Cocaine at Daycare Centre in US

Alarm bells have been rung in daycare centres in the US following the discovery of cocaine bag at a centre in Texas. Authorities are deliberating how to protect toddlers.

Texan authorities are appalled over reports that a two-year girl at a daycare centre in North Waco a small bag of cocaine. Investigators are trying to figure how in the first place she got hold of it.

A teacher was cleaning a room inside the facility when the toddler handed the teacher “a real small baggy, containing an off-white substance that was almost orange in color,” Waco police spokesman Steve Anderson said.

The bag was moist, Anderson said, which made the teacher worry that the little girl had put it in her mouth.

Police tested the substance at the scene, and quickly determined it was cocaine.

A narcotics-sniffing dog searched the day care, which typically houses about 90 children, and found no additional drugs, Anderson said.

The girl was taken by her mother to the hospital. While the center’s director, Vivian Williams, said the child never had the cocaine in her mouth, authorities could not say for sure whether cocaine was found in the girl’s system.

"They did everything that a facility is supposed to do," said Anderson. "It is going to be very difficult to determine where it came from, because we are dealing with a 2-year-old child. Did it come from the child's home? Did it come from in front of the child's home? Did it come from the sidewalk in front of the day care? Where the child picked it up? It's hard to say."

The center will hereafter check each child's bag upon arrival, it has been announced.

Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the Division of Child Care Licensing had begun investigating the center since the incident.

Source-Medindia
MED/B