Youngstown Daily Legal News

Proposal would stiffen penalties for selling illegal drugs to pregnant women

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: July 24, 2014

State Reps. Wes Retherford and Margaret Conditt have partnered to sponsor a bill focused on stiffening criminal penalties for those who knowingly sell narcotics to pregnant women.

“The number of pregnant women who consume or abuse illegal drugs, like many other narcotic statistics in Ohio, is rapidly increasing,” said Retherford, R-Hamilton.

According to Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services, between 2004-11, Ohio hospitals reported an 83-percent increase in the number of pregnant women who received treatment for drug use.

“Our bill combats this epidemic that has plagued our state and sets a firmer set of penalties to protect both the women and children who are harmed by these substances. Brought to us by our Butler County sheriff, who has witnessed countless examples of these criminal injustices, House Bill 529 is a collaborative effort with both local and state recognition that this problem is too drastic to ignore.”

The proposed legislation would expand the offense of corrupting another with drugs to include within the offense a ban against knowingly furnishing or administering to a pregnant woman, or inducing or causing a pregnant woman to use, a controlled substance, when the offender knows that the woman is pregnant or is reckless in that regard.

Under the bill, the penalty for knowingly selling schedule I and II drugs to a pregnant woman would be increased to a first-degree felony with mandatory prison.

Such drugs include heroin, LSD, cocaine, methadone and oxycodone.

The sale of schedule III-V drugs, such as anabolic steroids, codeine cough preparations and chloral hydrate, would be bumped to a second-degree felony with mandatory prison time.

Marijuana sales would rise to a third-degree felony.

“The penalties laid out with this legislation match those currently in place, under Ohio Revised Code, for selling drugs near the vicinity of a school,” said Conditt, R-Hamilton.

“In a pro-life effort, this bill would abide by the notion that selling to a pregnant woman is also selling to an unborn child. Creating penalties that correlate with those selling near a school generates the message that we will not tolerate the corruption of a child’s health.”

Retherford pointed to the rising statistics involving neonatal abstinence syndrome.

He said approximately 5,100 hospitalizations resulted from NAS in both inpatient and outpatient settings between 2004 and 2011.

“Nearly 84 percent of NAS inpatient hospitalizations were paid by Medicaid. Not only is NAS a heartbreaking experience — in which the child commonly experiences symptoms such as, low birth weight, seizures, feeding difficulties — but it is also driving up the cost of our health care.”

Ohio has the opportunity to be a leader nationwide for standing up for unborn children who are victimized with the abuse of destructive substances and drugs, Conditt said.

“With this bill, a tougher message will be sent to those criminals who recklessly choose to harm both a pregnant mother and an unborn innocent human life,” she said.

John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, offered proponent testimony for HB 529 before the House Judiciary committee.

“It is not a new phenomenon but prosecutors report frequently seeing cases where a pregnant woman or her child have serious medical problems as a result of the use of drugs by the woman while pregnant,” he said, noting that the association has seen various proposals introduced into the General Assembly over the years to tackle this issue.

“Over 20 years ago, we supported a bill in the Senate that would have imposed criminal penalties on a woman who took drugs while pregnant and the child was born drug dependent. This is a more indirect approach, targeting those who sell to pregnant women.”

Murphy said the state would have to prove that the offender knew the woman was pregnant when the drugs were sold.

“We support the bill as a way to attempt to address this tragic problem,” he said.

Ohio Right to Life has also backed the proposed legislation.

“Ohio Right to Life’s mission statement is this: to promote and defend the right to life of all innocent human beings, from the time of fertilization until natural death,” said Kayla Smith, director of legislative affairs.

“For this reason, we wanted to commend the representatives who have sponsored this bill for taking initiative on this effort as well as their co-sponsors for joining them in the effort. It goes without saying that the drugs mothers consume also affect their unborn child both during the pregnancy and after birth ... we want to support and encourage any legislative effort that would protect the right to life of the unborn.”

HB 529 is co-sponsored by Republican Reps. Timothy Derickson, Jim Butler, John Becker, Lynn Wachtmann, Jeffrey McClain, Ryan Smith, Brian Hill, Margaret Ann Ruhl, Robert Sprague, Louis Terhar and Jim Buchy.

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