Mother Convicted Of Giving Baby Marijuana Through Breast Milk

By on November 1, 2012 in News 31

Guilty of raising one cool baby. The New Zealand Herald reports:

A woman has been convicted of giving cannabis to her 3-month old baby through her breast milk, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in New Zealand. The 29-year-old Wanganui woman was charged with administering a class C controlled drug, namely cannabis, to a person under the age of 18.

The charges were laid after a police search of a house for drugs. The woman’s partner also faced charges over the drug raid. Acting Senior Sergeant Andrew McDonald said the woman’s actions amounted to child abuse.

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  • Otis

    Dam, where do i apply ? to sample this myself……

  • Simiantongue

    Do you think we’ll ever see some rich woman who abuses prescription drugs convicted of the same type of “crime”?

    “We need to take the children’s needs into consideration.”

    Somehow that doesn’t ring true to me. I think they’re just pushing the war on drugs ever further for their own self serving interests. If they wanted to take children’s needs into consideration they wouldn’t convict mothers of drug offenses like this. Now the woman has a criminal record and all the disadvantages that go with that. The mother will now find employment harder to acquire, ensuring that the child will be financially disadvantaged. Which makes the child more statistically likely to engage in drugs when they are older, which ensures that the cycle continues.

    Instead drug use should be considered a medical problem not a criminal one. If a problem like this is proven, there should be funding for programs that actually try and help them instead of laws set to punish them and make the situation worse.

    But as we all know here in disinfo it’s not about solving societies problems. It’s about ensuring that these problems persist so that the enforcement class can make money and have something to do with their days.

    • bobbiethejean

      You make some good, relevant points and I agree with you on a lot of them but there is something wrong with dosing a baby with cannabis. We have no idea what the effects might be. Maybe it will be harmless or maybe it will seriously fuck the kid up. We don’t know.

      • Mike Miller

        We do know because there are so many cases of mothers doing this. I know of one personally, their child is ahead of every other child in their class. As long as the marijuana is not laced it would NEVER “seriously fuck the kid up”.

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Erica-Moret/796149478 Erica Moret

          Who would lace marijuana anyways? Everything else costs more. That just doesn’t make any sense. ‘Laced marijuana’ sounds like some hype used to support the war against drugs.

          • Mike Miller

            Laced marijuana is common, especially in low income areas. They lace it because it makes it cost more and “fucks you up” more. PCP is the most common drug you find in laced marijuana. However, I’ve seen marijuana laced with other drugs, including heroin. I’m in law enforcement FYI.

          • Tom L

            Why would drug dealers endeavor to make marijuana cost more, in low-income areas.

            Unless you’re suggesting that it is laced and sold as such, in which case i don’t see why anyone would want to buy the combination of drugs in some unknown ratios when they could just buy them separately, seeing as the overall price would be the same (dealers surely won’t just sprinkle some extra substance on the weed, at their own expense?).

            The only group I could see lacing marijuana would be law enforcement; bad reactions to the unknown additive in the marijuana could potentially turn people off marijuana, and their experiences made public could add to the fear-mongering surrounding its use. But that is a very unfounded conspiracy theory that I don’t subscribe to at all.

            That aside, I think I may have heard of PCP-laced weed in movies or rap songs. As far as I know there is no PCP in my country and I have no experience with it. When ecstasy pills have undesirable contents that is generally because the adulterants are cheaper than MDMA, which makes sense–I don’t understand this weed lacing business.

            Can anyone fill me in?

      • http://www.facebook.com/danny.klucka Danny Klucka

        …But it’s not bad for the infant. The only thing Marijuana destroys is the Cilia in your lungs if you smoke it. This is wrong, because if that woman ate McDonald’s, that would do more damage to the baby. Besides, the baby can’t get high from breast milk. If I gave a cow a bunch of weed and gave you a glass of milk from it, you wouldn’t notice the difference.

        • bobbiethejean

          I’m open minded but I am also a skeptic. I would need to see proper, unbiased studies done showing any positive and negative effects both long and short term. If it did turn out to be good, then by all means, cannabis-breastmilk go! But for the time being, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. I’d also like to see studies on this Mc Donald’s/breast milk harm you mention. But if it did turn out to be harmful…..then we get into the territory of dictating what nursing women should be allowed to eat….. yeah, I’m starting to see the problem here. X3

      • Simiantongue

        Lets just give that argument the best possible case that we can.

        Lets make the assumption that we do have an idea what the effects are and they are not good. We don’t really but lets just say we do. What should a rational response be? Our first priority, as they claim in the article, is to “…take the children’s needs into consideration”. That of course means stopping mothers from passing cannabis to children in their breast milk.

