TheAgitator.com
Another Glorious Drug War Victory
Saturday, February 21st, 2009Because it’s all about protecting the children.
A 32-year-old Waverly woman was cited on suspicion of child abuse and marijuana possession for allegedly smoking marijuana in front of her 15-year-old daughter. The girl told the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office, and authorities executed a search warrant of her mother’s home on Wednesday, according to a sheriff’s report.
Miscellaneous drug paraphernalia and one gram of marijuana were found where the daughter had described. The woman has two additional children in the home.
This is more proof the DARE propagandists are succeeding- another kid rats out their parent. now I’m muttering, ‘don’t do Godwin, don’t do Godwin…’ neighbors are ratting out neighbors, kids ratting out parents- is anyone seeing parallels to the inquisition?
I’m surprised the IRS hasn’t started working the schools…
I’m not seeing parallels to the inquisition, but AM seeing them to Germany’s little experiment with the New World Order, and with the good times had by all in Russia.
I don’t know. If I was a school teacher, or a social worker, and the kid told me the mother was getting stoned all the time, I would have to pay a visit to that house, no? If you don’t go out of respect for privacy and if something bad happens with the kid, your name is going to be splashed across the local news and t.v. stations, and the Children Services bureaucrats are going to fuck over your career. If you do go to the house because you were tipped off by a teacher that said a kid in her class said her mother smoked pot daily, then you are an instrument of the state, and invading a person’s right to privacy. You are fucked no matter what you do. I know the gentlemen and ladies of The Agitator may say that the social worker is another bureaucrat making decisions about peoples lives that they should not make, but how many kids have been liberated from abusive homes due to social workers? The social worker does play a vital part in the community, and if you gentleman and ladies of The Agitator, and the agitator himself, Balko, does not see this, and yet laments about dogs being killed, and the state sanctioning torture. Is not being a four or five year old kid, housed with a parent who abuses you, and your local government, tribal counsel, bureaucrat, does not intervene, and nobody on the street intervenes while you are being beaten, or your arm is broken. Well, all I can say is I see your point about the right to privacy, and how you raise your children is your own prerogative, but I can also see that those children are most likely going to join society, and if through your fucked up parenting they become violent felons, or murderers, or unvaccinated people, or normal people, do not be surprised when society shuts them up and locks them away.
old,
I think you misread the article. The reason for the child abuse charge was smoking marijuana within view of the 15 year old. No one said anything about actual child abuse.
The travesty isn’t that Child Protective Services exists (we all recognize that the right to privacy doesn’t shield doing violence), it is that this family, including two other children, is at risk for being forcibly broken up over a vice that in itself is less damaging than drinking alcohol.
I don’t know what drove the teenage girl to turn her own mother into the Sherriff, but knowing teenagers, I’d say there is a good chance that the cause was hurt feelings over not being allowed to do something that it is well within a parent’s rights to forbid.
And because of this 3 children might be taken away from their mother. Someone would have to have a pretty warped moral compass to think there was anything right about that.
So when is this fifteen year old tramp going to get the Hero’s Medal for denouncing her mother?
ONE gram of marijuana was found.
28 grams to an ounce.
One gram, that isn’t even enough for one cigarette, is it?
Cannabis smokers, please advise.
An ounce is a lot when it comes to tobacco, I assume it is the same for the J, so I am guess at least one joint, possibly two?
Didn’t Orwell write about this, at least when it came to political thought. The idea of children turning on their parents like that. Scary.
My dad smoked pot regularly throughout my childhood, though I didn’t find out until late in high school. He also worked two jobs to help keep us in our house. If the police had arrested him or protective services had taken us away (for our own protection), we’d have been fucked.
I’m glad I didn’t know, because I’d bet there were times at age 15 when I felt so persecuted by my totally out-of-touch parents – read: when they were being responsible and keeping me out of trouble – that I would have been stupid enough to narc him out.
