Legal Use of Marijuana Jeopardizes Parental Rights

Are you a parent who has a medical marijuana card? You might want to rethink before you get your marijuana treatment. Unbeknownst to you, you may be taking a risk of losing your child. That’s a warning parents who smoke pot should be aware of, but is nowhere in the statute to be found. There is no bright line rule on whether a legal use of marijuana makes a parent unfit. Nevertheless, your state can suddenly take your child away. Now, you must choose either your treatment or your child.

That’s the dilemma Raymond Schwab, an honorary veteran, is facing. Raymond suffers from PTSD and is a Colorado-registered medical marijuana user who resides in Kansas with his wife Amelia and their six children. Raymond and Amelia decided to move to Colorado so Raymond could continue his marijuana treatment. They were completely oblivious that they were going to lose custody of their children if they remained in Kansas. 

On the day they were packing to leave, Raymond’s mother-in-law took their five children to a police station and reported that the children had been abandoned, of which she now regrets, according to Denver Post. Since then, the Kansas law enforcement investigated the report of abuse but dismissed the case concluding as “unsubstantiated finding.” Simply put, they found no child abuse.

Nevertheless, Kansas child welfare agency did not return the kids to their parents and have been holding the custody of the children. According to Kansas Child Protective Services when CPS determines that a child is unsafe, CPS makes a recommendation to the court for removal of a child from the home. Presumably, CPS must have determined that those five children were unsafe and removal was necessary because CPS has been holding onto the custody of the five children over nine months. The Kansas court is now demanding Raymond to give up cannabis, to comply with four months of drug free urinalysis tests including a drug legal in Colorado for therapeutic uses.

Kansas Law Empowers Child Protective Services to Take Kids Away From Home

Kansas’s decision to remove Raymond’s children from their home seems overreaching and drastic. Overreaching, because Raymond’s marijuana use did not occur in Kansas, the home state, but in Colorado, where such use is legal. Taking families apart because of his simple use of marijuana as a medication is drastic and traumatic for both children and parents. It just seems unfair for someone like Raymond, who did not violate Kansas marijuana law.

One reason for such extreme consequences may be the mixed standards of marijuana laws among the states. Currently, 23 states and D.C. have legalized medical marijuana. In Colorado, possession of marijuana for medical and recreational use is legal whereas Kansas prohibits marijuana for any reasons. These mixed standards create a case such as Raymond’s. Does out-of-state medical marijuana use by a parent make the parent unfit in a state that absolutely prohibits marijuana?

Not only does Kansas law prohibit marijuana for any reason, but it also treats

marijuana as one of the most dangerous and addictive drugs. The federal government and many states classify drugs as Schedule I, most dangerous level, to Schedule V, the least dangerous drugs. In Kansas, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I substance with such drugs as heroin and meth, which means that it has a high potential for abuse and no recognized medical value. This limits how it can be studied or used medically. The strict prohibition and overgeneralization of marijuana treatment of Kansas law seem to empower the state’s child welfare agency’s decision to take families apart based on a mere speculative and obscure danger.

Raymond did not violate the Kansas marijuana prohibition statute. The state, however, claims that Raymond’s retroactive or prospective legal use of marijuana in Colorado was or is going to be unsafe to his children.

The CPS’s balancing test underestimates the degree of harm that the children might experience when they are taken away from their natural home. Removal from the home and replacement in the home can lead to feelings of instability, loss of status, and a loss of control as children may always expect and fear that they can be removed and replaced at any time without explanation. Lack of understanding of the foster care system and the process may lead to feelings of loss and/or rejection for children grappling to understand the separation from their biological families.

Instability in foster care is a serious problem for child development. We hear more and more problems in foster care system. In 2014, a two-year-old Alex Hill was taken away from her home because her parents used marijuana. After placed in a foster home, the toddler girl was physically abused and eventually killed by her foster mother. The Texas child welfare agency took the child away from her home simply because her parents smoked pot while their baby was sleeping in bed upstairs. The child was then placed in a “safe environment,” namely, foster care. That safe environment is where she died.

Best Interest of Child

The different standards of marijuana law among the states render a parent who is legally entitled to smoke pot in one state to become unfit parent in another. That is arbitrary. Furthermore, by taking the kids away, Kansas demands that Raymond forfeit his right to use medical marijuana as a patient in Colorado. The stigma against marijuana allows the state to dictate a decision without carefully considering whether it would be in the children’s’ best interests. As a result, the removal produces traumatic experiences for the children, rather than providing safe and temporary environment for the children’s well-being. According to the Denver Post, Raymond and Amelia have only seen their children three times since their separation in April 2015

The essence of child welfare decision should be made based on the best interest of child. Arguably, parents who abuse illegal drugs can put their children at incredible risk. Parents who use addictive drugs may be incapable of caring for children and the children would become susceptible to drug use themselves.

However, Raymond was in compliance with both Kansas and Colorado law. Also, marijuana is not addictive. Given the degree of resulting trauma the children may go through, compared to the degree of potential harm by having a father who uses marijuana for his illness, Kansas’s decision to take the kids away is erroneous. Holding onto the custody of the children over nine months based on overblown concerns is not for the best interests of the children.

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