“In the event that they make unhealthy selections about utilizing medicine whereas they’re pregnant, they’re in all probability going to make different unhealthy selections when elevating the kid.”
By Brianna Bailey, The Frontier
Early in her being pregnant, Amanda Aguilar struggled with extreme nausea that generally made it arduous to eat.
A health care provider had beforehand accepted a medical marijuana license for her, so she used pot to ease her morning illness.
Aguilar, 33, mentioned she stopped utilizing marijuana after her third month of being pregnant and examined unfavorable for the drug after her wholesome son was born in October 2020. However the hospital discovered traces of marijuana in her child’s stool.
Two months later, the district legal professional in Aguilar’s principally rural county close to the Kansas border charged her with youngster neglect, a felony. She has determined to battle the cost, and not too long ago declined to touch upon the recommendation of her public defender.
She is one in every of a minimum of 26 ladies charged with felony youngster neglect in Oklahoma since 2019 for utilizing marijuana throughout their pregnancies, an investigation by The Frontier discovered. The crime can carry a time period of as much as life in jail in Oklahoma, although earlier defendants pleaded responsible and acquired probation.
Not less than eight of the ladies had state medical marijuana licenses, which permit holders to legally buy and use hashish after a advice from a doctor.
The nonprofit Nationwide Advocates for Pregnant Girls, which tracks pregnancy-related prosecutions, says these Oklahoma instances are the one ones of this type the group has heard about. In Alabama, pregnant ladies have been prosecuted after filling prescriptions for drugs from their docs.
Signal our petition with @ColorOfChange to demand Oklahoma prosecutors prioritize reproductive care over the prosecution of pregnant individuals for marijuana use. This disproportionately targets the poor and other people of coloration and might carry a life sentence. https://t.co/lWLyafQUyB
— Nationwide Advocates for Pregnant Girls (@NAPW) September 14, 2022
Officers in Arizona positioned one mom on a career-limiting youngster abuse registry after the beginning of her son in 2019, claiming she had uncared for her unborn youngster through the use of marijuana with a medical license. That case was overturned earlier this yr, with the appeals courtroom discovering that medical marijuana was just like any medication used underneath doctor’s care.
In Oklahoma, the difficulty of whether or not medical marijuana may be thought-about an “unlawful drug” is prone to be key in future prosecutions. Folks in Oklahoma may be charged with youngster neglect for utilizing unlawful medicine whereas pregnant, underneath rulings in 2020 and 2021 by the state Court docket of Prison Appeals. These rulings all concerned ladies who used methamphetamine throughout their pregnancies. Girls right here have been prosecuted even after giving beginning to wholesome infants.
However marijuana is mostly authorized for individuals within the state if they’ve a license from the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.
The company says it has no guidelines prohibiting pregnant individuals from utilizing the drug or holding a license, and there aren’t any penalties for doing so. Oklahoma doesn’t require docs to ask if somebody is pregnant or could grow to be pregnant earlier than signing off on a medical marijuana license.
Medical licenses and hashish merchandise within the state do carry advisory warnings in opposition to use throughout being pregnant, just like these discovered on cigarette packaging. Medical specialists advise in opposition to utilizing marijuana, cigarettes, alcohol and different medicine whereas pregnant.
Brian Hermanson, one in every of two prosecutors within the state who has introduced costs in opposition to pregnant ladies, has not responded to a number of current requests for remark. In previous interviews, he has mentioned the warnings on Oklahoma’s medical marijuana license justify his instances in opposition to moms.
“In the event that they make unhealthy selections about utilizing medicine whereas they’re pregnant, they’re in all probability going to make different unhealthy selections when elevating the kid,” he mentioned final November.
The prosecutions involving medical marijuana are “inconsistent with state legislation,” mentioned Ryan Kiesel, a civil rights legal professional and former Oklahoma lawmaker who labored on litigation on behalf of the 2018 marketing campaign to legalize medical marijuana within the state.
“These ladies are protected as medical marijuana sufferers underneath the legislation,” Kiesel mentioned. “It’s essential to recollect, when you’ve got a medical marijuana license, you’re underneath the care of a doctor.”
Dana Sussman, performing government director of Nationwide Advocates for Pregnant Girls, mentioned Hermanson is exceeding his authority by making use of his personal concepts about parenting to medical marijuana sufferers.
“His position as a prosecutor is to not impose his ethical authority on the individuals in his jurisdiction,” Sussman mentioned.
And for the document, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority has no guidelines prohibiting pregnant individuals from utilizing marijuana or holding a license. The state additionally doesn’t require docs to ask if somebody is/could grow to be pregnant earlier than signing off on a medical marijuana license.
