“Should marijuana use matter in child welfare cases?”

The title of this post comes from this recent Boston Globe article discussing whether (and to what extent) marijuana use should be relevant to child welfare determinations. Although stemming from a specific provision in Massachusetts’s marijuana legalization initiative, the broader policy question raised in the article extends far beyond the state. The article begins:

Massachusetts child welfare officials are warning that a provision buried deep in the ballot measure to legalize marijuana could effectively tie the hands of social workers entrusted with protecting the state’s most vulnerable children.

 

The little-noticed provision states that parents’ marijuana use, possession, and cultivation can’t be the primary basis for taking away custody — or other parental rights like visitation — unless there is “clear, convincing and articulable evidence that the person’s actions related to marijuana have created an unreasonable danger to the safety” of a child. It would become law on Dec. 15 if voters greenlight Question 4.

 

Similar language is included in legalization measures in three of the four other states voting on such referendums next month, proponents say. It’s meant to protect parents’ legal use of marijuana just like their legal use of alcohol, they say. People who smoke a joint to relax instead of drinking a glass of wine shouldn’t fear they’ll get stung by a judge in a custody dispute, or risk having their children put into foster care, they argue.

 

But in a statement, the Department of Children and Families said it “believes every case is unique and our social workers need the ability to consider every factor when making critically important decisions about a child’s well-being.

 

“Restrictions that could limit a social worker’s ability to consider any substances, including marijuana, as a factor for child custody are troubling, especially given the unprecedented spike in DCF cases fueled by the opioid epidemic,” the statement, from spokeswoman Andrea Grossman, said.

 

DCF is overseen by Governor Charlie Baker, who opposes legalization.

 

Some outside specialists say the provision could make it harder to support an allegation of abuse or neglect when the parent has been using marijuana, as compared with alcohol. That’s because there is no comparable language in state law about alcohol.