More pregnant women are using illegal drugs in Arkansas, but lawmakers and child-welfare administrators said Thursday that there is no silver bullet to bring those rates down.
During a joint House and Senate committee meeting aimed at discussing problems facing the state's children, the head of the Division of Children and Family Services, Cecile Blucker, told lawmakers that the number of Garrett's Law referrals -- which track the rate of drug use by pregnant women -- continued to increase in fiscal year 2015.
Garrett's Law, which was passed in 2005, made evidence of drugs in the system of a newborn child or its mother a reportable offense to the state's Child Abuse Hotline.
Investigators then look into the referral as they would a call reporting abuse or neglect, and their findings can result in a mother getting drug treatment, a child being taken away or sometimes both.
In an effort to not scare pregnant women who use drugs from seeking necessary prenatal care, part of Garrett's Law states that if a mother is found to have abused drugs shortly before a child's birth, they are not added to the state's child maltreatment registry.
In the last fiscal year, Blucker said, there were 970 referrals made by medical personnel to the hot line, an increase of about 12 percent from the 867 referrals in fiscal year 2014, and a 47 percent increase from the 662 referrals made in fiscal year 2012.
State investigators went on to find that illicit drugs were involved in 93 percent of those cases, and nearly all of those findings resulted in new protective-services cases being opened by state social workers.
Historically, one in five children cited in a Garrett's Law referral are taken into state custody.
Blucker said the rise is not the result of a more proactive medical community but of an overall increase in drug use in the state.
"We have got to put more prevention services in place across the state," she said. "We've got to be able to have that service available to young mothers. Maybe if they were able to get some resources or some assistance, then their life wouldn't be so problematic, which may be the reason they attribute to their drug use. Maybe they need marijuana to calm down."
Although Garrett's Law was crafted in reaction to methamphetamine, marijuana was reported to be by far the most common drug that leads to referrals to social services.
More than 65 percent of last fiscal year's 970 referrals were for marijuana. A quarter were for amphetamines and nearly 20 percent were for opiates, but Blucker told lawmakers that the state has been fortunate not to see a spike in heroin use, which is happening in other parts of the country.
Although alcohol use can have the most damaging impact upon a baby's development, Blucker said that signs of alcohol in a newborn would not trigger a referral to state services.
"[Alcohol] was brought up [when the law was written] ... There's been talk about the lasting impact of alcohol and that it's pretty much irreversible," Blucker said. "It's never been taken forward."
Reps. Sue Scott and Rebecca Petty, both Republicans from Rogers, agreed that it was worth exploring the addition of alcohol to the list of substances that are screened under Garrett's Law.
"That sounds like [legislation] we may need to address," Petty said. "Fetal alcohol syndrome has a terrible effect."
Benton County, which Scott represents, had 45 referrals made through Garrett's Law, and nine children were removed from parental custody as a result.
Scott said those figures were "disappointing" and reflected a larger social issue that is difficult to address, either as a lawmaker or as a state agency.
Scott suggested more education efforts, including early education that would force young women to see video of newborns going through withdrawal from controlled substances.
"I wish we could scare everyone into the realization that we need to leave drugs the heck alone," Scott said. "I don't think people set out to harm their unborn children. But by the time they've become pregnant, they're already so hooked on drugs it's just a real social issue. We've got to help our young women and teach young women that motherhood comes first."
Metro on 12/18/2015