Pregnant Women, Drugs, and the Law

Jessica DeSamito, a Navy vet who had been arrested in 2011 for drug possession, started using heroin again this February after her release from prison. Soon after, she became pregnant. In May, the San Antonio thirty-year-old failed a random urine test administered by her parole officer, and in July, as punishment, she was sent back to jail before being released to house arrest. The same week that Ms. DeSamito was reincarcerated, Mallory Loyola, a twenty-six-year-old with a history of using methamphetamine, gave birth to a child in Tennessee. Two days later, she was arrested and charged with assault – the first woman to be charged under a new law, effective July 1, that criminalizes the use of opiates while pregnant. Ms. Loyola later admitted that she had smoked meth three or four days before the baby was born, and was released on bail.