Nathaniel Rudd didn’t know he was going to be a dad until the mother of a woman he’d dated months before — nine months, to be exact — called him from the hospital.

The next day, Rudd, 31, drove from his home in Twentynine Palms to hold baby Peter for the first time.

He learned from a social worker that Peter’s mother wouldn’t be able to take him home. So Rudd immediately began petitioning for custody.

Before taking a mandatory drug test, he explained that he used cannabis, with a doctor’s recommendation, to treat pain from a car accident he’d been in years earlier. The drug test came back inconclusive, since he hadn’t medicated in several days, but when he went to court a few days later he learned the damage had been done.

“They told me I was cognitively unable to care for my child because of medical marijuana use,” Rudd said.

Peter was placed in foster care in September 2015. Rudd still is fighting to bring his boy home.

Rudd and his new fiancee are among hundreds of families who are estimated to be facing custody issues in California over medical marijuana use. But they all got a glimmer of hope Nov. 8, when voters approved Proposition 64.

Along with legalizing recreational marijuana, Proposition 64 adds some protections for medical marijuana patients. Among them: California courts can no longer rescind or restrict a parent’s custodial rights solely because they have recommendations for medical marijuana.

State officials say that’s really nothing new, insisting they remove children or restrict custody only if there’s a clear threat or evidence of harm as a result of marijuana use.

“With any drug, there must be a nexus between drug activity or inactivity that directly threatens the safety of the child,” said Michael Weston, spokesman for the California Department of Social Services.

“Does the child have access to the drugs? Is the parent incapacitated to the point where they can’t properly care for the child?”

Rudd disagrees, saying he’s been denied custody of Peter strictly based on his status as a medical marijuana patient.

Read the full story here, and go to TheCannifornian.com for the latest on California’s recreational and medicinal cannabis law.