This report is published in partnership withThe Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.<\/p>\n
Giving birth to her fourth child in January of 2021 was life-changing, says Nicole Hamann, but not in the way she ever imagined. While still at the hospital, Hamann was informed that both she and her newborn tested positive for a trace amount of THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. [A urine test is given to mothers, which is followed up by testing the umbilical cord.] “I felt like, all of the sudden, I was a criminal,” Hamann said.<\/p>\n
“Through all of my pregnancies, I took very good care of myself and my body. Now all of the sudden, I have these people making me feel guilt and shame and fear.”<\/p>\n
Hamann lives in Idaho, where marijuana is illegal. But a month before giving birth, Hamann, who has no criminal record, says she accidentally ate a pot-laced brownie at a relative’s home in Oregon, where marijuana is legal. She says no one was interested in hearing her explanation of why she had THC in her system.<\/p>\n
Child and Family Services began an investigation immediately, because in Idaho (and a number of other states), a single positive test result of THC in a newborn is considered presumptive evidence of child abuse.<\/p>\n
“They knocked on my door, and there was an officer standing with them, a police officer,” Hamann said.<\/p>\n
After inspecting her home and speaking with Hamann’s other children, state social workers closed her case. “I just thought, ‘OK, just tell me what I have to do so that this can all go away,'” she said. “And little did I know that it wasn’t going to just go away. This was going to haunt me for the next ten years of my life.”<\/p>\n
Although social workers found no evidence of drug use, Hamann’s name was still placed on the agency’s child protection central registry \u2013 a list of child abusers. That means she can’t work in hospitals or daycare centers. Even volunteering at her children’s school is not allowed.<\/p>\n
And Hamann’s name remains on that list for a period of ten years. “It hurts \u2026 it hurts,” she said. “It’s heavy. It feels like somebody placed a big boulder on my shoulder and I have to carry it around for 10 years.”<\/p>\n
Source: CBS News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This report is published in partnership withThe Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Giving birth to her fourth child in January of 2021 was life-changing, says Nicole Hamann, but not in the way she ever imagined. While still at the hospital, Hamann was informed that both she and her newborn tested positive for a trace amount of THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. [A urine test is given to mothers, which is followed up by testing the umbilical cord.] “I felt like, all of the sudden, I was a criminal,” Hamann said. “Through all of my pregnancies, I took very good care of myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/god-bless-usa.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}