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Mother arrested after son eats LSD-lace candy -Boy released from hospital, in state custody
Austin American-Statesman ^ | Thursday, June 22, 2006 | Katie Humphrey

Posted on 06/22/2006 9:39:26 AM PDT by WestTexasWend

As many as nine LSD-laced candies disappeared during a gathering at a Northwest Austin apartment and, about an hour later, a 3-year-old boy was hallucinating, crying as he grasped at the air, police said.

The boy spent three days in Children's Hospital, at times in intensive care, before being discharged Wednesday and placed in a foster home. His mother, 22-year-old Ashli Rene Freas, faces a state jail felony charge of abandoning or endangering a child after the incident Sunday.

Police arrested Freas late Sunday outside her Cedar Park apartment on Cypress Creek Road, saying she took her child to an apartment where there were drugs and then failed to get help for him after he ingested the LSD and began hallucinating, said Capt. Jeff Hayes of the Cedar Park police. Police said the boy hallucinated for more than an hour before paramedics were called.

But Freas' lawyer, Robert M. Phillips, said the charges are false and denied that Freas waited to call for help. Freas had no idea there were drugs at the apartment and did everything she could for her son, Phillips said, adding that police should be focusing on the person who had the drugs.

"This young lady, who has never been arrested in her life, is not guilty of this offense and is absolutely morally pure in the way she handled herself," Phillips said.

According to a Cedar Park police affidavit, Freas and her boyfriend had taken the boy to an apartment in the area of Parmer Lane and Duval Road. There, the boy went inside with another adult while Freas and her boyfriend stayed outside with friends.

The man who lived in the apartment, identified in the affidavit only as Stephen, noticed at about 7 p.m. that his SweeTart candies laced with the drug were open and that nine pieces were missing. Stephen told Freas that the candies were missing and that the boy might have eaten them, Hayes said. After taking the boy home, the affidavit said, Freas noticed that he began crying, vomiting and hallucinating. She called two friends, one of whom called 911 after seeing the boy.

Cedar Park police said they will work with Austin police to investigate further, Hayes said, because the apartment where the boy is thought to have ingested the LSD-laced candy is in Austin. Because the case is being investigated as child abuse, APD officials refused to comment on any drug investigations or charges.

Freas, who posted $10,000 bail Tuesday to get out of the Williamson County Jail, could face up to two years in state jail and a $10,000 fine.

Phillips, however, said that the affidavit contains factual errors and denied that an hour had passed before emergency personnel were called.

"She was piecing together the story and doing her best to take care of her baby's medical problems and possibly not thinking as straight as she should have, but certainly not purposefully or neglectfully failing to call emergency personnel," Phillips said.

Child Protective Services has custody of the boy and is investigating, said Chris Van Deusen, a CPS spokesman. In cases of children having access to or being harmed by drugs, the drug involved is usually methamphetamines because people manufacture them at home, he said.

"Where there's a child around, there's a potential for all sorts of accidents, and all sorts of problems arise from simply being in the presence of drugs," Van Deusen said.

CPS will investigate the boy's home environment before determining whether to return him to his mother, place him with another family member or keep him in the foster home where he was taken after being released from the hospital, Van Deusen said.

LSD, or acid, is a potent drug that can cause an adult to become psychotic and hallucinate, said Dr. William Loving, director of the chemical dependency program at Seton Shoal Creek Hospital. It's unclear what effect it would have on a child with a developing brain, he said. The drug wears off with time, depending on how much is ingested, he said.

"You take a little child with a developing brain, and you throw in this turbocharged chemical that's going to stimulate the brain and make them really confused," Loving said. "It's likely to have been a nightmarish state that he would've been in."


TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: childendangerment; lsd; mrleroybait
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pic of poor, misunderstood Ashli at the link
1 posted on 06/22/2006 9:39:31 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
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To: WestTexasWend

Three is a little young to begin frying. Especially with 9 adult doses.

Whoever sees acid these days but boy did it make high school and college (and movies) interesting!

Seems like the mom did the right thing once he started behaving weirdly. Unless I missed it, she didn't know he'd taken some doses.


2 posted on 06/22/2006 9:45:57 AM PDT by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: WestTexasWend

Somethings smells about this story. "LSD laced candies", in particular SweetTarts? I've never heard of such a thing. I've only ever seen acid on blotter or in microdots (very tiny pills), and in the days of old in gelatin ("windowpane") or powdered form. Can't really imagine someone going to the trouble of making candies out of it. I suspect something else going on and this is the best explanation they could come up with.


3 posted on 06/22/2006 9:51:07 AM PDT by -YYZ-
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To: WestTexasWend

Based on the info given here, I don't think the child should have been taken from her. It's plenty traumatic to a child to be taken away from its mother and familiar home, and in all likelihood a lot more damage is being done to the child by taking him, than would occur if he was left with his mother. She needs to learn to exercise better judgement in choosing her friends (and most likely will, if she's the sort of person who has no record of arrests, much less convictions), but the criminal here is the guy who left LSD laced candies lying around in an apartment with a child roaming around. If this had been a huge house, he might not have known that a child had been brought in, but it's just not plausible that he didn't know in an apartment.

The state taking a child from its parent(s) is a VERY serious matter, and should only be done in the most extreme situations. And for borderline cases, where the facts are really fuzzy and the parent(s) might be really dangerous but also might be perfectly innocent, the relevant agencies should be equipped to bring the parent(s) and child(ren) TOGETHER to a supervised living facility, to avoid separation trauma to the child(ren).