        Is criminalizing this and prosecuting women going to stop this from happening? Or is it simply going to exacerbate the problem by driving mothers away from any potential help with the understanding that if they need help, turning to authorities means criminal prosecution and/or possibly having their children taken away. Mothers, upon realizing what’s likely going happen will try and conceal this with every breath and action because as rational actors the “greatest good” is to keep their children. Being prosecuted is anathema to that goal. This gives mothers every incentive to conceal it and not seek help.

        The conclusion being that criminalization is not going to remedy this problem it’s going to drive this problem into the shadows away from any public purview and potential help, thus it will actually perpetuating the problem.

        Now if the intent was really to “help the children” the rational response would be to remedy this situation by making it a health, counseling and education issue, not perpetuating it as a normative by institutionalizing it as a cycle of criminality and prosecution.

        I often wonder if authorities are incompetent and don’t realize that criminalization institutionalizes this kind of cycle. Or if they’re just corrupt and at some level do realize it as a way to perpetuate these types of institutions. Could be a combination of both. I tend to lean mostly toward the latter. Bureaucracies are one of the most vile of humanities inventions.

        • bobbiethejean

          [That of course means stopping mothers from passing cannabis to children in their breast milk]

          Or we could just make awareness campaigns like we did with alcohol, cigarettes, and caffeine. Some idiots still smoke, booze, and guzzle Redbulls while preg but I think a great deal of women know better thanks to education. The only other alternatives are seriously violating women’s civil liberties or doing nothing, at least that I can see.

          [Is criminalizing this and prosecuting women going to stop this from happening?]

          Point out exactly where I said we should prosecute or criminalize anyone.

          [the rational response would be to remedy this situation by making it a health, counseling and education issue]

          Exactly.

          [I often wonder if authorities are incompetent]

          GEE, YOU THINK!? XD

          • Simiantongue

            “Point out exactly where I said we should prosecute or criminalize anyone.”

            I wasn’t saying that you yourself stated that. It is the rationale of the criminal justice system being discussed in this article. We were talking about the article, weren’t we?

            Pertaining to authorities being incompetent; “GEE, YOU THINK!? XD”

            Come to think of it I don’t think that, I’m leaning toward the latter suggestion I made as more true. I think at least at some level they are aware this perpetuates a cycle, which in turn lends credence to their existence. In short, causing the problem to persist and in turn this give them purpose. It sounds nefarious but really they do mean well, it just so happens I disagree with the underlying authoritarian modality. (I’m not some knee-jerk anti-authoritarian. If there is sufficient evidence that authoritarian modality is the best answer to a solution I have no problem with that. The key is evidence though, to me an anyway, authority must be proven not just blindly accepted.)

            An appropriate adage here is “To the man with a hammer every problem is a nail”. To them the solution to every problem is prosecution and punishment. Those are the tools they have to work with and to suggest solving problems in any other way is almost blasphemous. In their mindset undermining the reason for their existence as an authority by using other solutions is wrong. Bending rationality to that type of self serving purpose,a t least to me, is inherently immoral if it perpetuates misery in others, which prosecuting mothers for drug “crimes” obviously would. So I think it’s more corruption than incompetence. Corruption of rationality, of conscience, of mind or of spirit, whatever, any or all of those definitions will do.

    • bullshizz

      It is absolutely retarded. Are people getting charged for raising a fat stupid bully shitbrained idiot kid? No. Totally legal. This is just fucking bullshit, especially when they say: “the long-term effects of this on the baby are unknown.” So they use lack of scientific evidence to make up an assumption that suits them. “We don’t know if it’s harmful, therefore IT IS, and we must punish you for it.” Oh, wait… http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1422.html

      Morons run this world, and idiots vote for them.

    • rtb61

      Let’s guess botched raid, not drug dealers, need to make something up otherwise they’ll get sued and be made to look publicly stupid.

  • uRslaves

    Guess what, slaves?

    This is a crime in EVERY COUNTRY in the world.

    U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 33

  • Jdabapain

    This is just fucking ridiculous. Marijuana is absolutely harmless when it’s not smoked. I wouldn’t ever recommend giving it to an infant, but there was no harm done here. As another person pointed out, prescription drugs are far worse. Fucking idiots.

    • Calypso_1

      Only addressing your premise regarding lack of harm & non-respiratory routes: I know of a
      circumstance in which an individual had to consume a fairly large amount due to ‘unforeseen’ circumstance. After a few hrs Resp rate was apprx 1/min, HR 30-40.
      Paralysis from the waist down including incontinence & severe parathesias
      over the rest of the body. Pneumonia occurred in both lungs.

      The person recovered completely & I realize this is an isolated and anecdotal account but given the dosage differences between an adult & infant I would hate to see the same symptomatology in an
      infant.

