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Buzzby

Father Knows Buds
Watch out, parent tokers - reefer-mad children's aid societies could come knocking on your door
Matt Mernagh | NOWToronto | 01/05/2005

Given the medicinal qualities of cannabis, one could argue that toking parents might be more relaxed caregivers, more capable of handling screaming teething babies or puberty-confused teenagers.

But don’t tell that to child protection agencies across the province currently dragging parents – including those using the herb medicinally – to court for allegedly endangering their children’s well-being.

How many pot-related cases are currently before the courts or on child protection agency files is difficult to estimate. These agencies say they don’t keep such stats. But the number is in the dozens, according to medical marijuana users who’ve been visited by social workers. The cases are usually prompted by complaints from a former spouse or info turned over by police who’ve busted medical users for growing their own.

Several Toronto Compassion Club (TCC) members are currently under the watchful eye of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society. They decline to speak on the record to NOW about their experiences for fear of reprisals from CCAS. But such encounters with child protection agencies across the province suggest that social workers’ personal views on pot are skewing their decisions about whether cannabis impairs parenting skills.

"It’s a never-ending battle because parents have to prove their use is medicinal,” says TCC executive director Jim Brydges.

Just ask medical pot user Travis Azzopardi how nasty CCAS can get. He’s willing to talk publicly now that his case has been settled. He says CCAS demanded he undergo 365 urine tests over a three-year period – weekly, biweekly, then finally randomly. “They stuck a microscope up my ass for two and a half years,” he says.

Azzopardi’s non-verbal autistic son Brandon is 18 years old and just recently learned to use the toilet.

“They said I might get stoned and pass out, and he’d turn on the stove and burn the house down,” explains Azzopardi, who’s on a disability pension and smokes to alleviate pain from severe migraines. “The doobies barely make me normal. But they didn’t give a damn about it being medicinal, even with two doctors’ letters.”

Steve Bacon, another licensed medical user investigated, says child protection officials he dealt with for eight months never noticed when he showed up medicated to meetings. Yet he says they were making decisions about whether he could keep his daughter based on the assumption his marijuana use was impairing his ability to care for her.

“I told them I’d been smoking before every meeting. Last I ever heard from them.”

Like Ontario’s building inspectors and animal control officers, Children’s Aid workers can enter a dwelling sans warrant.

The one guard against overzealousness built into the system is the requirement that a worker appear before a judge within five days to explain his or her reasons for entering a premises.

The Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies created the “eligibility spectrum” as a tool for assessing whether a child is being abused and how severely. But “the spectrum is not intended to replace worker judgment,” according to the document outlining its applicability.

Suset Silva of the Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto responds to questions about pot cases via e-mail.

“The level of concern [about marijuana] would depend on the level of the use, the exposure of the children to the use and the impact of the use on the ability to parent,” she writes.

“It is not possible to comment on the frequency [with which] the society might request drug testing for a client. It could happen on an individual case, but would depend on several factors that would be taken into consideration when assessing risk to the child(ren) and planning for a desired outcome.”

But does cannabis consumption adversely affect parenting skills?

Not according to McMaster sociology prof Andy Hathaway, who’s also a researcher at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and recently completed a study on the stigma associated with pot use.

“Cannabis doesn’t impair parenting,” says Hathaway, but stereotypes surrounding its consumption are having a negative impact on parents.

“We’re hesitant to be open about cannabis because the social stigmas are still there. Weeds or That ’70s Show, may be expressions of pro-cannabis culture, but temperance is setting social policy directives,” Hathaway says. “I don’t think it’s that uncommon for a mother to test positive for cannabis and then have her child taken away, because it’s very much a temperance issue. She smokes pot, hence she must be a bad parent.”

But lawyer Roselyn Zisman, who specializes in family law, says she would be shocked if the CAS were taking the children of pot-puffing parents into custody.

“Generally, a social worker wouldn’t consider this a concern if it’s just recreational cannabis. Marijuana is still illegal, but social workers are not the police. Is there a different agenda with these cases? I’ve never seen it.”

Still, Zisman adds, agencies can be “very intrusive.”

Chris Goodwin, a recreational user and activist who runs the Up in Smoke Café in Hamilton, knows that all too well.

Area child protection workers, he says, came calling for a hair sample and asking about his son this past summer after he took part in an anti-prohibition rally at which he gave away a quarter-pound of weed. The agency was responding to a police report in which he admitted smoking in front of his son Chris.

Goodwin is not about to let the ordeal shut him up. He says it’s the police who are actually putting his son in harm’s way by threatening to have CCAS remove him, not his pot smoking.

