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New York, NY: Tens of thousands of expectant parents nationwide face investigations from child protective services over allegations of marijuana use, according to a year-long investigation by Rolling Stone magazine.
Reporters identified nearly 100,000 marijuana-related investigations in six states (Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Louisiana, Ohio, and West Virginia) over the past five years. (Reporters were unable to obtain specific data from other jurisdictions.) Marijuana-related investigations far outnumbered those triggered by allegations of maternal tobacco or alcohol use. Those targeted were disproportionately people of color.
Studies have previously confirmed that those selected to undergo marijuana-specific drug screening during the labor and delivery process are significantly more likely to be Hispanic or African American. Black newborns are also more likely to undergo drug testing than other babies, according to data published last year in the journal JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Network Open.
A separate report published by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice identifies nearly 100 recent cases where expectant people have been criminally prosecuted for their use of cannabis.
In recent months, courts in two states – Arizona and Oklahoma – have explicitly ruled that the maternal use of medical cannabis does not constitute child neglect. Other states, like Maryland and New York, have recently enacted legislation shielding parents from neglect investigations based on cannabis alone.
Data assessing the relationship between in utero cannabis exposure and various neonatal outcomes, such as birth weight, is inconsistent and may be confounded by various socioeconomic factors. However, longitudinal data indicates that prenatal cannabis exposure alone is rarely linked with adverse neurodevelopmental consequences, finding, “Although there is a theoretical potential for cannabis to interfere with neurodevelopment, human data drawn from four prospective cohorts have not identified any long-term or long lasting meaningful differences between children exposed in utero to cannabis and those not.”
Full text of the investigation is available from Rolling Stone.
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