MySpace leads mom to marijuana

Published on April 17, 2008 by Trench Reynolds in Drugs and MySpace. 29 Comments Tags: marijuana, MySpace, zion.

MySpace page alerts mom to marijuana use:
Who says smoking dope doesn’t make you stupid?

A woman in Zion, Illinois should be nominated for mother of the year. Her 17-year-old daughter left her MySpace page open on the computer where the mother found out her daughter had a fondness for the ganja. So then she checked her daughters digital camera which had videos on it of the daughter smoking weed. Then the next day the mother found her daughter’s weed and a bowl.

So what did you think mom did? Did she ground her daughter until she was 30? Did she take the door off her daughter’s bedroom? Did they have a heartfelt mother daughter talk? Nope, none of the above.

Mom took all the evidence to the police who then took the daughter into custody for possession. And here’s may favorite part of the story…

Police reported finding a piece of lined paper in her pocket with a drawing of a cannabis leaf and the words “smoke all day” written on it.

And who says you can’t become addicted to pot either. Way to go mom.

I see two things happening in this girl’s future. She’ll either clean up her act and be forever grateful for what her mom did or she’ll end up appearing on the main stage if you know what I mean.

David

Yeah…way to go mom.

Way to take your parenting responsibilities and turn them over to the State. Way to spend tax payer dollars processing your daughter through the criminal justice system.

…because 20+ years of the "War on Drugs" has definitely shown us that throwing users in jail keeps kids off drugs. Just say no, right?
http://www.red-alerts.com Rob Taylor

Yeah David, instead let's just allow teens to get high all day. There's no harm in that right? No risk of her ending up dating some 40 year old loser who gets her high, no risk that when she starts driving she'll kill somebody while high, no risk she'll contract/spread stds.

If only we let 17 year old girls get high we'd be a better country. Then we can change our puritanical attitudes towards 17 year olds getting nailed by middle aged drug users. Then we can expand the welfare state to pay for all the kids they'll have that get removed.

Tough love works Dave, whether you like it or not. Good for this mom taking a stand.
David

No, Rob…

In this case, the mom should have done everything else in that list that Trench Wrote:

"So what did you think mom did? Did she ground her daughter until she was 30? Did she take the door off her daughter’s bedroom? Did they have a heartfelt mother daughter talk? Nope, none of the above."

I have no problem with tough love. I have a problem with tough love…I do have a problem with you disciplining your child at the expense of taxpayers.
David

Sorry, that last part was a big mangled…let me restate:

I have no problem with tough love. I do have a problem with you disciplining your child at the expense of taxpayers.
http://trenchreynolds.me Trench

I'm a taxpayer and I'm pretty sure Rob is too. I have no problem with it. I'd rather mothers do this then coddling their precious criminal snowflakes for them to be a bigger burden on society later.
http://www.red-alerts.com Rob Taylor

David, maybe you think that that money would have been used somewhere else if only that kid was dealt with at home. Your tax money is already there and there isn't a better use of tax money than catching someone early enough to turn their life around.

I'm with Trench on this one, being grounded isn't going to help this kid see the life she was headed into, but watching her friends roll on her and run off will. Seeing the inside of a holding cell while her supposed friends skate will make her think twice about how deeply emersed in drug culture she wants to become
abby

im a mom, I would have done the same thing!
xxqsme70

Hey David,

It's illegal to smoke or possess pot.
Soobs

As a stepparent who HAS taken off the kid's door, grounded her until she was 30, had heart-to-heart talks, got her into treatment, my DH STILL took her directly to the police station when he found her high. She had other mental issues, besides the drugs, but we did EVERYTHING we knew to do, INCLUDING involving the police. Hell, one time, she "ran away" and my DH had the police accompany him to the local "hang out" (adult at home, mind you.) The cops smelled pot when the adult opened the door, but couldn't go in, because they didn't have a warrant. My SD was NEVER invited over to THAT house again, though. And they moved, within the month.
Ted

ITS POT. big deal. that doesn't mean she is going to be a drug addict. I bet all of you have tried it. and are you in jail? and actually pot is not physically addicting, emotional yes. but not physical. This has got to be the stupidest thing to argue about. Maybe if it was coke, meth, narcotics or something more serious, but come on you are talking about marijuana the most widely used drug in the USA. if you smoke pot you aren't going to start robbing and killing people. Chances are that lady has tried it, so why should her kid be any different. Alcohol is more dangerous then weed, more people are killed from that then pot. And yes there are plenty of more important things to do with tax payers money. We shouldn't have to pay for something so petty. apparently the lady has no authority over her children.
IF you people think Marijuana is a "real" problem turn on the news and think about it.
http://www.red-alerts.com Rob Taylor

If pot is "emotionally addictive" why's that better? I think you mean pot is habit forming rather than physically addictive. However pot does have short and long term effects on chronic users.

