Giving birth is supposed to be a milestone of joy, but for thousands of women across the United States, it has become the starting point of a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. A major joint investigation by The Marshall Project and CBS News has exposed a systemic pipeline where imprecise hospital drug tests—often administered without explicit consent—funnel new mothers onto child abuse registries and into the crosshairs of law enforcement.
The investigation reveals that over a six-year period across 21 states, new mothers were referred to law enforcement more than 70,000 times for allegations of substance use during pregnancy, with a vast number of these cases involving nothing more than trace amounts of THC. Even in states where cannabis is legal, or in cases where mothers consumed legal CBD products, a single positive urine test can trigger immediate, life-altering interventions by child welfare agencies and police officers.
The Idaho Registry: A Ten-Year Sentence of Economic Exclusion
In Idaho, where marijuana remains illegal, a single positive THC test in a newborn is treated as presumptive evidence of child abuse. This policy has landed at least a thousand new mothers on the state’s child protection central registry—a confidential blacklist of child abusers. Once placed on this registry, individuals are barred from working in healthcare, employment at daycares, or even volunteering at their own children’s schools. The names remain on this list for a mandatory decade.
Nicole Hamann, an Idaho mother with no prior criminal record, gave birth to her fourth child in January 2021. While in the hospital, she was informed that both she and her baby had tested positive for trace amounts of THC. Hamann explained that a month prior to giving birth, she had accidentally consumed a marijuana-laced brownie at a relative’s home in Oregon, where cannabis is legal. Neither the hospital nor the state’s Child and Family Services showed interest in her explanation.
“I felt like, all of the sudden, I was a criminal,” Hamann told investigators. Although social workers inspected her home, interviewed her children, and quickly closed the case after finding no evidence of drug use or neglect, Hamann’s name was placed on the child abuse registry for ten years. When her husband was later injured in a motorcycle accident and unable to work, Hamann found herself unable to secure any viable employment to support her family due to the registry background check. “It took everything away from me,” she said.
Ashley McGrath, another Idaho resident, faced a similar fate. During her pregnancy, she suffered from debilitating morning sickness that left her unable to keep food down. When prescribed anti-nausea medications failed, she turned to legal marijuana gummies for relief. Her child was born perfectly healthy, and social workers cleared her of any parenting risk. Yet, because of the registry, her dreams of becoming a nurse practitioner were shattered. Today, she delivers food orders to survive. “My career as a healthcare worker is not just at risk; it’s completely thrown away,” McGrath said.
Federal Class Action and the Absence of Harm
Attorney Rick Hearn, who holds both a law degree and a medical degree, has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the state of Idaho on behalf of these mothers. Hearn argues that the state is depriving women of their livelihoods and constitutional due process without any evidence of actual harm to the children.
“You’re not doing anything for them other than stopping their ability to support themselves and their children,” Hearn stated. When asked if the state has ever shown that any child was harmed by these mothers’ cannabis use, Hearn noted that the state is not required to prove harm. “There’s no requirement that the baby looks sick or had any problems whatsoever to go on the list.” The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
South Carolina and the Criminalization of Motherhood
While Idaho utilizes administrative blacklists, other states employ direct criminal prosecution. In South Carolina, any newborn testing positive for THC must be reported to the Department of Social Services and law enforcement, regardless of whether the mother used illegal marijuana or legal over-the-counter CBD and hemp products.
Ayanna Harris-Rashid experienced this firsthand after relocating from California to South Carolina in 2021. Within her Native American culture, hemp-based products are commonly used to treat pregnancy-related cramping and nausea. Unaware that her midwife would administer a drug test without explicit suspicion, Harris-Rashid was blindsided when police issued a felony warrant for her arrest four weeks after she gave birth.
Charged with “unlawful conduct towards a child,” a felony carrying a potential ten-year prison sentence, Harris-Rashid was jailed overnight. “You’re not taking me from my newborn baby and locking me in a jail cell. It was the most horrific experience of my life,” she recalled. Though the charges were dropped a year later and her record was eventually expunged, the damage was irreversible. Her defense attorney, Erin Bailey, pointed out the immediate physical and financial toll: “For a brand-new breastfeeding mother, spending a night in jail is enough to completely break your breastfeeding bond, not to mention the thousand dollars lost to a bondsman.”
Horry County Solicitor Jimmy Richardson, whose office prosecuted Harris-Rashid, defended the arrests, arguing that the legal standard is exceptionally low. “The standard is ‘more probable than not’ that this child may have been put in an unreasonable risk of harm,” Richardson said, asserting that a positive test is sufficient grounds for arrest.
Racial Disparities and Systemic Bias
The Marshall Project’s data analysis of eight states (California, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas) from 2017 to 2024 revealed a stark racial disparity: Black newborns’ mothers facing allegations of prenatal drug use are referred to law enforcement approximately 2.5 times more often than White mothers.
When confronted with this finding, Solicitor Richardson admitted that socioeconomic status and race likely influence which cases are reported by medical staff. “I would suspect that, you know, if it was the doctor’s wife, they might not even call,” Richardson acknowledged.
As federal lawsuits proceed and public awareness grows, advocates are calling for an immediate overhaul of hospital drug-testing protocols, urging medical providers to prioritize patient health over automatic law enforcement pipelines that tear families apart and penalize poverty and race.