(OregonLive.com) The state cannot take children away from a mother who tests positive for marijuana use without evidence that shows her drug use endangers the children, the Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled.
DHS workers visited the home and … found that the home was clean, the children had appropriate food to eat and they appeared “happy and healthy,” the appeals court wrote in its decision. A DHS worker also had testified that the mother “appears to have appropriate parenting skills.”
[I]n reversing the decision, the appeals court said “the record lacks evidence showing that mother’s use of marijuana, her ‘chemical abuse problem’ as found by the trial court, is a condition or circumstance that poses any risk to her children. That evidence is necessary to establish jurisdiction over the children.”
Keep in mind this isn’t a mom with a medical marijuana card, but just a regular occasional cannabis consumer. We’ve reported on stories of people losing custody or having their custody severely curtailed because their medicinal marijuana use comes up in a court. Now we have case law (until and if it is appealed to the Supreme Court) that says marijuana use in and of itself is not enough to prove you are a bad parent…
…just as the millions of cannabis-consuming parents can tell you from experience. These are the good people I know who put their kids to bed and retire to the patio or garage to light up an end-of-day relaxant. They keep their stash locked up away from the kids. They are better parents than half the beer-drinking parents I know, and maybe precisely because their cannabis use allows them to de-stress and not take out a bad day at work on their kids.
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I guess i took a little too much comfort in believing, that if you were following state law…which my wife was according to prop 215 , that there wasnt much that would happen if she got pulled over. It says right in 215 and sb420 that a patient has the right to transport their meds , it doesnt say anything about not being able too if youre kids are in the car. NOW SHE HAD COURT IN SAN DIEGO last week and her public defender stated when they met and she showed him her MMJ paper work ” that aint going to fly here, everybody has one of these things now” HUH?
They went after us a little over thirty years ago, over an offhand comment heard by a random stranger regarding cannibis. They followed us, “interviewed” our friends and acquaintences and slowly built up a “case” against us. As they became more and more intrusive I began to balk at what were obvious violations of our guaranteed rights.They told us that their right to protect our children from us superceded our constitutional rights. Being young and naive we went along with as much of their BS as our (so-called) legal representation could talk us into. The last straw came when we went to a place called (and I am not making this up) The Department of Justice. When I told the nice lady at the counter in the lobby what my problem was, she said “If a case as relatively insignificant as yours ever made it to the federal level the department of justice would not be representing YOUR interests it would be representing the government agency you oppose” . So I went looking for a lawyer that I could afford(You just HAVE to know how THAT went). At least one of them was honest enough to tell me that no lawyer would waste resources on a case that he knew he couldn’t win and that’s when I realized that my only remaining viable resource was my feet.. Now, thirty or so years later the only thing to add to the c onversation is that the only thing these assholes like better than demonstrating their power is a lighter caseload. When I fled, I suspect it was the thing they wanted me to do, they never came looking and I never hid.
Dear Chuck; That is a dysfunctional WH that doesn’t work to protect people from Leonhart madness. The DEA is above the law,and they influence these other clowns to destroy lives on a daily basis. We feel for your trauma…ONELOVE Pastor Ray in Phnom Penh.
All they had to find out is that she believed CANNABIS was her sacrament. That would be cause to lose the kids…if she was rasta ? No,that’s ok, but Roger Christie THC Ministry ??? –NORML throws him under a bus…he’s the Shirley Sherrod of the cannabis movement…WHY ? He has no phony disclaimer I hear every time on NORML–legalese to say you don’t WHAT???PHONY who Rad Russ is the phony,but NORML has no faith in constitutional separation…Church belief if sincere is protected somewhere in this universe ! The STATE is a facist LEVIATHAN…in social philosophy-Thomas Hobbes etc…the social contract a dysfunctional prevarication.
@chuck; I guess it’s not who you are but where you are. This country is starting to look like Mexico. All of these independent corrupt law enforcement agencies are working entirely under their own agenda. The moral to this story is don’t relax if you think you are legal. And this brings up the question what happens if prop 19 passes and the boarder patrol is still busting people over small amounts of weed?
my wife got pulled over by the border patrol in san diego for making a uturn , she had her medical card and medical cannabis in her TRUNK , they arrested her and turned her and the kids over to tha san diego pd , in turn they arrested my wie for , child abuse, trafficking marijuana , packaged marijuana for sale, and sales of marijuana ..EVEN THOUGH SHE IS A MEDICAL MARIJUANA CARD HOLDER AND placed the kids in cps care.