NORML Women's Alliance Calls for Grand Jury Investigation in to Child Custody Policy

The NORML Women's Alliance has been putting boots on the ground across the country, bringing women together to fundraise, strategize, and raise consciousness about how marijuana prohibition is affecting families.

Now, the local NWA group in Butte county California, in alliance with the national office and Butte County residents, has called for the Grand Jury of Butte to investigate the County Children Services Division, including a financial audit.

The Press Release from NWA links to a video I've been calling "Hear This and Weep," recorded the day medical marijuana grower Daisy Bram's two children, aged 15 months and three weeks, were taken away from her. The children were held by Butte County CPS for more than four months.

A few days after NWA filed its grand jury request on March 9, Daisy had charges re-filed against her. Tamara Lujan, NORML Women’s Alliance Community Leader for Butte County, said, "We can come to no other conclusion except this is a retaliatory measure, from the Butte County DA’s office.” Butte has an extraordinarily high rate of permanent removal of children, according to a report from the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

Women (and men) can join the NORML Women's Alliance by entering their email addresses at www.norml.org/women, where information about forming a local affiliate can also be found. NWA members in California can join California NORML and get their quarterly newsletter for $15.

McCartney in "High" Profile Child Custody Case?

"At 69, Paul McCartney Swears Off Marijuana" the headlines ran. McCartney told Rolling Stone he'd given up the weed because of his 8-year-old daughter with Heather Mills, who he divorced just after she said she wouldn't tolerate his toking.

McCartney has just remarried, and he and Mills are back in divorce court. Although no journalist thought to ask, I'll bet Mills brought up the marijuana matter over child custody. Why do I think so? Because not a week goes by that I don't hear from a mother or father involved in a custody battle whose spouse brings up their pot use to get some leverage for themselves.

The revelation is key because McCartney has been about the highest (ha) profile proponent of marijuana legalization for decades. He helped pay for a July 24, 1967 advertisement in the London Times that called for legalization of pot possession, release of all prisoners on possession charges and government research into marijuana's medical uses. (Other signatories included VIPs John Lennon and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA.) He told RS he's still for legalization, and is "a bit surprised" that it hasn't happened yet.

So perhaps by making this public statement McCartney's parental rights will be protected, but what of countless others who aren't so lucky? What effect the breaking up of families has on the children we're all supposed to be fighting this drug war about is unknown.

Meanwhile, Redbook magazine has an article in its current issue titled, "Pot Parents" that explains, through experts and parents, that those who are accustomed to the effects of smoking are no more dangerous to their children, even in an emergency, than parents who think nothing of having a beer while babysitting. Charles Sophy, medical director of the County of Los Angeles Department of Children, told Redbook, "Every day he sees parents who have underestimated the repercussions of smoking pot — in rare cases, he's seen children sent to live with relatives."

Hear this and weep.