@gungasnake,
I think the government was probably so peripherally involved in this that you can't even factor them in.
There are a lot of should haves and would haves we'll never know about. These grandparents (who I don't know- and none of us know) were caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand they have a drug addicted daughter, whom they may have loved - she may be a really nice person with an addiction problem (as a lot of drug users are) who simply behaved irresponsibly. Okay, granted. Maybe seeing her was detrimental to her kids' mental and emotional well-being- granted. Maybe they should have had the strength to deny her visits with them, whether they loved her and she loved them or not - granted.
But maybe they were just human, with weaknesses - one of which may have been loving their daughter- believing she could change- and being unwilling to remove the impetus for change (her children) totally from her life.
I'm not saying that's how it is or was - I'm saying that's as easily how it could have been as any other scenario we could make up.
The social workers fucked up here. They should have worked to find a home that would help meld these two families (I'm talking the grandparents - not the daughter especially)- for the sake of those two kids. Apparently there were other families available that would have more readily fit the bill. They bypassed those. Why?
I'm not advocating these peoples' point because they're biologically related. I'm advocating because they're who these children know. If they'd been in a foster home since they were born and the foster parents were being denied adoption rights - I'd disagree with that.
Another sad disruption in these kids lives...and all these sad disruptions eventually add up.
Maybe they'll all work it out though and it'll end happily. We can always hope.