“Thirty-nine per cent of children enter foster care because of parental drug use” is the most commonly quoted statistic regarding the role of drugs in a child’s removal from home. However, that number is an average of US state removal statistics. While recently updating my book Will I Ever See Your Again? Attachment challenges for Foster Children, I came across the following graph indicating that the proportion of children who enter foster care due to parental drug use varies greatly from state to state from 3.6% to 69%. (Source: AFCARS 2019, most recent data.)
Individual State statistics
Parental Alcohol or Other Drug Abuse as an Identified Condition or Removal by State, 2019
In descending order
National Average 38.9%