Lesbian couple charged with neglect for plying young son with marijuana as reward for "good behavior"
A mother and her girlfriend in Indiana are currently facing felony charges after it came to light that the pair allegedly gave the woman's son marijuana many times for good behavior. 36-year-olds Melissa Burton and Susan Glascock are both looking at child neglect charges after the former's son told the authorities that the women gave him marijuana close to 50 times in three months. He also told the investigators that the women taught him how to roll joints. An investigation was launched into the lesbian couple after Burton's son got into a fight with Glascock on June 25. The couple was allegedly in the middle of a fight regarding how much money Burton and her son had made while they were selling video games at a store. The boy had only intervened to try and calm down the furious women.
Glascock clocks in at 270 lbs. Being a big woman, one can expect that something serious might happen if she pushed a person in annoyance. Burton's son, who weighs about 100 lbs, was pushed to the ground and then, according to the Indianapolis Star, was pinned for some time. Burton was somehow able to pull Glascock off her son soon after which the boy punched his mother's girlfriend and ran from their apartment in Greenfield.
The authorities found the distressed boy walking on the pavement close to the apartment he lived in with the two women. He told the police that his mother and her girlfriend would give him some marijuana if ever he "did something good". He also said that they would "ground him from marijuana" if he did something he was not supposed to be doing.
The child's grandfather also told the authorities that his daughter and her girlfriend would give the boy other drugs as well. Fox 59 reported that this wasn't the first time that Glascock had hit the child. He told the investigators that he had "lost it" after he saw the women handing the boy some marijuana one time and the affidavit states that the couple had promised, "they would not do that again".
The grandfather told the authorities that the child did not have his own bedroom in the apartment he stayed in with his mother and her girlfriend. He also said that his grandson was "in a terrible living condition and needed to be removed". The grandfather was very worried that the boy was not being cared for properly and told the police that the boy only becomes violent when he stays with the women.
The police said that the two women also confessed to giving the child marijuana. Glascock said that it happened only once but Burton came clean and said that her son had been given the drug multiple times. The girlfriend has been charged with domestic battery. Both the women each posted a $1,000 bond each. If convicted, both women could get two and a half years in prison.
In another incident of a parent giving their children marijuana, according to police, a woman from Raleigh was slammed by users online in March for confessing to detectives that she put a blunt into her 1-year-old baby's mouth. 20-year-old Brianna Ashanti Lofton "confessed to the act" according to a statement made by Raleigh Detective K.T. Hubard in the search warrant application that was made public at the Wake County Clerk of Courts Office. According to the authorities, the incident either took place in December 2017 or in January 2018.
Arrest warrants stated that Lofton, who lives in 4700 block Caldera Lane, was charged on March 21 on two felony counts of intentional child abuse-serious bodily injury, two misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and one misdemeanor charge of simple possession of marijuana. She was then taken to the Wake County Detention Center and was placed under a $100,000 bond. The now 16-month-old toddler was placed in the care of the Wake County CPS.
Lofton's 18-year-old boyfriend, Allan Maldonado, was also charged with two misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile and two misdemeanor counts of simple possession of marijuana. He is currently being held at the Johnston County jail on unrelated charges but was quite adamant while talking to District Court Judge Keith Gregory that the baby seen smoking a blunt in the videos was not his. He said: "I want a DNA test. I went to Child Protective Services and asked for a DNA test. It's not my child." The judge ordered Maldonado to follow the instructions that CPS has set and to have no contact whatsoever with the child.
In both the videos that were uploaded on Facebook, the child can be seen putting its mouth to a blunt that was offered by an adult hand. The baby can be seen blowing out smoke in both of the videos. According to the Raliegh police warrants, Lofton was accused of "causing, encouraging and aiding a one-year-old child to smoke a marijuana blunt" as well as intentionally injuring the infant with the "inhalation of marijuana" on December 1, 2017.
If the mother is convicted of the felony child abuse charges, she could spend up to 17 years behind bars and just like her teen boyfriend, she could end up spending 120 days in jail for each of the offenses but only 20 days for the marijuana violation.
According to health experts, smoke from marijuana contains a complex chemical mixture, which may be dangerous. A study in 2008 showed that marijuana smoke contains many of the same cancer-causing chemicals as tobacco smoke. When children consume marijuana they can have extreme sleepiness or lethargy. Children can also experience the same effects as adults including bloodshot eyes, increased appetite, dry mouth, anxiety, and impaired motor coordination. If they inhale marijuana smoke they can have those symptoms plus lung irritation and asthma attacks. Symptoms can last up to 24 hours after exposure.