Godfather/Weed/CPS question

[MWF]

TLDR; The stuff in the middle is context, but the most important part is the bottom paragraph.

My best friend and his wife got pregnant a couple months ago, and in all likelihood, I'll be the godfather for the child. I wouldn't necessarily be the ideal choice because I don't have a husband or wife (never even been in a relationship) but I make up for that with my ability to commit to the people I do care about. Most importantly, I'd be a far better parent than my best friend could ever be. He's the last person who's qualified to parent a child.
One of the problems with my best friend and his wife are that they both smoke a ton of weed. At this point, they kinda have to. My best friend has really bad ADHD, Bipolar, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. With the ADHD and Bipolar, he has at least one episode a day where he just insults everybody around him and becomes completely self-centered. His wife doesn't really know what to do about that except ride out the storm. You can't expect that from an infant, though. Back to the weed, though, he smokes a ton of weed because his old drugs were ineffective and made him want to kill himself. Weed gets him to a more reasonable level and he can eat. So... the weed is better.
His wife smokes the weed for neck pain, migraines, and stomach problems. Problem is, she'll be consuming weed until the last few months because she can't really eat without it, and the baby needs food. I've convinced them to stop smoking blunts (they have tobacco) and in general, I think I've convinced them to switched to vaporization instead of smoking. Smoke is obviously bad for the baby. Marijuana probably is too, but getting them to remove tobacco and smoke is the best victory I could get. Regardless, they don't believe weed is bad for the baby.

Anyway, here's what I'm wondering about. If she still has weed in her system when the baby is born, I'm wondering if CPS could take the child and put her in prison for child abuse. I assume this will also be the case when they check in with my best friend and find out he has weed in his system. I'm not sure what really happens though. Does CPS take the baby for their own? Do they both go to prison? Does the baby go to me, the Godfather? And also, if I fail a drug test (and I could, but I don't smoke nearly as much as them), what happens to me? Or is the child taken and we're all left free and miserable?

[.Brittany.]

Hi there,

I first want to mention that CPS runs differently in each country, so what might happen in my country might be different in another. I deal with Family Children Services a lot at my place of employment. I've seen many mothers who smoke marijuana get to keep their babies, but, on the other hand, I've seen some who weren't so lucky.

It all really depends on their past, and whether or not they think that the baby will be safe in their custody. I do highly recommend that they (at least the mom) stops smoking marijuana during her pregnancy as it might harm the unborn child.

[MWF]

Ok, this is just an add-on, but I'm really starting to think my best friend has some sort of delusional disorder or something. He's always done this, but he just keeps saying demonstrably false things about himself to make himself feel good (delusions of grandeur). I've only recently caught on to how detached from reality he is because he's been living with me for so long. He's not schizophrenic or anything, but theres just a long pattern of him saying completely nonsensical things about himself that he SHOULD know that I know are false and have nothing to do with reality. And now that I remember, his wife used to just see things and wander off. That was only a few years back. I think she's had it dealt with, though, because I haven't heard of anything like it since.
I'm getting genuinely worried. Is there anything I can or should do about this? Thing is, there's no advice that he would follow, even if we had some sort of family intervention for him.

Edit: I looked it up, and he appears to have a ton of symptoms for delusional disorder.

[Lizzie]

If the mother has an illegal substance in her system at the time of birth there is the possiblity they will take the baby from her. It has happened and can happen to your friend.

The child would most likely be given to a relative of theirs, like one of their parents, or put into a foster home. The child would not go to you, as you are not a relative or a registered foster parent.

Godparents are not there in case the parents lose custody, Godparents are responsible for the religious upbringing of the child. They are there to guide their spirituality in whichever faith the family participates in. Hence the term "Godparent". It has nothing to do with custody of the child. I hope that clears some things up.

Yeah, godparents don't tend to get custody. If the parents want the godparents to have custody if something happens to them there are a number of other legal steps that they'd have to jump through to make the happen. It isn't unheard of for non-family members to be able to obtain custody but there are hoops that have to be jumped through that can make or difficult.

Also, there are a number of things involved with this. If she has weed in her system the hospital would have to be aware of it and not all hospitals do drug tests after the child is born etc. Also, a lot of the time, they will do a test on the baby to determine if it has drugs in their system. There are people who end up not losing custody of their child when they have Marijuana in their system after the baby is born because the baby ends up not having it in their system. So, there are plenty of factors involved and different states and cities handle it all differently.

In regards to the rest, your friend has to be willing to seek help for his delusions. You can talk to him but if he isn't willing to get help there really isn't much that can be done unless his delusions end up endangering the life of the child. At that point you could contact CPS but it's up in the air in regards to of they will do much etc.

I also don't know how common it is for a baby to not have it in their system since I don't know too many people who continued smoking it once they found out they were pregnant.

[MWF]

Wow. I feel silly. In my family, we all were set to go to our godparents if something happened though.
Yeah, I'll keep an eye on his delusions though. Part of the delusion could be that he's too perfect to have delusions.

[Lizzie]

Originally Posted by MWF

Wow. I feel silly. In my family, we all were set to go to our godparents if something happened though.

Then that must be written in a will, which is a different situation.

Yeah, there has to he legal documentation (usually a will) that specifies all of that. If it isn't stayed you could still, potentially, get custody but you'd have to jump through a number of legal and if they have other family that wanted to do it than you wouldn't likely stand much of a chance. There are exceptions, but again, it's exceptionally complicated.

If you're friends want you to have custody should anything happen you should talk to them about it and let them know that they need to document it all. I know my brother and his wife have it documented and notorized.