4 posted on 06/22/2006 9:55:11 AM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: -YYZ-

all you would do is put a drop on the candie it was done with sugar cubes also.


5 posted on 06/22/2006 9:57:49 AM PDT by stickandpucknut
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To: WestTexasWend
"I hope you're not busy for about a month."


6 posted on 06/22/2006 10:05:41 AM PDT by Niteranger68 (Ninguna tarjeta verde. Ningún Inglés. Ningún servicio.)
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To: WestTexasWend

"Ma'am, why didn't you call for help after your little boy started hallucinating?"
"Serves the little bastard right. He ate my stash."


7 posted on 06/22/2006 10:08:33 AM PDT by RichInOC (Stupidity is its own punishment...but sometimes it causes collateral damage.)
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To: GovernmentShrinker

Sorry, can't agree.

It was her responsiblity to go into the apartment and check for hazards before letting "another adult" take her toddler inside. And the minute "Steven" told her of his suspicions about the missing candy, she should have taken the child to an ER or called 911...not gone home and pieced together a story. Thank God a friend called 911.

Since she failed to do these things...and until/unless she learns to do better...someone else needs to watch over the boy.


8 posted on 06/22/2006 10:08:52 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
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To: GovernmentShrinker

Let me guess, you work for Texas CPS.


9 posted on 06/22/2006 10:14:41 AM PDT by call meVeronica
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To: -YYZ-

If it only requires a droplet, it could be applied to SweeTarts.

If there was no reason for the mother to believe that the candy had been "electrified" then she should be let off.


10 posted on 06/22/2006 10:19:18 AM PDT by drlevy88
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To: WestTexasWend
pic of poor, misunderstood Ashli at the link

Would you be more sympathetic to her if she had blonde hair and blue eyes?
.
11 posted on 06/22/2006 10:19:38 AM PDT by mugs99 (Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive.)
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To: stickandpucknut

"all you would do is put a drop on the candie it was done with sugar cubes also"

OK, but that would require that you start off with LSD in an aqueous solution, something only a manufacturer of LSD is likely to have, and they are very few and far between, the making of LSD requiring fairly sophisticated chem lab knowledge. Given how harsh the penalties are in the US for making or trafficking LSD, why would you then put it on something as big as a SweeTart when 20 or 30 microdots would fit in the same space, or even more blotter? Did the cops get any of these SweeTart candies with LSD on them? Personally I suspect someone gave the kid LSD on purpose, you know, just for fun to see what would happen.


12 posted on 06/22/2006 10:20:21 AM PDT by -YYZ-
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To: -YYZ-

I guess - and this is just a theory - that one could take liquid LSD and drop it onto Sweet Tarts, which might be porous enough to absorb it.


13 posted on 06/22/2006 10:21:28 AM PDT by Xenalyte (The wages of sin are death, but after taxes are taken out it's just sort of a tired feeling.)
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To: WestTexasWend

Someone needs to tell Ashli that a) her parents are morons and b) it's spelled Ashley.


14 posted on 06/22/2006 10:22:38 AM PDT by Xenalyte (The wages of sin are death, but after taxes are taken out it's just sort of a tired feeling.)
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To: WestTexasWend
"LSD ... can cause an adult to become psychotic and hallucinate"

So can Black Sabbath

Game Show Host: Here's a question I ask of all our contestants: what made you drop out?
Bob Bitchin': A lot of people think it was the 400 Acid trips I took, you know?
Game Show Host: Uh-huh...but what was it really, Bob?
Bob Bitchin': One day I played Black Sabbath at 78 speed, man.
Game Show Host: Black Sabbath - And then what happened?
Bob Bitchin': I saw God, man.

15 posted on 06/22/2006 10:22:48 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
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To: WestTexasWend

Intensive care sounds awful curious too. An antipsychotic medication and physical restraints should be all that would be needed until the drug had worn off. Also -- a mental hospital rather than a medical hospital would have staff more knowledgeable about this sort of thing.


16 posted on 06/22/2006 10:25:57 AM PDT by drlevy88
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To: Xenalyte

See my previous post - I've never seen or even heard of anyone having liquid LSD. It is possible, of course, and even if the candy didn't absorb it very far (SweetTarts are pretty solid, not like a sugar cube), the standard 100 microgram dose of LSD doesn't take up very much space - that's a tenth of a milligram, a very tiny amount (LSD is a very potent substance). But to repeat myself, the only form I ever saw or heard of anyone having LSD in was blotter or microdot. It's been many years since I had any contact with the stuff though, so things may have changed (what I mostly hear is that LSD has pretty much disappeared altogether - the penalties for producing or trafficking it are very harsh, and the precursor chemicals are not common and are closely watched by law enforcement).


17 posted on 06/22/2006 10:27:22 AM PDT by -YYZ-
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To: -YYZ-

SweeTarts might be easier to handle by a tripper, is the only thing I can think of.


18 posted on 06/22/2006 10:27:57 AM PDT by drlevy88
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To: mugs99

Uh...Ashli looks Caucasian to me, so NO.

My views aren't based on her race, they're based on her actions.


19 posted on 06/22/2006 10:29:47 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
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To: -YYZ-

Stick the dots to the candies using something like corn syrup?


20 posted on 06/22/2006 10:30:55 AM PDT by drlevy88
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