A 28-year-old mother from Missouri has been arrested after a friend posted of photo of her allegedly smoking methamphetamine beside her baby.
Ashley Lewis was charged with child endangerment, possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia on March 18.
The photo, which Lewis admitted was a month old at the time of her arrest, shows the woman lighting a glass pipe beside her six-month-old daughter.
The child is currently in protective custody.
An unknown person posted the picture of Lewis on Facebook begging for help from an apparent drug addiction, reading in part:
“Please help my friend Ashley Lewis and I stop using meth. We can’t even stop if there is a baby around… share this post if you want this baby girl to live a better life not associated with meth.”
The post has since been deleted.
When local police became aware of the image, they identified Lewis through multiple interviews and by matching the interior of the motel she was staying at with the items in the photograph.
According to FOX 4 KC News, police found eight glass pipes in Lewis’ motel room.
However, Lewis is just one of more than a thousand Missouri residents who are associated with the “poor man’s cocaine.”
A map by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shows in 2014 Missouri had 1,034 meth incidents, including meth labs and seizures. However, the DEA shows this number has dropped by almost half since 2011.
A family services counsellor at First Call – a program that helps individuals and families affected by alcohol and/or drug abuse – told KSHB News Lewis should not be perceived as a bad person.
“So many people are going to look at this picture of this woman and automatically assume she is a horrible person, this criminal who should have her child taken away,” said Suzanna Rutter to KSHB. “The reality is, it is a disease. She is suffering from a very, very serious disease that a lot of people suffer from. She is not making a conscious choice to use that drug in front of her child. She has been completely taken over by addiction.”
However, Rutter did say abusing drugs in front of an infant can send that child the wrong message on how to cope with their problems and even what is right from wrong.
First Call has an “I Know Somebody” campaign that aims to break the stigma and silence of alcohol and drug abuse.
If Lewis is convicted of the charges she faces, she could go to prison for up to 15 years.
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