Weekend
Edition
April 23 / 24, 2005
Pot
Shots
The Custody
Threat
By
FRED GARDNER
Oakland,
California
The
threat of losing custody is a big reason why fewer women than
men have availed themselves of their rights under Prop 215. Bethany
Johnson's story shows how real the threat is. It also shows how
much protection a doctor's approval can afford. Johnson didn't
get a letter of approval in the years after Prop 215 passed. She
says she hadn't wanted to ask her regular doctor, and there were
no cannabis consultants in Bakersfield, and she didn't have any
surplus funds. Johnson, 37, is a divorced single mother who works
part-time at Rusty's Pizza, a small chain, as driver supervisor
and customer representative. She's also a student at Bakersfield
College. School grants and aid for the kids help her make ends
meet. As of last September, she had under her roof three kids
of her own (9, 6 and 5), a 15-year-old foster daughter whom we'll
call Angie, and a nephew, now 20, whom she'd helped raise. And
she was eight months pregnant.
This is Johnson's account of her situation, culled from an interview
on the eve of an April 20 custody hearing.
Bethany's
Story
About
three years ago friends I've known since childhood contacted me
and said they were having trouble with their daughter and CPS
was going to remove her from the home. They asked me if I would
go through the foster parent programs and see if I could get her.
Which I did. So I went through the process with social services
-fingerprints, background check, home check- and was approved
for everything. The judge listed me as an "extended-family
member foster parent." Angie was 13 when she came to live
with me. She was smoking pot, not going to school, doing some
things that endangered her. After two and a half years she was
going to school full time, not smoking pot, not in destructive
relationships.
Johnson had a drug-test in connection with a pre-natal check-up
by her obstetrician.
He
said "You were positive for THC." And I said "Yes
sir, I do smoke marijuana." And he gave me that look. And
I said, "Well, I need to bring some educational materials
to you." And he said, "No, I'm only worried about the
oxygen the baby's not getting. You should either quit smoking
cigarettes or marijuana. Just quit one." So, I said all right,
I'll quit smoking cigarettes. And he said that was fine with him.
On
September 9, 2004, Johnson had an Emergency C-section at Mercy
Southwest Hospital.
I
had an ultrasound that day and I wasn't producing enough amniotic
fluid for the baby so they said he would be a lot better off if
he was out of the womb. I'm told this happens to mothers who are
overworked and overstressed...
So
he was born a month early, five pounds, six ounces, but he's fine
-holding his head up at birth and by now he's ahead of his age
group... They drug-tested me the morning after I had the baby
because they saw what the obstetrician noted in my chart. And
they immediately called CPS. CPS showed up at the hospital and
questioned me: "Do I have a stove? Blah, blah, blah?"
When the social worker walked in for the first time that morning,
I was breast-feeding my baby. And the first thing he said to me
was, "You do realize that you're giving your baby a joint
right now." That's exactly what he said. I was kind of shocked.
So, I did stop breast feeding to talk to him. And he noted it
in the charts like I was saying "Yeah, you're right."
He asked me if I had a stove and a crib and all that and I said
yes yes yes yes. He asked me if I had any help and I told him
that I had a 15-year-old foster daughter.
So,
CPS notified Social Services' fostering program that I was positive
for THC and I had a foster child in my home. Angie was always
terrified of getting pulled from me. Angie's social worker told
us both, before all this happened, that by law she couldn't take
her from me without seven days notification in writing. There
was only one reason why she could be pulled without any warning
and that would be if Angie was in immediate physical harm. I had
Noah on Thursday, September 9th, and went home the very next day.
On Tuesday morning the social worker showed up at Angie's high
school and told her "You are not going back to Bethany's
home."
And
then she called me and said "Angie is not coming home, please
have all her clothes packed and ready to go." And I said
"why?" And she said "Because you promised not to
do certain things and you've done them." She was talking
about the pot, obviously. I said, "I think there's been some
confusion here because by law I'm covered with my doctor knowing
that I smoke." The social worker went to Angie's high school
and pulled her out of the last period a little early so that Angie
didn't start to walk home like she always does. The school called
her out of class and let the social worker take her. And she said,
"Come on Angie, let's go get in the car." Of course
Angie got in the car. She wasn't going to be disobedient.
After
she got in the car she was told that she's never coming back home.
She was put into a licensed foster home. It was about a month
before we had our hearing. Angie's parents were there, too. They
and Angie had county-appointed attorneys. By this time I had gotten
my recommendation from Dr. Ellis in San Francisco, and I presented
it at the hearing. Since then I've gotten one from Dr. Asad here
in Bakersfield. My medical recommendation was never acknowledged
in court on the record. The judge did say -and this is on the
court transcripts- the judge said 'Angie, I cannot let you go
back into a home where there's someone abusing drugs. You just
got off marijuana, you are drug free, I can't consciously put
you back into somewhere where someone's abusing drugs.' He said,
'In order for Miss Johnson to get you back, she needs to stop
abusing illegal drugs and test for the Department of Human Services
to prove it.' ...Judge Stubbe, in Juvenile Court in Kern County.
He's had this case the whole time. He's very familiar with both
of us. He even recognized how well Angie -how far she's come.
But
he couldn't get it that a grown-up who used marijuana would have
the authority to advise a young girl to hold off.
He
said at our next court hearing if Miss Johnson's been testing
clean this whole time and things are well then you can go back.
And that's where it stands right now.
