How the System Enables Domestic Abuse
I test the same woman for cocaine twice a week. Hair strand, oral swab, PEth blood test — whatever the court has ordered, we do it, on schedule, without fail. She hasn't had a positive result in months. I could tell you, to the day, the last time she used.
Her ex-partner? Nobody has tested him in months either. Not because he's clean — because nobody's asking.
That asymmetry is the story I want to tell, because it's not an edge case. It's the system working exactly as designed, and the design has a blind spot the width of a person.
The parent who fails once is watched forever. The parent who's never checked is assumed safe.
Once a mother has a positive test, a chaotic period, a police call-out, she enters a machine built to monitor her. Everything from here is evidenced, timestamped, cross-referenced. That's not wrong in itself — testing regimes exist because recovery has to be demonstrated, not just claimed.