Medical Marijuana and Child Custody: The Need to Protect Patients and their Families from Discrimination

Abstract

This note addresses parents who stand to lose child custody due to discrimination against the parent’s status as a medical marijuana patient or provider for their children. Parents may be forced to choose between marijuana to alleviate health problems and the retention of custody of their children; in some cases, parents are being forced to choose between living with chronic, debilitating pain and potentially facing a child custody battle or loss of a child to the foster care system