CPS
tried taking my kids. They opened up a case. They had me test
and all that. They couldn't find my house undone or no food or
anything, so the only thing they had was me smoking pot. I went
ahead, I was peeing for them, I was so scared. But then I got
my recommendation, made a copy, and the next time they knocked
on my door for my pee, I gave them that. And they said, "We
need you to test for us right now." I said "No, I'm
not going to pee anymore." That happened within three weeks
of me giving birth to Noah -after I'd gotten my recommendation
from Dr. Ellis. A couple of weeks went by and the social worker
called me and asked me really stupid questions like, "Who
takes care of your children when you're high?" Stuff like
that. I got pretty upset with her. I said, "You know, you
need to educate yourself a little better before you start asking
these questions because you're being ridiculous."
Good
answer!
Then
I got an official letter from her saying that they have closed
the case on my children. However, if there's any more complaints
regarding me or if they see my children hurt they will have to
remove them immediately and straighten it out later. So they held
that threat over my head, like, "We're watching you."
The judge said, Angie, I do recognize your relationship and how
strong it is and how far you've come by being with Miss Johnson,
so I want you to have supervised visits every other week. So,
I see her for two hours every other week. I'm told they never
do that for foster parents. P.S. April 22
What
happened at the hearing?
The
report from Social Services said she was doing great with her
foster parents and would stay there. I wasn't mentioned at all.
Angie asked her attorney to ask the judge for unsupervised visits
with me, and the attorney did ask the judge, but she added that
she did not think it was a good idea. This was a new judge, from
Superior Court, and the lawyer explained the whole story to him:
"She had Angie for a while and then she tested positive for
THC..." And the judge looked at us and he said, "I'm
granting unsupervised visits at the Department's discretion."
I don't know what I'm going to do. It's not really a wrap-up for
me because I want to know what law I've broken to deserve to have
her taken from me? Why did this even start?
What does Angie want?
She
says, "Mom, this is Kern County, they're going to do whatever
they want to do." I guess I gave her that attitude.
Canada Approves Sativex for MS
Health
Canada on April 19 conditionally approved Sativex -a high-THC
cannabis-sativa extract formulated to spray in the mouth- as a
prescribable treatment for "symptomatic relief of neuropathic
pain in multiple sclerosis."
Geoffrey
W. Guy, MD, chairman of G.W. Pharmaceuticals, the British firm
that makes Sativex, declared, "This event marks the world's
first approval of a cannabis-derived medicine... We are now working
with our Canadian marketing partner, Bayer, towards the launch
of Sativex throughout Canada in late Spring."
The
approval of Sativex is good news, even though the Drug Warriors
will try to rationalize the ongoing prohibition of smoking "crude"
marijuana by saying "an effective legal alternative is now
available..." It is excellent news for the Canadian MS patients
who desperately need new treatment options -especially the elderly
and others who haven't been willing or able to obtain cannabis
through the existing "compassion clubs." (Some 8,000
Canadians have obtained cannabis through 10± clubs. The
population is about 30 million.)
Sativex
will also be used in the treatment of other conditions, as doctors
see fit. Although it will be available through pharmacies, it
will still be a controlled substance. Prescriptions can be for
no more than one Sativex spray bottle at a time (about a month's
supply for most patients), and refills will require separate prescriptions.
The cost per dose has not been announced but will probably be
slightly higher than cannabis obtainable through the clubs.
A
statement issued by G.W. and Bayer notes, "Health Canada
has approved Sativex with conditions... This authorization reflects
the promising nature of the clinical evidence which will be confirmed
with further studies... "Neuropathic pain is a common symptom
of MS occurring in up to 86 per cent of people with MS. Neuropathic
or nerve pain can occur spontaneously or can be provoked by touch,
temperature or movement. It is estimated that 50 per cent of people
with MS suffer from chronic neuropathic pain. The most common
descriptions of neuropathic pain are of freezing, cold or burning
sensations usually of the limbs and most often of the lower extremities."
Guy
decided to launch G.W. in 1998 after attending a meeting of MS
patients in London and believing their accounts of pain relief
and eased spasticity -information that the medical establishment
dismissed as "mere anecdotal evidence." The company
promptly won approval from the British Home Office to grow cannabis
under highly controlled conditions and to develop extracts for
use in clinical trials.
In
the ensuing years Sativex was tested successfully in Britain as
a treatment for neuropathic pain in MS other conditions. By 2003
Bayer HealthCare had arranged to market Sativex pending final
approval. But then the British regulators began stalling, and
GW stock drifted down from a high of 267 to a low of 112. On news
of approval by Health Canada, GWP stock rose April 19 by 13 points
to close at 134.5. It has not risen since. "Maybe because
G.W. is only sold on the London stock exchange," speculates
Irvin Rosenfeld, a Fort Lauderdale broker who gets his cannabis
from the U.S. government in cigarette form.
Days
before Canada approved Sativex, CounterPunch reported that G.W.
Pharmaceuticals had hired Andrea Barthwell, MD, to lobby for approval
of its cannabis-plant extracts in the U.S. Barthwell had been
employed previously by the Bush Administration in the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. G.W. also hired John Pastuovic,
who headed the Bush-Cheney campaign in Illinois in 2000, to handle
public relations in the U.S. The implication of the hires is that
G.W. executives are willing to have their products pushed as alternatives
to smoked marijuana. Our source said, "As a stockholder -bravo!
As a citizen -what a shame!"
The
CounterPunch item evoked comments from readers, including Allen
St. Pierre of NORML, who seemed aghast that G.W. would hire Barthwell.
Some recalled her advocacy of testing school children for drugs;
others, her appearance on Montel 9/14/04, when she said "The
problem with trying to bring medications to the market place through
a popular vote is setting modern medicine back to the turn of
the [20th] century." And, "The crude botanical has not
met the test of medicine," etc., etc.
Their
surprise and disapproval is misplaced. Geoffrey Guy never pretended
to be a political reformer or anything but the chairman of a for-profit
corporation intent on bringing helpful drugs to market.
Fred
Gardner can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com