From Wn.com

ITV reports a Washington State mother is on trial in Pierce County for injecting her three young children with heroin to make them go to sleep, a court heart Tuesday.

Ashlee Hutt is accused of giving her three children – aged two, four and six – heroin, a class A drug, the report said.

The children told police their parents would give them “feel-good medicine” or “sleeping juice,” the report said.

Hutt and the children’s father, Leroy McIver, were found living with the children in a house filled with drug needles and rat droppings in Pierce County, Wash., the report said.

Tests showed what appeared to be low levels of what is believed to be heroin in two of the children, who have since been placed in foster care, the report said.

This is not McIver’s first run-in with the law. The report says he has already been jailed for 18 months for supplying a controlled substance to a person under 18 as well as child endangerment and assault charges.

Hutt appears separately in court after reportedly spending months hiding from police, the report said.

– WN.com, Jack Durschlag

Heroin (diacetylmorphine or morphine diacetate (INN)), also known as diamorphine (BAN), is an opiate analgesic synthesized by C.R Alder Wright in 1874 by adding two acetyl groups to the molecule morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy. When used in medicine it is typically used to treat severe pain, such as that resulting from a heart attack. It is the 3,6-diacetyl ester of morphine, and functions as a morphine prodrug (meaning that it is metabolically converted to morphine inside the body in order for it to work). The white crystalline form considered “pure heroin” is usually the hydrochloride salt, diacetylmorphine hydrochloride. When heroin is supplied illegally, though, it is often adulterated to a freebase form, dulling the sheen and consistency to a matte-white powder. As of 2004, roughly 87% of the world supply of opium and its derivatives, including heroin, was thought to be produced in Afghanistan. However, production in Mexico has risen six-fold from 2007 to 2011, changing that percentage and placing Mexico as the second largest opium producer in the world.

For more on this story go to: https://article.wn.com/view/2016/11/01/Report_Washington_State_Mother_Injected_Her_3_Kids_With_Hero/