The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that women with state-issued medical cannabis cards who consume cannabis while pregnant cannot be prosecuted for child neglect, The Frontier reports. The landmark decision came in the case of Amanda Aguilar, who faced felony child neglect charges in 2020 after her son tested positive for cannabis at birth.
Aguilar, who was a registered medical cannabis patient at the time, used the treatment to manage severe morning sickness during her pregnancy. Despite her son being born healthy, the hospital reported her to child welfare workers, who subsequently turned over her son’s drug test results to police.
“I might have actually laid down if this had been a fight over any other thing else. But because it was over my kids, that was the reason I didn’t give up,” Aguilar told The Frontier.
The court’s decision sets a new legal precedent in Oklahoma. The ruling emphasized that while it does not condone cannabis use during pregnancy, the treatment remains legal in the state. Presiding Judge Scott Rowland, in the court’s majority opinion, noted that ruling against Aguilar would require the justices “to rewrite the statutes in a way we simply do not think is appropriate for courts to do.” The court urged lawmakers to amend state law to potentially allow charges against women using medical cannabis while pregnant.
However, two judges dissented, arguing that Aguilar’s unborn son did not have his own medical cannabis card and that neither voters nor the Legislature intended for unborn children to be exposed to cannabis under the state’s medical cannabis laws.
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