a worsening ice problem in Hawai'i
•	Chart: How methamphetamine works in the body
Today When state Child Protective Service removes children from a home because of drug use, it becomes a powerful tool to pressure the parents into treatment.
•	Losing children can break addiction
•	Tragedy leads to change
Tomorrow Doctors desperately need information about babies born each year with ice in their systems, but drug-addicted mothers who take part in such research could have their children taken away.

Today, instead of her children, she carries her regrets around Ka'u with her. The neighbors in Pahala could hear Tehanimia screaming that night, but Reyes and her boyfriend, lying next to the baby, could not.

Tehanimia had a cold, and had already been diagnosed with respiratory problems that made her wheeze. The doctor had given Reyes an inhaler to administer medication, but the inhaler was with her sister at her old house.

"I figured, just tonight, and tomorrow I'll take her to the doctor, but never get to go to the doctor," she said. An autopsy showed Tehanimia died of natural causes. She simply stopped breathing, Reyes said.

"She was sick, and I was too in my own world for take her to the doctor," Reyes said. "I was so trapped; I never like go outside, I never like see anybody."

Getting drugs and using drugs was easy, and Reyes recalled that the Ka'u dealers would simply give it to her. She rolled her eyes as she explained.

"You just go to a drug dealer's house, and being one girl, you get everything free," she said. "Guys are sick people, I'm sorry. Drug dealers, you just talk funny to them, and they just give you everything you like. They're just perverts."

Now she is considering moving to Kailua to find work.

"I'm going to get my life together first. How can I take care of my baby when I cannot take care of myself?" she said. "I'm gonna go get me one job, make myself strong, get myself secured. Right now, I'm not in my right mind."

In the meantime, she said she has a powerful incentive to stay clear of drugs: She doesn't want to risk a failed drug test that might erase all hope of reunification with her son, Kymani.

"The only thing that can ease my pain is my baby, and I can't be with him right now," she said. "I try to talk to him, but he cannot talk to me. He's not a big kid, but just for hear him cry or anything, it makes me feel good."

After just two months without him, she already worries that there is something missing between them, she said.

"It's just not the same anymore. He's gonna be 2, and it's different when I see him; it's not that same bond that we had. And when I have to leave, and I can't take my baby, it's hard," she said. "You don't realize how precious it is until it's gone. Kids, they are precious, they're gifts, and when you no more, it's the hardest thing."

When users first start, they know they can stop, but they quickly pass through that phase, Reyes said.

"Once you're really into it, it's so hard for back out," she said. "You really don't know what you got yourself into. It's the sickest thing ever. People, they think they're strong and they can stop when they like, but they don't realize that they cannot. Once the thing get you, it's over."

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.