As de facto drug legalization expands, substance abuse is driving a child-welfare crisis.
Last month, Albuquerque police launched an investigation into how they handled the case of a seven-month-old baby who died in 2022 of asphyxiation. The death was ruled accidental—the child fell between a couch and a windowsill—even though he also had methamphetamines in his system. Three other children in the home also tested positive within a few days, but authorities did not remove them—that is, until almost a year later, when police conducted a welfare check at the home, prompted by a daycare worker who reported that another child in the home had arrived smelling of marijuana twice in a week. Only then was the baby’s mother, Victoria Romero, arrested on, among other charges, child abuse resulting in death.
