Multiple states have introduced legislation this January aimed at addressing accidental drug exposure in minors. Drug-related fatalities among children under 5 increased sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, peaking at 98 deaths in 2022. Many of the new bills pertain to fentanyl specifically, while others broaden their scope to methamphetamine and other non-prescribed controlled substances. Few if any of these bills would do anything to protect children from overdose, and often they don’t even purport to.
In Oklahoma, legislators have proposed that when someone reports a child as “drug-endangered,” the Department of Human Services would request a drug screening from the parent, guardian or caregiver in question within 24 hours. If the request were refused, it would be replaced with a court order.
This screening would go beyond urinalysis, with the department looking for any sign of “methamphetamine production or use, opioid exposure, or any indication of fentanyl presence, including indication via report, observation or prior history.” Once opened, an investigation would include mandatory testing for fentanyl and other drugs throughout the process.
“Endangerment” would be defined to include exposing a child to fentanyl-related substances through “environmental contamination in the home.” For a conviction of fentanyl endangerment, the maximum penalty would be five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, plus $50 to the state’s Child Welfare Fentanyl Testing Revolving Fund.
Washington, which is seeing substantial increases in pediatric deaths including from fentanyl, has introduced a series of child endangerment bills. One would define placing a child in “imminent physical harm” to include the “presence or use of illicit substances in the child’s environment.” A separate bill reintroduced from 2025 would expand child “endangerment with a controlled substance” to include street fentanyl, rather than focusing just on meth; it would also add “absorb” to the list of potential means of exposure.
Another bill proposes to broaden the standards for removing a child from their home, so that it’s presumed necessary if there’s suspected exposure to any non-prescribed Schedule I or II controlled substance other than cannabis; currently the law directs the courts to essentially focus this on fentanyl. Anyone who loses custody of their child this way would need to submit to random drug-testing at least twice a month for six months before the child could be returned.
Another that’s calendared for a January 28 Senate committee hearing would focus on children for whom the Department of Children, Youth & Families has already opened dependency cases, meaning it’s monitoring their care. Dependency cases have typically been opened only when the department expects to remove the child from their home, but this bill calls for “the expansion of dependencies as an effective tool for engaging families and … to improve Washington’s response to the growing number of opioid and fentanyl-related child fatalities and near fatalities.”
These proposals always carve out exceptions for controlled substances with valid medical prescriptions, which belies how arbitrary they all are.
Kansas has proposed increasing existing penalties for allowing a child to be “in an environment” associated with manufacturing of fentanyl or meth, adding more severe felony penalties in cases involving children under age 6. Residential meth labs have been the focus of many endangerment laws over the years, particularly those that pertain to young children, infants and pre-natal exposure.
A New Mexico bill that encourages surveillance by medical providers would define use of Schedule I and II drugs during pregnancy as child abuse if a newborn tested positive for cocaine, fentanyl, heroin or meth.
A Virginia bill would make it Class 3 felony for anyone over 18 to knowingly allow anyone under 15 to be in the same building or vehicle as street fentanyl. This would mean a prison sentence of at least five years and potentially up to 20, a fine of up to $100,000 and a record that can’t be sealed.
These proposals always take care to carve out exceptions for controlled substances for which there’s a valid medical prescription, which belies how arbitrary they all are. Between 2020 and 2024, poison centers reported 189 deaths among children under age 6 due to “single-substance exposure.” The most common category of substance involved was pain medication. Then fumes like carbon monoxide; then batteries; then “stimulants and street drugs,” which were linked to 13 deaths. In 2022, emergency departments treated more children for accidental poisoning from prescription opioids than from all unregulated drugs.
Anything read out in court as a criminal charge can sound like an indefensible decision by an unfit parent, but mostly the things we’re criminalizing aren’t conscious decisions but just things that happen as people go about their lives in places where drug use is heavily surveilled. A lot of this is about criminalizing people’s surroundings, and then blaming those who have children for being there.
Image (cropped) via United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Inset graphic via United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.