In Canada, doctors and nurses often inform social services if there is suspected maternal drug use. Thus, the providers of social services and health care participate in policing women. Many women are afraid to reveal their drug use, whether licit or illicit. One must question the medical scientific community's interest in the developing fetus. Their assumption that this interest benefits society -is suspect.
Mothers are often absent from the discussion which focuses on the fetus and fetal harm.
When mothers are included, their failure to mother is emphasised, and regulations and legal sanctions have been suggested to curb their behaviour. Liberal and conservative paradigms limit the questions asked and the areas researched, ignoring and obscuring deeper issues of social control, sex, class and race. If one examines drug use historically, it becomes apparent that the 'drug problem' is socially constructed. If one considers harm and dangerousness of specific drugs, it is alcohol and tobacco that are most toxic and harmful to health. From this perspective, one is required to ask different questions and to search for reasons why we have chosen to stigmatise a large segment of our population in Canada and elsewhere.