Mom properly jailed for letting baby smoke dope -court

A Montana mother who allowed her 18-month-old baby daughter to inhale from a marijuana water pipe on several occasions was properly convicted, but should not have to spend five years in jail, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

Jessica Durham was photographed allowing her toddler Michala to suck from a marijuana water pipe, also known as a bong, in 2004 by a friend upset about the activity.

"Ms. Durham allegedly remarked that smoking improved Michala's appetite and left Michala lethargic and mellow - a manner she found consistent with her own experience smoking marijuana," Judge Louis Pollak of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in summarising the case.

In 2005, a lower court sentenced Durham to five years in prison for unlawful marijuana distribution. She appealed both the conviction and the sentence.

In its ruling on Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld the conviction but said the sentence exceeded the applicable federal law which calls for punishment of no more than two years in prison.