Does Marijuana Possession Equal Child Neglect?
According to a recent NewYork Times article, many New York parents who have been caught with marijuana or who have admitted using it have found themselves charged with child neglect and have even, in some cases, lost custody of their children. In many of these cases, the amounts of marijuana in question have been too small to bring even misdemeanor charges against the parents for possession. Nevertheless, the parents have been deemed neglectful and their children have been removed by child protective services, which have placed the kids in foster care for days, weeks or months.
These cases illustrate one of the most difficult problems in child protection law: how do we define what is “good enough” parenting, and what is child abuse or child neglect?