Old,
What do you think about studies that show how much worse kids do when they are placed into and raised in foster care than those that are exposed to the CPS system and yet return to their parents? Oh what? You’re not familiar with those studies? You don’t know what you’re talking about!? You don’t say.
Like any stupid, intrusive beauracrat, you’ve justified 99% of the role such people play by alarmistly describing the other 1%. CPS people DO NOT follow the law, they don’t even pretend to follow the law, they just run around acting like they “save kids,” and use that to justify everything they do.
Every CPS social worker I have every worked with either a) can’t tell me what is wrong with marijuana b) or goes off stating wild innaccuracies about it.
FACT: These children, at least the younger ones, WILL be harmed if they are removed from their mother.
Please compare that to their risk of turning out to be a criminals if left in the home with this mother.
It’s enough for a pretty solid j, at least if you live in the right place.
Protecting the children at gunpoint, spreading “democracy” at gunpoint, when does it stop?
That is, if you live in Amsterdam where it is mostly legal, and not in most of the United States where it is impossible to obtain thanks to all the success of prohibition we keep hearing about. What’s that, 4 out of any 5 random people in America? 10 minutes you say? How ’bout that?
While I don’t think MJ should be illegal, I suspect there is more this than we are being told. Is it possible that the kid ratted out her mom out out spite because she wasn’t allowed to stay out late or something? Sure, teens are often full of spite. It’s also possible that they are rotten parents and pot was just the straw that broke the camels back. Rather than being a “rat”, maybe this was her way of escaping a bad situation. I never turned in my parents for the (many) illegal things they were doing, but even in retrospect, I’m not convinced that “don’t snitch” was the right thing to do.
based on much experience, alcohol is more dangerous than MJ (IMO). why is MJ still illegal? regular users are too apathetic (baked) to object effectively.
I am really at as loss to understand why so many people remain silent in the face of the rising/risen police state we live under.
we’ve been fighting the drug war for 40 years at the cost of trillions and are about to lose Mexico as a stable democracy over it. Afghanistan doesn’t have a chance because “there’s a lot o’ money in that white powduh”.
In a country built on the law of supply and demand and risk and reward it is remarkable that we refuse to recognize that the higher the penalties, the higher the price, the higher the profit and someone will always take the risk and be rewarded. THEY HAVE THE DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUGS IN MALAYSIA AND YET DRUGS ARE STILL AVAILABLE THERE!!!
Wake up America- the demonized drug smuggler is morally equivalent to the father of The Liberal Lion of the Senate!
#3-
‘but how many kids have been liberated from abusive homes due to social workers?’
‘liberated’. cracks me right up…
Was this not the way the Nazis did it in Germany? Promoting this type of behavior is sending us down a very slippery slope! The drug war is looking more like fascism all of the time!
The girl was probably pissed because what she had in mind has something to do with risky behavior (like the potential unprotected sex). Too bad mom did not realize how risky it was to smoke in front of her 15 year old! Oh, maybe, Mom told her she could not smoke weed! Kids don’t understand adult rules, much of the time! But 15 year olds know how to manipulate the system, very well!
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/dare4.htm
a small, pertinent part of the article:
‘Nine-year-old Darrin Davis of Douglasville, Ga., called 911 after he found a small amount of speed hidden in his parent’s bedroom because, as he told the Dallas Morning News, “At school, they told us that if we ever see drugs, call 911 because people who use drugs need help . . . . I thought the police would come get the drugs and tell them that drugs are wrong. They never said they would arrest them. . . . But in court, I heard them tell the judge that I wanted my mom and dad arrested. That is a lie. I did not tell them that.” The arrest wrecked his parents’ lives, said the Dallas newspaper; both parents lost their jobs, a bank threatened to foreclose on their homes and his father was kept in jail for three months.’
This is the sort of shit that really cracks me up (in a sad kind of way, rest assured). Try this simple logical exercise!