— Nationwide Advocates for Pregnant Girls (@NAPW) September 14, 2022
Three-quarters of U.S. states allow marijuana use for medical functions, and 19 have licensed leisure use. Oklahoma could vote on legalizing leisure marijuana use in a coming election, now that legalization proponents have submitted greater than the required variety of signatures to get the measure on the poll. Related measures have already certified for referendums this yr in Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Between 2002 and 2017, the proportion of U.S. ladies who reported utilizing marijuana through the first trimester of being pregnant grew from underneath 6 p.c to 12 p.c, in keeping with data from the Nationwide Survey on Drug Use and Well being, which collected info from near half one million ladies.
The variety of Oklahoma newborns who examined constructive for marijuana has jumped greater than 160 p.c since state voters legalized medical use in 2018, in keeping with knowledge from the state Division of Human Providers. Greater than three-quarters of the roughly 1,000 newborns who examined constructive for medicine within the 12 months ending in June 2021 had been uncovered to marijuana within the womb.
Whereas medicine like methamphetamine and cocaine cross via the physique quickly, it’s attainable for proof of marijuana to point out up in a new child screening months after a mom’s final use, in keeping with medical journals and courtroom testimony.
However Dr. Mishka Terplan, who has researched substance use in being pregnant and has helped develop American Faculty of Obstetricians and Gynecologist steering on dependancy, mentioned many years’ price of knowledge on prenatal publicity to hashish suggests any long-term well being results on infants are minimal. The impression of hashish publicity within the womb can be arduous to separate from that of tobacco use and different well being and environmental components, he mentioned.
The specter of prison prosecution in Oklahoma has made it more durable to realize pregnant sufferers’ belief and to supply remedy, mentioned Dr. Stephanie Pierce, who runs a clinic for pregnant ladies with substance-use problems on the College of Oklahoma Well being Sciences Middle. As a substitute of performing as a deterrent for drug use, she added, worry of arrest can maintain ladies from in search of prenatal care.
“We all know that for those who don’t get common prenatal care throughout being pregnant, or for those who come to prenatal care actually late, that’s an enormous danger issue for opposed outcomes within the being pregnant,” Pierce mentioned. “So it actually simply sort of compounds all of their dangers.”
Pierce and greater than 30 different Oklahoma docs signed a public letter final yr, condemning the prison prosecution of ladies for drug use throughout being pregnant.
All the prison instances for marijuana use that The Frontier discovered had been filed in simply two of Oklahoma’s 77 counties, by prosecutors who’ve aggressively charged moms for substance use throughout being pregnant—Hermanson in Kay County, on the Kansas border, and Kyle Cabelka in Comanche County, within the southwest nook of the state.
The Frontier discovered 4 ladies in Comanche County charged in 2021 with youngster neglect for allegedly utilizing marijuana throughout their pregnancies. Not less than one had a medical marijuana license. Cabelka has criminally charged a minimum of 23 ladies in reference to drug use throughout being pregnant since 2018. Many of the instances concerned meth. He declined interview requests.
In Kay County, The Frontier discovered 14 ladies who had been convicted of kid neglect up to now two years after utilizing marijuana throughout their pregnancies. Not one of the instances went to trial—all the ladies pleaded no contest to the cost and had been sentenced to probation for phrases starting from two to 10 years.
Hermanson’s workplace has filed a minimum of 50 youngster neglect instances since 2019 in opposition to ladies for utilizing medicine throughout being pregnant, 22 of them involving marijuana. Seven, together with Aguilar, had medical marijuana licenses. Among the ladies convicted in Kay County had been additionally ordered to attend parenting lessons, undergo drug assessments, full neighborhood service, or endure assessments for drug and alcohol dependancy.
Many of the ladies Hermanson prosecuted for marijuana didn’t have a previous prison historical past, he mentioned throughout a quick interview outdoors his workplace in March. However he hoped a suspended sentence might assist the ladies and “cease the cycle” of drug use, he mentioned, noting that he’s charged some ladies greater than as soon as for utilizing unlawful medicine throughout successive pregnancies.
“They’re simply not making an allowance for the kid,” he mentioned.
The ladies obtain deferred sentences and the instances may be erased with no felony conviction on their information in the event that they efficiently full the probation necessities, he mentioned.
However even with a deferred judgment, which doesn’t rely as a felony conviction, the arrest can nonetheless present up on a background test for a job, 4 prison protection legal professionals instructed The Frontier. Hiring an legal professional to attempt to get the cost utterly eliminated can price as a lot as $5,000, they mentioned.
Aguilar nonetheless has custody of her 5 youngsters; a child-welfare employee determined that all the children had been well-cared for and didn’t take away them from her dwelling, in keeping with testimony at a listening to in August. Her case is scheduled to go to trial in February 2023.
–Kay News Cow reporter Sharon Rowen and former Frontier reporter Kassie McClung contributed reporting.