OHIO | Too Stoned to Parent? 1 in 12 Parents Now Use Pot Most Days, and Ohio Kids Are Getting Into the Edibles

Author: FFP Ai Bot

OHIO – Are American parents too stoned to parent? That was the question behind a “High Times at Home” segment on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” on Friday, Oct. 23, and a clip of it shared on Facebook by host Laura Ingraham has drawn tens of thousands of reactions. The segment was built around a new study that found about 1 in 12 U.S. parents now use marijuana on most days. Here in Ohio, where recreational cannabis has been legal for adults since December 2023, poison center data show more small children are getting into edibles at home.

Watch the segment clip on Laura Ingraham’s Facebook page.

What the segment said

Fox News lists the Oct. 23 clip as “6M kids live with daily pot users: Study,” featuring Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel. Siegel argued that today’s marijuana is far stronger than in the past. He said vape cartridges contain “50 to 90%” THC and that flower used in joints is around 15% THC, compared with what he said was about 1% “back when we were growing up,” according to a clip Ingraham posted.

His bottom line: “If your parent is stoned, they can’t parent you.” Siegel called rising potency and rising use “a monstrous growing problem.”

The study behind it

The numbers come from a study by researchers at the University of California San Diego, published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. The team analyzed federal National Survey on Drug Use and Health data from 2012 to 2024, covering nearly 482,000 people age 12 and older.

• In 2024, 8% of parents living with children used cannabis on most days of the past month, up from about 2.6% in 2012. That is roughly 1 in 12 parents, up from 1 in 39.
• 5.2% of parents used cannabis daily, up from 1.3% in 2012.
• 6.7% of parents met the clinical criteria for cannabis use disorder.
• The researchers estimate at least 5.9 million children lived with a parent who used cannabis on most days.
• Daily cannabis use among parents is now about four times as common as daily alcohol use.

The increases showed up in nearly every group, with some of the largest among younger and unmarried parents, lower-income households and parents without a four-year degree.

The study has limits that the segment did not dwell on. It relied on self-reported use, and it did not measure parenting quality or children’s health, so it does not show that a parent’s cannabis use harms a child. The authors wrote that “much more research is needed on how cannabis use affects parenting.” Funding came in part from the California Department of Cannabis Control, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Checking the claims

Potency: Marijuana is much stronger than it used to be, but the “1%” figure is hard to back up. Federal testing of seized cannabis by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found average THC of about 4% in 1995 and about 16% in 2022, a fourfold rise. That public table does not go back to the 1970s. FFP did not independently verify the 50 to 90% figure for vape cartridges; NIDA’s table covers plant material, not vape oils.

Federal status: A Facebook community note attached to the reel points out that marijuana is now Schedule III under federal law for medical and state-licensed products. That is accurate in part. In April 2026 the U.S. Justice Department moved FDA-approved marijuana products and products covered by a state medical marijuana license to Schedule III. The department said a separate hearing on rescheduling marijuana more broadly would begin June 29, 2026.

Babies and addiction: The same community note says a baby is not born chemically addicted to marijuana the way infants can be born with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome. FFP could not find a full transcript to confirm the exact wording in the segment that the note responds to. Federal health agencies advise against cannabis use while pregnant or breastfeeding. NIDA says THC passes to the fetus and that marijuana use in pregnancy has been linked to a higher risk of stillbirth, but it notes that most research on newborn withdrawal has focused on opioids. In short, the opioid-style “born addicted” comparison is not supported, but that does not mean cannabis in pregnancy is risk-free.

The Ohio picture

Ohio voters approved recreational cannabis for adults 21 and older in November 2023, and licensed sales began in August 2024. A study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, using Ohio Poison Centers data, counted 3,728 pediatric cannabis exposures in Ohio from 2018 through 2024. Among children 5 and younger, reported exposures rose from 47 in 2018 to 582 in 2024. Most happened at home, most involved edibles, and 61.4% of the youngest children had to be admitted to a hospital.

Ohio Poison Centers said in 2025 that edibles were involved in the large majority of cases among children under 5, and that nearly two out of three of those children were hospitalized.

With trick-or-treat nights this week, the director of Lorain County Children Services told News 5 Cleveland that parents should look closely at any gummies in their children’s candy and toss anything from an unfamiliar brand or not packaged correctly. Adults who use cannabis are urged to keep it in child-resistant packaging, locked up and out of sight, and never stored with regular snacks or candy.

If a child may have eaten a cannabis product, call the Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222, which is free and open around the clock. Call 911 if the child is hard to wake or having trouble breathing.

The bottom line

The segment’s core numbers come from a real, peer-reviewed study. Frequent marijuana use among parents has climbed sharply, and Ohio’s poison data show young children are getting into edibles more often. But the study did not measure whether those parents are less able to care for their kids. An addiction medicine doctor quoted by Fox News Digital put it this way: he was not suggesting that someone who uses marijuana cannot be a good parent; his concern is being impaired while responsible for a child’s safety.

Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1106942308718809
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6407317596112
https://www.foxnews.com/health/marijuana-use-rises-sharply-among-one-group-americans-new-study-finds
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2026.108654
https://nida.nih.gov/research/research-data-measures-resources/cannabis-potency-data
https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/substance-use-in-women/substance-use-while-pregnant-breastfeeding
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-places-fda-approved-marijuana-products-and-products-containing-marijuana
https://doi.org/10.1542/pedsos.2025-000574
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/ohio-sees-surge-in-children-accidentally-eating-marijuana-edibles