(1): I was given up for adoption when I was an infant. I don’t know much about the circumstances, but one can assume that, for whatever reasons, my biological parents were unable to care for me.
(2): I was adopted at about six weeks. My adoptive parents (who are, indeed, my real parents in every sense of the word except the biological one) smoked pot regularly. My father, who is in his mid 50′s, still smokes pot regularly. It’s a pretty sure bet that he’s high right now, if you’d like some kind of definition of ‘regularly.’
(3): I am a normal, functioning and reasonably successful member of society. I do not do drugs.
I am therefore (4): a successful product of both social service internvetion, and straight up fucking potheads.
I should then (5): Take my show on the road, deprogramming highschool students and making the little pin heads of social workers explode.
#16 Michael: “Was this not the way the Nazis did it in Germany?”
Perhaps. The East German Communists may have been even more adept at it, though. I have heard it said that the effectiveness of the secret police was augmented because such a huge portion of the population (possibly 1 in 6, but I might be wrong) was informing on their fellow citizens. For a cinematic portrayal of this “informer society,” I would recommend the film “The Lives of Others.”
@whim: A gram isn’t a lot of pot — definitely not an “intent to sell” kind of situation. Still though, it is enough to roll a decent J, or smoke a couple small bowls.
“informer society” was crazy, because I could see tons of parallels to us! I was reading that the agents would mess with people just to make them think they were going insane- one particular exercise they pulled involved messing with the wheels of a woman’s baby carriage while she was in the store. For half the trip, her carriage was fine. On the way home, it was messed up. They did this repeatedly. They wanted people to think their neighbors were watching them. It was unbelievable the paranoia they created and how destructive it was.
good post, Helmut!
-17 is a number that I should have stitched on a patch. Rock and Roll! So, who among you that voted me down takes in kids separated from their families, who among you is an agent of the state, and who among you lives on a compound? Fuck you all. I do not need any approval to know the difference of right or wrong. Wherever there is a kid getting beat up, who wants to get away, wherever there is a kid used as a sexual play thing, when these things happens in the public square I will throttle the abuser. I will be mad as a hornet and will come strapped. I have no qualms about that. When a kid shoots up a high school in you area will you blame the parents, the social worker, or the kids who thought they could change the world with a few bullets? Good luck to you and your towns, oh, and fuck you all.
Thank you, Marty.
Sadly, the FBI gave “secret police” agencies a run for their money during the 60s and 70s.
In a particularly notorious episode, FBI made it known to Martin Luther King that they had recorded him having a sexual tryst with a mistress. At one point, they also sent a letter basically recommending that he kill himself to avoid more torment. FBI was also known for spreading misinformation amongst radical groups, and at least in the case of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, outright assasination.
Today, even after the abuses of the old days have been exposed for all to see, we continue to see dissenters (Quakers, Anti-Death Penalty activists, Anti-war activists, etc.) spied on by agencies ranging from military intelligence, FBI, state police (Maryland State Police has been the most notable of late) and local police.
I could go on, unfortunately. As the saying goes, “it CAN happen here.” But, I would add, “only if WE let it happen.” To subvert the drug war, we have to get people, young and old, to stop turning in their neighbors just for suspected simple possession. And as I stress quite often, citizens should also be aware of the rights they possess as as jurors: to judge the law itself, as well as guilt or innocence.
Heh… She is sooo grounded.
Cheers.
#22 Old: “When a kid shoots up a high school in you area will you blame the parents, the social worker, or the kids who thought they could change the world with a few bullets? Good luck to you and your towns, oh, and fuck you all.”
Rage much? Engage in fear-mongering much? We are either with the children or against the children, is that what you’re getting at? Look at what commenter frijoles junior said in comment #4, Old. No one here is advocating that we turn a blind eye to child abuse and/or exploitation. We are simply objecting to placing the bar so low that one loses their kids for smoking a relatively harmless intoxicating weed.