Medical issues aside, the smoking is much like drinking too much, is indicative of a lifestyle that ends for young girls in a strip club or with some fatherless children or both. Go to any strip club in Jersey, get to know a girl there and see how she ended up dropping out of high school to work at "Heartbreakers" and you'll get the same story of getting high young, running with a crowd of losers and getting knocked up by one.

Not to mention the danger buying and using pot puts her in. How many drug dealers have decided to rape/mug/assault suburbanites when they want a little extra cash? How many date rapes begin with an invitation to smoke pot?

The idea that because you may of tried something you are obliged to allow your kids to do the same thing is asinine. I once tried to take the plastic wrapper of a Wostershire bottle with a steak knife, resulting in several stitches. Am I obliged to let my kids (if I had any) do the same?
Angie

i'm thinking Ted's a big pot head
http://trenchreynolds.me Trench

IF you people think Marijuana is a “real” problem turn on the news and think about it.

Big problems start with little problems like pot.
Soobs

LOL at Ted. Guess we shouldn't be so hard on the "adults" who let babies and 2 year olds get high, either? After all, "it's just pot."

I will say that Potheads have a higher instance of living with mommy and daddy well into their 40s, and have no job to speak of, as well.
xxqsme70

Ted,

Step away from the bong.
Ted

Apparently you didn't read what i wrote. Please point out in my comment where i said anything about toddlers? Don't coonfuse a stupid ass teenage mom, who you read about in the news, to my comment. But like i said before you are all hypocrites, Chances are you have tried it, maybe even something worse. Do you forget what it was like to be a teenager? i guess you can't really compare life now to the 70's,80's…or even the 90's. times have changed. there are drugs killing people and you complain about pot, GET REAL How about you research Marijuana. (one site doesn't count, actual research)
Ted

Trench pot doesn't start the problem. Just because you get high doesn't mean you are going to run off and try to cop a buzz off anything. There may be people out there like that, but it didn't start with pot. thats like saying if you get drunk you are going to go and find another drug that makes you feel that way. Only difference alcohol is legal, and believe me pot will be legalize eventually with strict government regulations. its only a matter of time, they know they can tax the shit out of that. just like smoking and gambling.
Bay

Ted you say Pot Big deal well i can only speak from experience but I do know for facts
They told my parents that way back in the 70's. How wrong they were.
I am a recovering addict and MOST those I went to school and smoked with are as well. They(my parents) never said a word about the weed. They were also told i needed therapy but back than ell it was just not accepted so they again did nothing.
And so i went on through my early years blocking and holding in and self medicating with weed and on up the chain. Thank Heavens i never fell too far into the bottom. I was a functional addict. I was still an addict though and it all started with weed.

Some people can take a toke and never go back or forward. Many though especially when they do it at this age do it for underlying reasons. They are trying to be accepted, trying to self medicate, trying to block feelings about stuff they do not care to deal with. Most times it is not that they do not want to deal with it rather it is that they do not know how. No one taught them how to handle hurt anger embarrassment etc. No one gave them confidence. So they get in with the weed heads for a lot of reasons and many times those issues never get dealt with they move up a little more and a little more and eventually they are full blown addicts. By that time they are likely to have forgotten why in hell or how in hell they got there to begin with.

This Mom done the right thing and Now her next step will hopefully be to get this kid into treatment.

Thank goodness a parent finally done her job

I do not agree with the she is using tax money to discipline her kid. Her child was doing something illegal. She left her child know that for every action there is a reaction.
She left her know that if you do the crime you will do the time in some sense. A damn good lesson and I hope it helps her turn around and jump onto the right path in life.

This Mom needs a award for doing what she is supposed to do Parent what she produced.
Ted

Well Rob if thats what is going to take to have your kid learn not to play with knives then yes. Your whole scenario isn't real logical for all parts of the country. First off, why was she going to a drug dealers alone? thats a stupid thing to do and you can't blame drugs on that one. And after inhaling smoke daily anyone is bound to have side effects, come on. and aren't the short term effects why people smoke it?
Your kids will try wether you want them to or not and that doesn't mean they are going to turn out bad. I know a lot from high school who tried it and hated it and never smoked again. and i also know people who would sometimes socially and are starting careers with starting pay at 200k. I'm not saying everyone should smoke. because i do people who got into heavy drugs and are either dead or in jail, but thats not the pot, they had the choice to take that next jump thats their fault.

And for the record, i am NOT a pothead, nor do i even smoke. I did my fair share in High school, but i grew out of it.
Ted

Well bay you made that choice. pot didn't make you do anything, like i just said in the comment above.

You can't look for something to blame for bad decisions.

And it sounds like you were a teen in the 90's.
http://www.red-alerts.com Rob Taylor

I call bullshit. You know all these people just starting their careers at 200k? Right. And they're all recreational pot smokers. How about you tell me what you do for a living.

And it's pretty low blaming the victims of crime by calling them stupid. It's people like you that convince kids pot dealers are a combination of Santa Claus and Karl Marx then when someone gets raped it's the kids that are "stupid" not the adults who lied to them about how harmless drug culture was. Nice.

