In the year since the 2024 elections, one trend has become clear: “tough-on-crime” approaches are the current preference of both executive and legislative branches across the country.[1] On July 9, 2025, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein signed Senate Bill 429, enacting wide-ranging crime legislation that increased punishments, created new criminal offenses, and made other revisions to the criminal code.[2] Notably, S.B. 429 created a new felony offense for exposing a child to a controlled substance.[3] Under the new provision, a person is guilty of a Class H felony if the person “knowingly, intentionally, or with reckless disregard for human life causes or permits a child to be exposed to a controlled substance.”[4] A child is defined as “[a]ny person who is less than 16 years of age.”[5] The provision includes additional felony class enhancements if the exposure results in ingestion, serious injury, or death to the child.[6]
Defining drug endangered children
According to the federal Drug Endangered Children Task Force, a drug endangered child is “a person under the age of 18 who lives in or is exposed to an environment where drugs, . . . , are present.”[7] As a result of these environments, these children are subject to a heightened risk of or direct experiences of “physical, sexual, or emotional abuse; harm; or neglect.”[8] From 2015 to 2019, an estimated 21 million American children “lived with a parent who misused substances,” and over 55,000 children in North Carolina lived with a “parent who had a substance use disorder.”[9]Further, other available North Carolina statistics indicate an alarming picture of drug exposures to children, like how “children have been found living in one out of every four homes where meth is made.”[10] Given the severe impacts of drug exposure on children, North Carolina’s interest in and justification for protecting children from drug exposures through criminal enforcement are clear and admirable.
The State’s child abuse framework already covers drug exposure.
S.B. 429 is not the State’s first, or only, law that aims to protect this vulnerable population.[11] Under the State’s misdemeanor child abuse statute, courts have held that drug exposures amount to “creat[ing] or allow[ing] to be created a substantial risk of physical injury”[12] to the child.[13] As a result, drug exposures by parents and care providers can already be prosecuted as misdemeanor child abuse.[14] If convicted, the parent or care provider is guilty of a class A1 misdemeanor, the highest level of misdemeanor offense in North Carolina.[15] The misdemeanor child abuse statute is an addition to other civil and criminal remedies, like the removal of the child from the home.[16] Thus, the State’s current child abuse framework creates a punishment for risky and life-threatening drug exposures while maintaining the process of removing the child to a safe environment. Additionally, North Carolina’s felony child abuse statute provides that a parent or caregiver could be guilty of a felony for a “willful act or grossly negligent omission in the care of the child [which] shows a reckless disregard for human life.”[17] The felony classification is either Class E or Class G, depending on the severity of the injury to the child.[18]
North Carolina risks ineffective overcriminalization with this provision.
Given this pre-existing framework, it begs the question of whether the new exposure provision is a stark overcriminalization of child drug exposures. For one, the new exposure provision provides that, “[t]he punishments set forth . . . apply unless the conduct is covered under some other provision of law providing greater punishment.”[19]This means that a parent or care provider could be potentially charged under both the new felony exposure statute and the pre-existing misdemeanor child abuse statute. Not only is this a significant change in the offense classification and punishment, but it also does little to materially change the protections in place for children. Rather, when considering that the statute does not apply only if a greater punishment already applies, it seems clear that the focus is simply on punishing the offender. Similarly, circumstances may allow for a defendant to be charged under both the felony child abuse statute and the new felony exposure provision. If convicted, these two felony charges may have other punishment and sentencing ramifications.
One could reason that the new felony exposure statute will serve as an effective deterrent; however, there is “a large body of prior research that cast doubt on the theory that stiffer prison terms deter drug misuse, distribution, and other drug-law violations.”[20] Given the important interest in preventing children from drug exposure, there must certainly be other alternatives for the State to explore rather than potentially ineffective enhanced criminalization.
Additionally, the statute, as currently drafted, is vague with respect to two central issues related to application and prosecution. First, the statute provides no definition of “exposure.”[21] In the first criminal prosecutions under this statute, North Carolina courts will need to define this key term. For instance, some sources have proposed that under the common definition of exposure, mere possession of the controlled substance in the presence of a child is not enough, but that the child will need to “encounter the controlled substance in some way.”[22] However, until courts clarify the legislature’s intent, the statute could be interpreted to have a broad definition of exposure, further increasing the number of prosecutions that could be brought under this new statute.
