Re: Drug Testing in Child Protection Cases

[FrampD@xxxxxxx]

Charleston County, South Carolina, uses drug testing as an incentive to
continued treatment and as a fairly accurate indicator of relapse; however,
there are several strong caveats which must accompany use of this practice.

South Carolina law has recently "toughened up" on substance abuse.  Two or
more failed treatment programs now constitutes grounds for Termination of
Parental Rights, drug use during pregnancy or confirmed drug use on delivery
of a child is defined as "harm" for child protection intervention, and our
Code of Laws now requires random testing for substance abuse in any child
protection case involving chemical dependency.  I prosecute civil child
protection cases, and no less than 80% of my indicated cases involve primary
or secondary substance abuse.

The strength of random drug screening must be in its unpredictability.
Addicted persons, especially cocaine dependent persons, are very adept at
manipulating the system around their addiction, and there are incredible ways
we have found that parents use to defeat chemical testing (some, I promise
you, would curl your hair).  Our Judges routinely order immediate drug screens
during judicial review of substance abuse treatment plans, and we are working
on the ability to do these tests at the Courthouse.  Our Orders require the
parties to submit to a drug screen request within 12 hours; failure to do so
allows the judge to presume that the test would be positive.  Our Orders also
require the Defendants, as a condition of their treatment plan, to execute
whatever releases are necessary to give the Family Court access to the test
results.

It's important to educate all of the professionals in the system to the
biochemistry of addiction, and we conduct routine training for caseworkers,
law enforcement officers, and other professionals on these issues.  Charleston
has a strong tradition of multidisciplinary cooperation under the leadership
of the Lowcountry Children's Center (lccc@charleston.net), and we coordinate
the delivery of all of our services through this facility.