      • Jdabapain

        Couldn’t that have been caused by something else other than the marijuana itself. Maybe a pesticide perhaps? Forgive my skepticism but I highly doubt marijuana was the cause of all those symptoms. I’ve personally only heard of two cases ever reported where marijuana had detrimental effects on the user. Both users in those cases has a severe allergic reaction. It can happen, but it’s extremely rare.

        • Calypso_1

          Those thoughts did occur to the individual as they were experiencing the event, especially given the closeness to nAChR related symptoms, but it was a homegrown variety & the assumption was that such chemicals were not in use.

          At the time (as it was related) the event was viewed internally as a forced yogic/metabolic trance in order to cope.

          I also realize the possibility of underlying conditions, allergies etc. The resulting imagery showed a transient non-specific demyelination & lab work did not show the presence of organophospates. Given what I know now I could speculate that a rapid exogenous lipid acquisition from the serum could in fact trigger an auto-immune response that would result in such effects.

          Yes rare, but real nonetheless. I’m not trying to hype the danger & I do think the risk of prescriptive meds (and other far more harmful street drugs & alcohol) would rate much, much higher.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Erica-Moret/796149478 Erica Moret

    But it’s okay for babies to have Oxycontin? Check out the development of Oxycontin for children, just so the slimeball company can keep their patent.

    • Calypso_1

      Oh good god, I’ve had to give an infant oxy just because they were born hooked to it. Do you know how miserable it is to wean a newborn off of opiates. Methadone for preemies – we do that too.

  • Irving Greenfield

    I’m wondering if the baby is getting “high” from the milk. It certainly would be the quietest baby on the block, lol.

  • IrishPotatoGun
    • revolt.future

      Our bodies contain many of the same properties as cannabis and we naturally contain thousands of cannabinoid receptors. We are meant to consume cannabis as were meant to consume water, studies like these are credible and should be more abundant.

  • …..

    You’re all tards, why even subject this kid in the first place? The bitch can’t stop smoking till she stops breast feeding? You addicts are morons.

    • Revolt.Future

      You are an ignorant fuck just as most of the other commenters here. Studies done on children of mothers administered cannabis while pregnant and during breast feeding turned out with the children being nothing short of genius.

      Turn your TV off little retard, (when I say retard I’m talking to yourself and the masses not the disabled) and do some investigative discovery for yourself. There are no addictive qualities in cannabis as it is the best medicine this planet naturally produces although people can become mentally addicted to anything. Take coffee for example, far worse in excess than cannabis but totally accepted by society as a mental alertness substance. Caffeine is a drug but because it’s perfectly legal, it’s ok? You represent all that’s wrong with society and should proceed with life in a learning manner not a hearsay, regurgitate manner.

  • A

    THIS WORLD IS FUCKED UP WHEN THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLS U AND FREEDOM IS A MADE UP WORD.

  • Roger Mexico

    I wasn’t aware that it even passed through breast milk. In fact, I’m still not convinced that’s even true.

  • http://www.facebook.com/alkwerte Alkwerte Alk

    Everybody should consume cannabis this way.

  • Judy Martinez

    This is Rediculous! There are so many GUNG HO People out there who Truly Believe they’re Doing the RIGHT THING in Harming THIS Woman’s Criminal Record over a Drug that has Not been Found to do any “HARM” if Taken as Prescribed..It’s Pros Outweigh the Cons…IF The Average Person is going to have an OPINION on “ANY TOPIC” (Especially in regards to a Topic as Controversial as THIS) I Believe at least SOME Research SHOULD be done….BEFORE Voicing Your OPINION and Especially Acting On it..Such as Arresting & Potentially Ruining and/or Limiting the Future of this Young Woman’s ability to Provide for Her Children..it Will Just be Ruled “LATER” in Life that..There are NO Negative Tests or Results from any Tests & Studies done on Cannabis to ensue an ARREST & it Will Become Legal (& Very High Taxed Mind You!) However,.. Even tho it will BECOME Legal..No One Will LOOK BACK & ‘UNDO” The Harm that THIS Action against this Young Woman Has & WILL Cause Her in the Future!..The Medical Profession’s “FINDINGS” Should Be ALLOWED to be HEARD out in the World, Instead of Covered Up & Hidden Just because Our Government Wants & WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE “LEGAL CONTROL” over THIS & ALL The controversial Medications/Drugs of the World!! The Public SHOULD be Allowed to Have ACCESS to Results of ALL the Studies performed on THIS & Every Other Medication & Drug Out there..Especially the “HARMFUL Affects” as Well as the “POSITIVE Affects” from said Meds/Drugs. Being a Nurse Myself, Ive been one of the Lucky people who’s had this Very Important Information at my fingertips.. I think that since it AFFECTS us ALL it should be made PUBLIC.. & Again, People Should READ these Studies BEFORE Forming an HONEST “OPINION”..

  • http://twitter.com/XenoNexxus Christopher

    Weed + Breasts. whats the problem?