Tag Archive for "drug policy"

Posts Tagged drug policy

Tennessee could become the first state to criminalize pregnancy

Last week Tennessee passed legislation that would make drug use during a pregnancy a criminal offense. If the governor doesn’t veto it, the state would be allowed to investigate every miscarriage, stillbirth, and baby born with birth defects to try to determine if drugs played a role, turning any pregnant person into a potential suspect.

We’ve written extensively before about the growing criminalization of pregnancy, but Tennessee’s law is actually a first. While hundreds of women — mostly poor, young, Black women who used drugs — have been held criminally liable for the outcomes of their pregnancies under “fetal harm” laws, those laws were never actually intended to the be used ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 10 years ago

Support this campaign to challenge the narratives around parenting and addiction

The reproductive justice organization Young Women United, which recently helped defeat the 20-week abortion ban proposed in Albuquerque, is launching a new public education campaign around pregnancy and addiction. They’ve launched an Indiegogo campaign to fundraise for a short documentary video to “shift the ways we understand substance use and addiction in our communities.”

Women who are substance using and pregnant at the same time face a criminal (in) justice system that only serves to shame and stigmatize addiction. Mothers who use are often judged and told they must love their drugs more than their kids or that if they really loved their kids they would simply stop using. We want to make a short video to highlight the powerful ...

By zerlina • 10 years ago

Michigan laws will block unemployment benefits for failed drug test

Over at theGrio.com, I reported today that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has just signed into law a new package of laws that allow business to report failed drug tests that job seekers submit as part of the interview process. Job seekers who fail or refuse mandatory drug tests will have their unemployment benefits blocked.

By Verónica Bayetti Flores • 10 years ago

“I didn’t know unborn children had lawyers.” Federal lawsuit challenges fetal protection laws

This month, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) filed the first federal lawsuit challenging fetal protection laws that criminalize pregnant folks who, because of addiction or other reasons, expose their fetuses to drugs. The suit is on behalf of Alicia Beltran, a Wisconsin woman taken into custody for supposedly endangering her fetus when she refused treatment for an addiction she had already ended.

By Verónica Bayetti Flores • 10 years ago

Indiana Attorney General suggests requiring drug-testing for pregnant women

Citing the cost of treating infants exposed to addictive drugs, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is calling on the state legislature to require the drug-testing of pregnant women:

It is called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, or NAS, newborns exposed to addictive illegal or prescription drugs before they are born.

Attorney General Greg Zoeller says treating NAS at Indiana hospitals cost an estimated $30 million in 2011, the most recent year for which data is available, and he says that’s with limited tracking because hospitals are not required to report the condition.

Zoeller says one solution is requiring pregnant women take drug tests to identify the problem and start treatment before birth.

“You can reduce the length of stay for the newly born baby from ...

Citing the cost of treating infants exposed to addictive drugs, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller is calling on the state legislature to require the drug-testing of pregnant women:

It is called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, or NAS, newborns ...

By Verónica Bayetti Flores • 10 years ago

The war on drugs, fetal personhood, and the criminalization of pregnant women

The New York Times has a short documentary up exploring the construction of the “crack baby” epidemic – an epidemic that was largely built on racist media hype and flimsy science.

This week’s Retro Report video on “crack babies” (infants born to addicted mothers) lays out how limited scientific studies in the 1980s led to predictions that a generation of children would be damaged for life. Those predictions turned out to be wrong. This supposed epidemic — one television reporter talks of a 500 percent increase in damaged babies — was kicked off by a study of just 23 infants that the lead researcher now says was blown out of proportion. And the shocking symptoms — like tremors and low ...

The New York Times has a short documentary up exploring the construction of the “crack baby” epidemic – an epidemic that was largely built on racist media hype and flimsy science.

This week’s Retro Report video on ...