TRANSCRIPT: LYNN PALTROW'S VISIT TO THE DRUGSENSE CHAT ROOM

DrugSense - Sunday, November 11, 2001, 5:00 PM

DrugSenseBot001: Lynn Paltrow of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women
program of the Women's Law Project will be our special guest in the
DrugSense Chat Room, Sun. Nov 11, 2001 8:00 EDT, 5:00PM Pacific time. See
http://www.cultural-baggage.com/schedule.htm for a schedule

Dean_Becker: Welcome to the Drugsense Chat Ms. Paltrow. Thank you Mr. Becker.

Dean_Becker: Please explain to the viewers here the nature of your work

Lynn Paltrow: I am executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant
Women. One major focus of our work in ensuring that women are not punished
for pregnancy or any condition or behavior during pregnancy including drug
use or addiction.

Lynn Paltrow: "NAPW" works at the intersection of the war on reproductive
rights and the war on drugs. I am a lawyer and have worked on many cases
involving the prosecution of drug-using pregnant women.

Jo-D: lynn, how many hospital's drug test pregnant women?

Lynn Paltrow: WE don't know the answer to that. Drug testing is generally
a matter left to the discretion of individual health care providers or
established as a matter of each hospital's policy. Very few laws
explicitly mandate drug testing of pregnant women. Rather it is
discretionary and results in extremely discriminatory patterns of testing
and reporting.

observer: Lynn, Any comment on the recent US Supreme Court ruling
concerning the Medical University of South Carolina's test-and-arrest
policy for minority mothers?

Lynn Paltrow: Yes, I have a lot to say. I filed that case with Susan Dunn
on behalf of two women -- way back in 1993. But it really all started in
1989. A nurse at a Charleston hospital decided that she was seeing a
problem of cocaine use among the African American obstetric patients and
wanted to see them punished. It took more than a decade to finally get a
victory.

Lynn Paltrow: WE challenged the policy of searching pregnant women for drug
use on 9 different legal theories. By the time we got to the US Supreme
Court we focused on one: The argument that collecting and testing the
women's urine, know it would be turned over to the police constituted a
violation of the Fourth Amendment -- prohibiting unreasonable searches and
seizures. This year the US Supreme Court agreed, concluding that state
hospital employees may not -

Lynn Paltrow: Of the 30 women arrested under the policy 29 were African
American. Only one white patient was arrested. The nurse wrote in that
patient's record: "patient lives with her boyfriend who is a negro."

Lynn Paltrow: And yet -- we lost in the lower courts on the race
discrimination claims.

Dean_Becker: I asked if the "crack baby" syndrome is for real or not?

Matt: What about self-incrimination Lynn? Does it matter if it comes from
your mouth or your bladder?

Lynn Paltrow: That is a good question. In the Ferguson case the Supreme
Court held that in the hospital context you had to give essentially a
Miranda type warning before you could get a real consent to a search of
someone's urine for criminal investigative purposes.

FatFreddy: Why does Marijuana work in a lot of cases of morning sickness?

Lynn Paltrow: Another good question. I am not an expert on this -- but it
does seem logical that if marijuana is effective in helping people eat --
it would be a useful medication for morning sickness. I recently got an
e-mail from a PhD. Candidate doing her thesis on this question.

observer: Lynn, Dr. Ira Chasnoff, a Chicago pediatrician and expert on
drug-exposed babies said that "The perspective in Illinois is that it is us
versus them . . . The 'them' is lower-class minority women. So we just
throw the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services at them. . .
. It is very biased . . .The key in selection [for punishment] is race and
social class." Have you found that to be true in your experience also?

Dean_Becker: I asked if the "crack baby" syndrome is for real or not?

Lynn Paltrow: Back to the child welfare question. Dorothy Roberts has
written quite eloquently about how child welfare -- especially with regard
to allegations of parental drug use -- as a mechanism for social control
rather than child protection.

Lynn Paltrow: As for Crack Babies -- John Morgan and Lynn Zimmer said it
best: Like Max Headroom and citing of Elvis they are media creations. -- or
something like that. Significant research has indicated that crack is not
good to use during pregnancy -- but that to the extent it causes harm --
those harms are similar to those associated with cigarette smoking.

Matt: What do you think of C.R.A.C.K. Lynn? The outfit that pays women to
use birth control or become sterilized?

Lynn_Paltrow: In Short it is extremely dangerous and
counterproductive. They spread dangerous misinformation and prejudice
against people who use drugs or who have ever used drugs suggesting they
are not worthy of reproducing the human race.

Lynn_Paltrow: WE have an op-ed piece about C.R.A.C.K. on our web cite:
www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org

Matt: Eugenics. Smacks of Emily Murphy. Yeah, I know about the oped, I'm
your webmaster :-)

Lynn Paltrow: Research has not found support for initial dire
predictions. They are not finding IQ damage or significant evidence of
other neurological damage. I refer people to the March issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association for the lead article by Dr.
Deborah Frank.

Matt: To what extent is cannabis an issue for you Lynn?

Matt: I was wondering if the authorities are pursuing women who use
cannabis during pregnancy as much as they are those who use cocaine

Dean_Becker: Does the use of cannabis by a pregnant mother hurt the child?

Lynn Paltrow: From what I can tell -- the criminal cases are more focused
on cocaine -- but there are so many reports of civil child "protection"
actions against women who are believed to have used marijuana that I think
it is a very serious issue.

observer: Lynn, Hitting on (the topic of) cannabis again, have you found
instances where "saving the baby from crack," turned out to mean
persecuting mothers for using cannabis, instead?

