Rep. Travis Couture pushes amendment to maximum protection for kids with fentanyl-addicted parents

member from the 35th legislative district representative Couture uh thank you Mr Speaker the underlying bill is about a critical thing that is happening in our state it is about the deaths of kids at risk kids children in our state many of which are babies and toddlers when they are in drug filled homes with parents who are abusing hard drugs such as fentanyl High potency synthetic opioids and in the underlying bill it allows for a new imminent harm for highly potent synthetic opioids and then it states that the court shall give great weight to the removal of the child in these circumstances now Mr Speaker I'll talk a little bit more in a bit about what kind of numbers we're looking at here but first let me talk about great weight great weight is barely a legal term great weight is essentially asking the judge to think about it really hard when these situations come up to the court if we should remove a child where there is fenel in the home what this amendment will do is Strike great weight and add a real uh standard of law rebuttable presumption which is constit ution and let me explain to you what rebuttable presumption means and what it does it presumes that we should remove the child from a home where there is fentanyl present that is by the Numbers I'm going to tell you soon very highly likely to kill the child especially if they're an infant or a toddler and it allows the parent to rebut that presumption in court and there are many other instances in our state law where rebuttable presumption is the case and also in family law as well now Mr Speaker if you if we me and you if if we decide that great weight is the best standard to protect kids in our state from fentol what will happen is that there will be a patchwork of different decisions across jurisdictions and courts all across our state because it will be left up to each individ ual judge to decide how much weight they want to put behind it we need to have rebuttable presumptions so that we can have the max protection for kids Mr Speaker and I urge you to vote Yes on this amendment because we need it more than anything