Thousands of new parents reported to police over false-positive drug tests

In at least 70,000 cases in 21 states, parents were referred to law enforcement agencies over allegations of substance use during pregnancy, according to six years of state and federal data obtained and published for the first time by The Marshall Project. In many cases, the referrals began with false positive results from flawed drug tests — sometimes triggered by the women’s prescribed medications.

 Harris-Rashid with her third child, Rai. Harris-Rashid used legal CBD gummies and a topical hemp-based ointment to ease frequent nausea and pain when she was pregnant with Rai in 2021. Kathryn Gamble for The Marshall Project 

 After Harris-Rashid gave birth, the hospital staff administered drug tests, and she and her child tested positive for marijuana. Kathryn Gamble for The Marshall Project

The sheer number of people that law enforcement is tracking is far higher than experts previously knew, including academics and reproductive rights organizations monitoring what they call pregnancy criminalization. Even so, the numbers The Marshall Project compiled represent a significant undercount.

“My initial genuine reaction is, frankly, shock and dismay,” said Dana Sussman, senior vice president of the legal advocacy organization Pregnancy Justice, which counted more than 1,800 pregnancy-related arrests and prosecutions from 2006 through 2024. She added, “This represents an incredibly regressive and counterproductive approach.”

The Marshall Project spent a year collecting and analyzing data on referrals to law enforcement. Reporters began with a request for federal data, then asked state child welfare agencies to verify the numbers and provide state policies. The totals reflect the number of newborn cases that those agencies shared with police or prosecutors.

Although most of those referrals did not lead to criminal investigations, many women were threatened with arrest or criminally charged. Others were confronted by police in their hospital rooms or homes and forced to turn over their children.

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