If you listen to the police audio tape of mom Daisy Bram crying in agony when child protective services took her children away from her, it's truly heart-wrenching. "My babies! My babies!" she screamed when they removed her 28-day-old son Zeus from her arms along with her 15-month-old son Thor back in September. Her crime? Possession of marijuana. But in Butte County, California, it is legal to grow pot. And Bram, along with husband Jayme Walsh, both have legal documentation allowing them to use marijuana for pain management. The county also allows them to grow it.
Three weeks prior to their arrest and seizure of their children who were placed in a foster home, police investigated the family's cannabis garden and gave it the okay. An officer even reportedly wished them luck with the baby. But then the unthinkable happened. You can hear the tape next, but be warned. It's very emotional and there is some language at the end.
You can hear the pain in her voice and no mother -- no parent -- should ever have to go through that. Yes, it was CPS, an agency that is put together to help save children's lives. But at the same time, this is seemingly a family who lived within the law, and whose babies weren't in danger. Of course, that depends on your stance on medical marijuana. Still, the people at CPS are strangers to this mother and father. Their babies were taken from them to live with strangers. For four months. I can't even imagine not being able to be with my children for four months. Bram calls it a witch hunt and the family has set up a website Free My Babies with details.
Fresh in the news the other day, however, was the story of a 19-year-old mom who left her infant on the hood of her car as she drove away, drunk and high. I feel this is much different than a mother who legally smokes a little pot at home for the pain in her arm. Even if she is breastfeeding.
Bram recently spoke to ABC News 10 about how she feels her kids were taken away because she was breastfeeding and smoking pot. She talked about how she doesn't believe enough THC can pass through breastmilk to cause any harm to the children. Tests revealed that there was trace THC in the hair from Thor, her older son, but the baby didn't have enough hair to test. Daisy also mentions how mothers drink, smoke cigarettes, eat genetically modified foods, and this is all seen as okay for a nursing mom. But a mom who smokes medical marijuana can have her children taken from her for months.
Bram and Walsh were charged with felony marijuana possession with intent to sell. Police found a 38-plant garden and 56 plants inside the home. Remember this is all legal in Butte County ... as long as their intent was to smoke it themselves and not sell it. The child abuse charges were dropped.
At the end of the audio, you can hear Daisy saying how she followed the law and asked those taking her babies away if they felt good about what they were doing. I can't imagine that they did. In this case, I don't think anyone "wins" -- and those children, having to be away from their parents for four long months ... all the milestones missed, the precious time a mother and father should have with their children ... gone. And for what? All because this seemingly peaceful family had some pot, which was within the law? Was it the fact that Daisy was breastfeeding?
They will never get that time back, but I hope they never have to go through something so horrifying again.
What do you think of Daisy Bram's story? Should they have taken the children from the home? Do you believe smoking pot while breastfeeding is enough of a "crime" to have children go to CPS?
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Comments 51
seroiusly i think she should have formula fed but i also think cps looks for ways to break up famil;ys
So CPS can take your children away for being on prescription medication that was legally prescribed to you but children die everyday at the hands of their parents. Where is CPS then? No way should their kids have been taken away from them.
So CPS will run in and snatch up babies over pot but when a child is daily beaten and neglected they turn the other cheek and leave children to die?
Ah, from their website. "" After FOUR LONG, TORTUREOUS MONTHS of our little ones being held hostage…CPS changed their minds. Just like that. They determined that they lacked the power not to recognize a prescription for Marinol & recommendation for medicinal cannabis. As long as we agreed to keep the cannabis locked up/inaccessible to the children, (which has Always been the case anyways) “..they could work with that.” This condition, coupled with our continued attendance of all mandatory groups, parenting classes, outpatient rehab, and random drug testing, (to address our parenting abilities and unsubstantiated “drug addiction/substance abuse”) satisfied the complete change of terms.
The babies came home on January 18, 2012. This was not a battle easily achieved, by any means, as Butte County stood to gain several thousands of dollars, (not to mention the revenue generated by their “cases”, as well as the justification for hundreds of jobs that rely on snatching children & placing them in foster care) were these babies sold/adopted out as was the intention of CPS from the outset of the kidnapping."""
No this is a case where CPS should have backed down. They were cleared, they did things the legal way (even if you disagree with it, what they did was legal and they went through the proper chanels.) If it's a legal medication then CPS needs to go take the kids of everyone who takes potentially harmful traditional medicine if not leave the kids alone.
Plain and simple if you do drugs, even legal ones, dont breastfeed unless you know for sure the drug has been deemed safe to use while breastfeeding.