Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — Despite rainy weather, nearly a dozen protesters lined Pennsylvania Avenue outside the Luzerne County Children and Youth building Monday morning with one thing on their mind: change.
It was the second such rally held by nonprofit Crowd Pow Wow Proud, which provides support for medical marijuana patients and others. The protest comes after allegations the county’s Children and Youth has been contacting parents with valid medical marijuana prescriptions.
“We have a lot of families with some really serious allegations against CPS and this needs to be addressed,” Sabrina Smith, a representative from the nonprofit, told the Times Leader.
Crowd Pow Wow Proud first picketed Children and Youth roughly a month ago, after the Times Leader reported Kingston resident Shanelle Dates said she had been monitored by Children and Youth after the birth of her baby due to drug use — but she had a medical marijuana card and was using cannabis to help combat both mental and gastrointestinal illnesses.
After the previous protest, Children and Youth Executive Director Joanna Van Saun called for more dialogue, especially in regards to medical marijuana use, saying that more guidance is needed from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Office of Children and Youth and Families, which is still only in the early days of being legal in Pennsylvania.
According to Smith, many of her clients are having their rights violated, suggesting that Children and Youth is acting as “an arm of the law” by removing children without providing services.
Smith said major changes need to be done to the system, as she thinks Children and Youth sometimes has a negative impact on children who are removed and placed into foster care, saying they’re sometimes placed into even worse situations.
“They take our kids, they chew them up, they spit them out,” she said.