Second, the statute applies to “a person” who exposes a child to a controlled substance.[23] This unlimited language presents serious concerns regarding the statute’s application. For instance, one source raises the following, not unlikely, hypothetical of “a group of 15-year-old teenagers [who] smoke marijuana together.”[24] Under North Carolina state law and the statute, marijuana is a controlled substance.[25] Under the new law, are each of the teenagers potentially guilty of felony exposure of a controlled substance to a child? The plain language of the statute seems to indicate yes. And if so, it raises the more important public policy question of whether criminal prosecution of these teenagers is the best societal outcome, given the risks and impacts the criminal justice system has on child defendants.[26]
For now, the impacts of the new felony exposure statute are unknown. However, the legislation takes effect on December 1, 2025, meaning the first prosecutions under the provision are quickly forthcoming.[27] Some North Carolina advocacy groups have already praised the provision as “progress”[28]; however, it remains to be seen whether the provision will merely result in increased punishment and overcriminalization or if it will lead to a material decrease in the number of children exposed to controlled substances in North Carolina.
[1] See David A. Lieb, A Tough-on-Crime Approach is Back in US State Capitols, Associated Press (Jan. 13, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/crime-fentanyl-retail-theft-states-1dc9c8fc7bcadc634eb2fd156508805a.
[2] S.B. 429, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (N.C. 2025).
[3] Id. § 14-318.7.
[4] Id. § 14-318.7(b).
[5] Id. § 14-318.7(a)(1).
[6] Id. § 14-318.7(c)-(f).
[7] Drug Endangered Children Task Force, Dep’t of Just., https://www.justice.gov/archives/dec (last visited Nov. 8, 2025).
[8] Id.
[9] Robin Ghertner, U.S. National and State Estimates of Children Living with Parents Using Substances, 2015-2019, Off. of Hum. Serv. Pol’y (Nov. 14, 2022), https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/faa1b19e66053008e89782914f0aa693/children-at-risk-of-sud.pdf.
[10] Protect Your Family, N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, https://ncsbi.gov/Divisions/Field-Operations/Clandestine-Labs/Protect-Your-Family (last visited Nov. 8, 2025).
[11] See N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-318.2 (2009).
[12] Id. § 14-318.2(a).
[13] State v. Thomas, 719 S.E.2d 254 (N.C. Ct. App. 2011) (unpublished table decision).
[14] Id.
[15] N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-318.2(a).
[16] Id. § 14-318.2(c).
[17] N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-318.4(a4) (2013).
[18] Id. § 14-318.4(a4)–(a5).
[19] S.B. 429, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. § 14.318.7(g) (N.C. 2025) (emphasis added).
[20] More Imprisonment Does Not Reduce State Drug Problems, Pew (Mar. 8, 2018), https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2018/03/more-imprisonment-does-not-reduce-state-drug-problems.
[21] S.B. 429, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. § 14.318.7(a) (N.C. 2025).
[22] Phil Dixon, New Crime of Exposing a Child to Controlled Substances and Other 2025 Drug Law Changes, N.C. Crim. L.: A UNC Sch. of Gov’t Blog (July 31, 2025), https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/new-crime-of-exposing-a-child-to-controlled-substances-and-other-2025-drug-law-changes/.
[23] S.B. 429, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. § 14.318.7(b)-(f) (N.C. 2025).
[24] Dixon, supra note 21.
[25] S.B. 429, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. § 14.318.7(a)(2) (N.C. 2025).
[26] See Youth Tried as Adults, Juv. L. Ctr., https://jlc.org/issues/youth-tried-adults#:~:text=Prosecuting%20Youth%20as%20Adults%20Puts,with%20the%20opportunity%20to%20appeal (last visited Nov. 8, 2025) (noting that “[m]any youth in the justice system have experienced or witnessed violence and trauma.”).
[27] S.B. 429, 2025 Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. § 1.(b) (N.C. 2025).
[28] Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, Facebook (Nov. 4, 2025), https://www.facebook.com/fvnofnc/photos/12125-sb-429-goes-into-effect-new-criminal-offense-for-exposing-a-child-to-a-con/814625941435235/.