You want to claim pot doesn't hurt anyone but the news is full of crimes and horror stories that center around some pot head. Explain how all these stories are meaningless?

Just because you like to smoke pot doesn't mean it's good for you or harmless, but the fact that you're intent on convincing us of those things proves that on some level you know you're … blowing smoke!
David

"I’m a taxpayer and I’m pretty sure Rob is too. I have no problem with it. I’d rather mothers do this then coddling their precious criminal snowflakes for them to be a bigger burden on society later."

-Trench

Trench, that's fine. I agree that IF that were the case, i would chose police intervention as well. However, I have seen no data suggesting that early "scared straight" tactics such as this are likely to deter long term drug addiction. Also, the original scenario I was responding to gave many alternatives to the police intervention other than "coddling their precious criminal snowflakes". I guess this is one area where those on the conservative side don't mind throwing money at blindly, but personally I would like to know what is more effective in these early stages:

1. Therapy/Drug Rehabilitation
2. "Scared straight"
3. Strong parental response only
4. Combination of any of the three.

I think some science is in order to determine the best place to put this money rather. People's raw emotion and thinking the police can fix everything rarely successfully addresses any severe public policy issue such as the drug addiction crisis in America.
http://www.red-alerts.com Rob Taylor

I've worked with kids before and without fail the ones who were the worse off, including with drug use, had a combination of lack of parental control/involvement and a sense of entitlement that included the belief that they should be able to do what ever they want sans punishment.

My wife worked for years at a very liberal well respected college that had a strict no police policy for things like drug use. For the near decade she worked there they averaged 4-5 overdoses a year. From Alchohol poisoning to a couple of Heroin hospitalizations.

I think the common link is a set of values that promote not only destructive behavior but the false belief that the rules don't apply to you. In the case above the girl was openly flaunting her drug use to her parents, and clearly on some level she wanted to be caught. The mother going farther than she thought she would will help to make her see that there can be consequences to your actions.

But I don't think there is any one way that works best, accept a kid having a good home life with mature parents. Therepy might be needed for some, other kids frankly need a grounding and some need to sit in jail for a night to think about where their life is heading.

Jus my two cents.
AnonK

It's the War on (Some) Drugs. There are better ways to deal with drug users, however it's just easier to throw them in jail, right? Forget treating drug use as a public health problem and god forbid we try and forge some sort of rehabilitation or therapy to help them. Meanwhile, let those institutions overcrowd while sentencing for people that actually, you know, commit murder and rape and other more serious crimes have shorter sentences just to relieve the problem.

Pot is the least dangerous in my opinion. I chose to use it and will never regret it. It eases me out when my mind won't stop chattering and when the massive stress overwhelms me, then I'm fine for several weeks before I would even have to touch another joint. Yeah…a very dangerous drug indeed. Why not take pills for it? Because I don't wanna use things that would make me think to want to kill myself. That's just me.

There is no evidence smoking pot gateways doing harder drugs – boredom seems to facilitate that from what I have seen. But hey, cigarettes contain a crapload of toxins, are addicting and can kill you slowly, but the cigarette companies benefit so that's okay. Abuse of alcohol can kill you, yet that's fine totally fine to consume. Meth (not to mention heroin, cocaine), scares the hell out of me, seeing that I have seen what it does to people. Perscription drugs? I've met so many people in my college that are taking Xanax on a regular basis, which I find very eerie. There are kids who take cocktail mix of perscription drugs to get high, the consequences of doing that is far worse than pot could ever do. Why in the name of god would you want to do that to yourself? Except it's legal and drug companies benefit, so it's a-okay!

Okay, done ranting.

>>You want to claim pot doesn’t hurt anyone but the news is full of crimes and horror stories that center around some pot head. Explain how all these stories are meaningless?

I would love to see an example of this. :3 I like seeing evidence of these instances. I can do a future project on this.
http://www.red-alerts.com Rob Taylor

Well "AnonK" just drop over to my site and check out the Victimless Crime Files category and you'll see more than three instances of Pot having a role in a horrendous crime, including the recent case where a pot dealer forced a toddler to smoke pot.

Not that I mean to self promote in your comments Trench.
AnonK

No worries about your self promotion. Thanks for having a source. ^-^
Anon

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/ . Useful for these arguments, in that it's well sourced, even if it is biased.
Terry McGuinness

Does your kid smoke pot? Throw 'em in the clink! I was scared straight when I was 16! Those inmates had me crapping my unmentionables & I cried. I've been a law abider ever since.
http://www.myspace.com/girlethereal Mrs Garda

I think it comes down, in this case, to it being a woman doing what she knew, to keep her kid safe and off drugs. Don't condemn her for at least trying. Fine. Some think she should've taken the full house approach. Some think she should've done just what she did. Time will tell who's right and who isnt. Bottom line is, It's her kid, and she's doing her best. She's not abusive. She's not ignoring the situation. She's just doing what she can. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And for the record, no, I never smoked pot, because I know if I had, my parents probably would've turned me in to the cops, and if not, they probably would've done something to me themselves just as bad. *Shrug*