A Kansas man is fighting back after he says the state removed his children from his care because of his use of medical marijuana.
Raymond Schwab, 40, is a U.S. Navy veteran who uses medical cannabis to treat his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He says it’s for that reason the state took away custody of his kids.
“They’re basically using my kids as a pawn to take away freedoms I fought for,” Schwab told The Denver Post. “It’s a horrible position to put me in.”
Schwab and his wife, Amelia, say the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF) seized five of their six children in April 2015, as the family was preparing to move to Colorado in what Schwab has called an “illegal kidnapping.” He says they have only seen their children three times since then.
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Schwab started his hunger strike on March 14 on the steps of the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka. He ended it on March 30 after lawyers representing the Schwab family filed a federal lawsuit seeking to return custody of their kids to them.
“Somebody who is a veteran, who served our country, we should not be taking their children,” Matt Pappas, a Los Angeles-based civil rights attorney who is representing the Schwabs, said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
“Shame on Kansas.”
Schwab was honourably discharged from the navy in 1996 after an incident he does not wish to speak about publicly led to his PTSD. He later qualified for a 50 per cent disability rating.
He says he first tried to treat his symptoms with prescriptions given by Veterans Affairs (VA), but he told the Denver Post that “they were making me crazy, they made me worse.”
Schwab says he has battled addictions to both prescription pills and heroin.
He was living in Colorado in November 2000 when the state voted to legalize medical marijuana, and says he obtained a medical marijuana card and turned to cannabis to both treat his PTSD and help kick his addition to opioids.
Then in 2013, the VA offered Schwab a job in Topeka, Kansas, where he worked for two years before being offered another position in Denver.
Just as the family was preparing to move, what Schwab calls a “family squabble” led to his mother-in-law reporting to police that Schwab had abandoned his children. He and his wife have been in a legal battle with the state ever since.
“We’re in a state that I think is in the dark ages in terms of where it is from the standpoint of medical cannabis and the rights of individuals,” Pappas said during his Wednesday press conference.
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In a statement to local media, the Kansas Department of Families and Children says Schwab is not being truthful in his assertion that his children were removed solely because of his pot use.
According to court documents obtained by the Associated Press, in the five months prior to the state seizing custody of their kids Amelia Schwab was arrested for domestic battery after assaulting her husband at a strip club. Police were also called to the Schwab home for a domestic disturbance, and Amelia Schwab was hospitalized for mental health issues.
In May 2015, Schwab was charged with criminal trespass and criminal battery after he allegedly tried to break into the apartment above a strip club where one of the employees lived, according to the Wichita Eagle.
But Schwab and his lawyers maintain that none of that was listed on the state’s allegation – but his medical marijuana use was.
“If [the criminal charges] are a role in what’s going on in court, that would be in the transcript,” Schwab told the Wichita Wagle. “But they’re not.”
Now the state is mandating that Schwab complete a four month drug-free period, though Schwab says he’s not even sure when the four months began.
His hunger strike over, Schwab says he plans to continue his vigil on the Statehouse steps, which the state has given him permission to do for 30 days.
He says he’s not confident the state will restore custody of his children to him without a serious legal fight.
“Until my kids are actually in my hands, I’m still pretty skeptical Kansas is going to do the right thing,” Schwab said Wednesday.
-With files from the Associated Press
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