Crystal methamphetamine is given much of the blame for the death of an infant boy thrown from an H-1 freeway pedestrian overpass, but the responsibility falls squarely on the meth user convicted last week of murder. The danger of meth has been well known, and adult users should know the consequences.

Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario found Matthew Higa, 25, guilty of murdering 23-month-old Cyrus Belt on Jan. 17, 2008, while under the influence of meth.

The boy's mother, Nancy Chanco, also had a history of drug use and admittedly was occupied with illegal gambling and smoking meth with the boy's father, Shelton Higa, on the day of the tot's death. She is charged with robbing a man of $7,000 last November.

The perils of meth have been widely known for years, and the number of Hawaii adults and adolescents admitted into meth treatment programs has declined since 2005. While the statistics offer encouragement, incidents like the Cyrus Belt case hammer home the tragedy when users are unable, or unwilling, to resist meth.

Last year, the privately funded Hawaii Meth Project, patterned after a highly praised Montana project, began airing fear-based television ads about the dangers of meth. The effectiveness of the ad project has been questioned by the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, which notes that 98 percent of teenagers strongly disapproved of meth before the first ads were aired and 97 percent thought using meth was risky. While meth use has dropped since then, the forum cites research concluding that other factors accounted for children's knowledge of meth's danger.

Better lauded by the Drug Policy Forum are last year's results of a five-year experiment called “;Positive Action,”; showing that fifth-graders in the program at 20 Hawaii elementary schools were about half as likely to use drugs, alcohol, weapons or engage in sex as their peers in other schools. The forum favors such positive-behaviorial programs over “;hype”; advertising campaigns aimed at tomorrow's parents.

Preventing child endangerment by today's parents is another issue. A RAND Corp. study last year put the yearly cost of meth-related medical, mental and quality of life losses suffered by children at more than $500 million and the cost to the foster care system at more than $40 million.

The Hawaii Department of Human Services was aware that Chanco had a history of drug use preventing her from properly caring for Cyrus and two older sons on repeated occasions. The toddler spent four days in foster care in 2006.

Attempts at educating schoolchildren to the dangers of crystal meth and other drugs appear to have been effective, whether in school or over TV. But efforts to protect children from abuse and endangerment by irresponsible and drugged parents are in dire need of improvement, as the Belt case has sadly shown.