Lynn Paltrow: The DC City Council is considering two bill this Thursday --
one would treat a single positive drug test on mother or newborn as a basis
for presuming neglect and removing the child from the mother's
custody. This would include a positive for cannabis.

Dean_Becker: Lynn, from what you have stated, the discrimination against
pregnant mothers who use drugs is basically as racial as the rest of the
drug laws, correct?

Lynn Paltrow: Any of you from DC should call the mayor and city council and
oppose this bill as bad for children and parents.

Lynn Paltrow: On the race question: These actions do seem to be like the
other drug war applications -- applied way disproportionately to people of
color -- but not also affecting white women as well.

observer: Lynn, Dr. Ira Chasnoff, a Chicago pediatrician and expert on
drug-exposed babies said that "The perspective in Illinois is that it is us
versus them . . . The 'them' is lower-class minority women. So we just
throw the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services at them. . .
. It is very biased . . .The key in selection [for punishment] is race and
social class." Have you found that to be true in your experience also,
Lynn ?

Lynn Paltrow: I answered the Chasnoff question earlier -- but to reiterate
- -- as Dorothy Roberts writes -- child welfare is far too often used as a
mechanism of social control rather than one that really protects children.

Dean_Becker: I have often heard that heavy drinking or even heavy cigarette
smoking can be very detrimental to the child in the womb, is this once
again a case of pick and choose?

Lynn Paltrow: Basically yes. There have been some arrests (though no
convictions yet) of women who drank during pregnancy.

Trippin: lynn...thanks for being here...who do we have to hold accountable
for the start of this discriminatory injustice?

Lynn Paltrow: Charles Coindon has been fairly explicit in acknowledging the
political selectivity of prosecution -- he says there is just not the
"political will" beyond illegal drugs. I suspect it has to do as well with
political contributions . . .

Lynn Paltrow: The start of discriminatory injustice . . .that is a big
philosophical question. It has been around for a long time -- it does seem
that humans are somehow wired to divide people into groups -- good and bad,
safe and dangerous -- and it plays out in every age in history. We have a
lot of human evolving to do to overcome that tendency.

Lynn Paltrow: Of course discrimination also serves political purposes --
keeping some in power, ensuring comfort and wealth for some.

gee: what do we need to do in court Lynn? To protect our women ?

gee: Lynn what do we as civilians do to protect our wives, daughters,
friends from this type assault in the hospital? More law suits? Pre-lawsuits?

Lynn Paltrow: WE need a long-term strategy in court, in the legislatures
and on the streets to establish women's personhood. While the anti choice
fetal personhood debate rages -- we forget that women are not yet full
persons/citizens under the law. As long as it ok to discriminate on the
basis of pregnancy -- women will not be equal under the law. Achieving
equality also depends on ending other forms of discrimination -- race,
disability since humans general

Lynn Paltrow: As for women in hospitals -- lawsuits are good -- but we also
need to find out what local hospital policy is -- work to educate the
people who make those policies.

Lynn Paltrow: For example -- if they report women who test for marijuana or
methadone -- ask them what they base that on.

Lynn Paltrow: Educate women not to sign consent forms that permit urine or
blood screening if they do not want it.

gee: thanks lynn, I have both the best and worst , In one state no
testing , they simply care about patients. In winter home-state they
want bucks and test all women who are not cash customers.

Lynn Paltrow: Which states?

gee: Iowa, No regular testing any where but Des Moines I know of. Texas
every hospital I have been in, seems to do drug testing.

Lynn Paltrow: Thanks for the information. Texas has a terrible law
creating presumptive neglect -- though testing is not mandated as far as I
know. WE really have to remember that front line health people have never
been educated about the war on drugs -- they are as influenced by drug war
propaganda as the general public.

Trippin: lynn...do you think that women who are users and have their
children behind bars be allowed to have their children back when they get out?

Lynn Paltrow: Trippin -- first we have to ask whether the women should be
behind bars in the first place . . .

Lynn Paltrow: Child welfare policy in this country is usually based on the
question of what is in the best interest of the child. The best bet, it
seems to me, it to keep parents and children together as much as
possible. A few model prison programs allow this -- but it is so hard to
gauge when we now have so many people behind bars who should not be there
in the first place.

BigBong: TOTALLY AGREE Lynn

BigBong: though, after a couple of hundred years the prison can be remade
into a garden

BigBong: ;O)--~

BigBong: www.nimbinaustralia.com

gee: I teach as many in texas as I can.

Dean_Becker: Do you have offices around the country, any way we can help in
our local area?

Lynn Paltrow: Dean -- we are starting out small and love Texas for its many
smart and talented drug policy activists. We would be interested in
finding people who have civil child welfare cases based on drug use during
pregnancy -- for possible challenges. Also -- reaching out to hospital
staff, local child protection people for your educational work is really
important.

Lynn Paltrow: Child welfare workers and front line drug treatment people
also feel like failures because of the abstinence only standards. When
they hear about harm reduction concepts -- they feel better too -- finally
being able to think that a relapse or ongoing use does not necessarily mean
that they failed.

Dean_Becker: quite valid point Lynn, I think from what Scott Imler told us
last nite, even the DEA gets the blues over bust MMJ sites, honesty will
help win the day.

Lynn Paltrow: My closing statement? I spoke this morning to a group of
activists from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action
League. I told them they were good allies out there in the drug policy
reform movement -- and share with you that reproductive rights activists
can be good allies to you all as well!

BigBong: hemp hemp hooray

gee: grass roots works. Glad to know we feel the same way.

Dean_Becker: All battle lines on human rights seem to be closing in
together. Thank you Lynn, see you tommorow on the NY Times Forum.

BigBong: chaotic utopian anarchy ;O)--~