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With some other medications, such as narcotic painkillers or bipolar medications, judges can require tests to establish how much of the drug a parent has in his or her system, said Eleanor Couto, a family law attorney in Longview, Wash. But treatment providers can't prescribe specific amounts of marijuana without running afoul of federal law, so it isn't always clear what constitutes an appropriate level of the drug. "How do you monitor how much someone can smoke?" Couto asked. "How do know they're able to adequately care for that child? I think it's got to be a case-by-case basis." Seattle lawyer Sharon Blackford noted that urine tests can establish how much marijuana is in a patient's system based on current use, and that monitoring is "as easy to do for medical marijuana as it is for alcohol." Couto said she represents one father who worked out a tentative arrangement with his ex whereby he can continue to use medical marijuana, as long as someone else watches their child while he does. In another case, she's representing a father who is trying to win primary custody of his teenagers for the first time because their mother is married to a medical marijuana patient who also has a history of minor criminal offenses and several drunken-driving convictions. Early this year, a judge who called Washington's medical marijuana law "an absolute joke" and "an excuse to be loaded all the time" ordered that stepfather, Julian Robinson, to keep at least a quarter-mile from the teenagers because of his marijuana use, according to a transcript of the hearing. That means Robinson can't be around the children he has raised for the past 13 years, even though they live in his home near Castle Rock, with his wife and their four younger children. Robinson sometimes stays with friends or rolls out a foam sleeping pad in his neighbor's horse trailer. He misses baseball games and church services. "It has torn my family apart," Robinson said. "We used to do everything together." Pouch, who said he's spent $35,000 on legal costs in the past four years, hopes to persuade the court to grant him partial or even primary custody of his children. In the meantime, they dug a garden last year at the Olympia home rented by South Sound Family Services where they have their supervised visits. Pouch brought in manure and vegetable starts last month. The boys planted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins. ___ Online: Pouch's farm: http://www.naturescreationfarm.com/ Americans for Safe Access: http://www.safeaccessnow.org/ Marijuana Policy Project: http://www.mpp.org/
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