A couple in the US is accused of injecting their three young children with drugs so they would sleep.
According to reports police claim a 24-year-old woman and a 25-year-old man drugged their son, six, and daughters, four and two, in their deplorable Washington home that was festered with syringes and rat droppings.
The Washington Post reports the pair has been charged with unlawful delivery of a controlled substance to a person under 18, criminal mistreatment in the second degree and assault of a child in the second degree, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in September in Pierce County Superior Court.
Child Protective Services (CPS) was alerted to the alleged activity in November 2015 when somebody claimed they saw the children with the drug.
According to an affidavit the 6-year-old told reportedly told social workers that his father had choked him and his siblings and also gave them “feel good medicine”, which he described as “white powder which was mixed with water”.
The boy told workers his sisters would fall asleep after they were given the “medicine”.
The Post reports after the children were removed from their parents care hair follicle tests found the boy tested negative for the drug, the 4-year-old has heroin in her system but not enough for a strong result but the two-year-old tested positive.
The parents of the children have allegedly admitted to being heroin users but deny given the kids the drugs and blame it on a babysitter.
Authorities in the US are becoming increasingly frustrated with the scourge of opioid crime in their towns.
In September a photograph released by the East Liverpool police department in Ohio went viral when it showed a confronting photo of a 4-year-old boy sitting in the backseat of a car as his grandmother and her boyfriend were slumped over the dash and steering wheel – unconscious from an apparent overdose.
VIDEO: People laughing as couple overdose on heroin