“Some people say I’m playing with fire. But I never brought this one on me,” Goodwin says. “It’s different down at the store. There, I’m an activist, but I’m a dad and husband at home.”

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TheNewGuy

Wow, Canada sure is a free country. What the hell, someone can just come right into your house and search everything just because you took part in a rally? They wanted a hair sample too? How about they just swab his toilet while they're in the house too to see if hes been eating the weed too?

Also notice that if somone drinks a beer in front of thier child, they aren't a bad parent at all, and they aren't setting a bad example either.

__________________
"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

Tayler

Canada is a hella lot more free and tolerant of weed then the states so give me a break...

king cola

They didn't really search the house because he attended a pot rally, it said when he was at the rally he gave away a quarter-pound of weed.

“They said I might get stoned and pass out, and he’d turn on the stove and burn the house down,” explains Azzopardi, who’s on a disability pension and smokes to alleviate pain from severe migraines. “The doobies barely make me normal. But they didn’t give a damn about it being medicinal, even with two doctors’ letters.”

What about legal prescription drugs? Nyquil knocks people out when it kicks in. Someone smokes some pot and becomes tired so they try and make it sound different than other medical drugs that make people drowsey. People who smoke pot for medical purposes, i don't know about all of them but some people are only smoking enough so that it helps with whatever condition they have and aren't smoking a full joint or a bunch of bowls. If people drink too much alcohol they can pass out too.

I don't live in Canada but i watched when they were talking about pot in that country on tv. Alot of the grow busts they make, the people aren't even really given jail time. I don't know if this is just in some parts of Canada or all of it. When they bust one drug operation they know that theres a lot more still running so they don't have time to prosecute people. I also read on here i think it was, that if someone is caught with some pot there, they are just given a ticket. In the U.S it's the cop who decides what to do if they find someone in possession of as little as a gram of weed, to let them go or arrest them.

"Also notice that if somone drinks a beer in front of thier child, they aren't a bad parent at all, and they aren't setting a bad example either."

I notice, no one gives a sh*t if anyone drinks some beers but as soon as a joint gets lit some or most people tend to flip out over it, but weed bein illegal has somethin to do with it, but even some non smokers could care less if someone blazes some pot.

hottoker

Wow, Canada sure is a free country. What the hell, someone can just come right into your house and search everything just because you took part in a rally? They wanted a hair sample too? How about they just swab his toilet while they're in the house too to see if hes been eating the weed too?

This is from the Child and Family services Act of 1990

Warrant to apprehend child

(2) A justice of the peace may issue a warrant authorizing a child protection worker to bring a child to a place of safety if the justice of the peace is satisfied on the basis of a child protection worker’s sworn information that there are reasonable and probable grounds to believe that,

(a) the child is in need of protection; and

(b) a less restrictive course of action is not available or will not protect the child adequately. R.S.O. 1990, c. C.11, s. 40 (1, 2).

So you see a warrant is still needed to come into your home and steal your children.

 

Buzzby

This may or may not be true, but it isn't a function of the law you quoted.


This states that a warrant is required to abduct someone's child, not that a warrant is required to enter their home.

Richi

Yes, the laws are very lax in Canada, and if you're caught with weed then you usually don't get into much trouble, unless you are doing something else like vandalising something, driving a car, or near a school. And different parts of Canada vary, but in general, its pretty good. And the ticketing idea, that a new bill called Bill C-17.

Some highlights:

Possession of cannabis (marihuana) in an amount that does not exceed 15 grams:

Summary conviction: $150 or, in the case of a young person, $100

Production of cannabis (marihuana) from not more than 3 plants:

Summary conviction: $500 or, in the case of a young person, $250

I'm not sure what the current law is, but hopefully this bill will be passed.

MrIMStoned

But a warrant is required, CAS wouldn't enter your house without the warrant authorizing a child protection worker to bring a child to a place of safety.

(6) A child protection worker authorized to bring a child to a place of safety by a warrant issued under subsection (2) or an order made under clause (4) (d) may at any time enter any premises specified in the warrant or order, by force if necessary, and may search for and remove the child.

(7) A child protection worker who believes on reasonable and probable grounds that,

(a) a child is in need of protection; and

(b) there would be a substantial risk to the child’s health or safety during the time necessary to bring the matter on for a hearing under subsection 47 (1) or obtain a warrant under subsection (2),

may without a warrant bring the child to a place of safety.

It would seem that there needs be a situation where as the social worker walks by or visits and incidentally see's little billy getting whipped through the window. Then and only in similar situations which would be far and in-between would a social worker enter your house without a warrant.

Lock up your children in the basement with no windows so cas can't poke into your business!

PS> i accidently posted under hottoker before

__________________
"In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?"