Home where 2-month-old infant died contained marijuana, police say - Lehigh Valley Live Breaking News
Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) police seized marijuana, smoking pipes and infant items from a home where a 2-month-old baby was found smashed against a sofa cushion and not breathing Tuesday morning.

The baby’s mother, Aubrey Quinn, 24, told Bethlehem police Detective William Dosedlo that she was staying at her mother’s home Monday night. She said she drank beer and smoked marijuana before falling asleep on a sofa with her infant daughter on her chest, according to court documents.

Police filed a search warrant with District Judge Nancy Matos Gonzalez’s office Tuesday, and the inventory was returned this afternoon. In addition to the marijuana and two pipes, police seized infant formula and blankets, police said.

Quinn told police she placed Charlanna on a sofa about 12:30 a.m. and then went to sleep on an adjacent sofa. About 2 or 3 a.m., she said she heard the baby making noises, so she put the baby on her chest and fell asleep. She awoke around 7 a.m. and found Charlanna facedown between her body and the back of the sofa.

When police and emergency responders arrived at the home at 7:05 a.m. Charlanna was unresponsive and not breathing.

A second search warrant calls for officials to take blood and urine samples from Quinn to determine the level of alcohol or drugs in her system. These tests were still pending today.

The death of this child is, of course, a great tragedy.  But it was an accident that could’ve happened to anyone, even without beer or weed.  These scary headlines, though, help the reader infer that somehow the marijuana and the baby’s death are related.  There is no headline of “Home where 2-month-old infant died contained beer”, because beer is legal.

Check the timeline.  She smoked marijuana and drank beer.  She puts the infant on one sofa and herself on a different sofa at 12:30.  Between 2:00 and 3:00, she wakes up to put the infant on her chest.  Now I’m assuming that when she woke up at that point, she didn’t fire up a bowl and chug a beer.  So she’s had at least one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours of sleep since her last intoxicant.  If the idea here is to blame her intoxication on the baby’s death, then beer is more to blame here, since your body will remain drunk longer than it will remain high.

This young mother has already suffered enough.