Full disclosure: I work as a healthcare security officer. I have seen horrific examples of violence, including child abuse. I have worked to secure evidence and document the actions of these abusers. My sympathy is not with criminals. I subtracted karma from your post because it was a poor, and rather reactionary argument.
@ old. do you realize that your argument goes out the window when it becomes crude ad hominem. No one cussed you out. They simply disagree with you that smoking a bowl in front of one’s child is cause for arrest– let alone losing the kid(s) over. I don’t know what kind of life this girl had going on at home, but if the gram of pot was the worst of it, it can’t be grounds for social workers to remove the girl and her siblings from the home. To equate that with real physical child abuse (i knew kids who got beat bad and everyone knew it, but were too afraid of the parents to drop the dime), or sexual child abuse is a horrid disservice to the victims of those truly heinous crimes.
I really wonder, assuming the pot was the worst of it, if the girl thinks tattling on her mom is worth it. I bet not.
Old is completely off his rocker…I’m not even going to dignify his comment with an answer.
I used to work as a teacher, several years back, in a poor community in Brooklyn (I have my M.ed)…I’ve had to document and report many child abuse/neglect cases. I can tell you, all that is accomplished by confounding something as benign as smoking pot with child abuse, is that you take away resources and aid from the children that ACTUALLY need to be helped, i.e. the ones that are ACTUALLY in abusive homes. It’s probably why, here in NY we have ended up with cases like Nixzmary Brown, and others like her.
This particular incident sounds like an angry teenager trying to take revenge on her mother (probably because her mom didn’t let her go to the movies with Robby, the high school drunk, last Saturday night). The kid says something like “I’ll show you!”…narcs out her mom, and now possibly gets to spend the rest of her teenage years in the foster system…yeah! I can guarantee that this is the influence of D.A.R.E. and programs like it. I can confirm that D.A.R.E. in fact does encourage kids to rat out their parents for drug use, even if it is just “suspected” (also this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of a parent getting ratted out, either).
In most cases, kids usually wouldn’t think anything was wrong with their parent using x,z,y drug as long as that parent was functional and a good parent (in fact, most kids usually wouldn’t even notice unless they are taught specifically to look out for it by programs like D.A.R.E. – i.e. “funny” smells, pipes around the house, ashtrays are present even though your parents don’t smoke cigarettes, etc.). And of course as extra insurance, these programs are never adverse to throwing in a healthy dose of fear and threats as encouragement.
Incidents like this one is simply the result of the indoctrination that kids receive in school.
Actually, it sort of reminds me of the South Park episode where all the kids ratted out their parents for being child molesters…all the parents are shipped off to prison, and the whole town turns into lord of the flies.
As I was leaving the grocery store yesterday, I was accosted by a young black woman who wanted to know if I would “help local children remain free from drugs.” The woman was collecting money for DARE, something that just stuck in my craw. Don’t those clowns already get enough of our tax dollars?!?
Anyway, without thinking, I started laughing and said “DARE sucks…” She looked perplexed, and asked me “how does saving the children ‘suck’?”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll give you $5 and you can keep the shirt – if you’ll let me tell you why DARE sucks for a few minutes.”
Basically, I told her about:
America’s unparalleled imprisonment rate and how she was helping to wage war on her fellow blacks (and ALL others!), who are continually & disproportionately imprisoned for non-violent drug “crimes;”
I told her how the lies and propaganda she was helping to spread actually destroys families and sows fear – all while doing nothing even close to “saving the children;”
I told her how she was working toward an authoritarian state and against liberty, and I wrote down the addresses of some anti-Drug War websites in hopes that she would visit them when she got home.
I’m pleased to admit, she looked utterly distressed ( I admit, that could be for a variety of reasons:) I’m even more pleased that she refused the $5!
With any luck, she’ll get a new job. Or at least, maybe I planted a seed that will cause her to start questioning what she’s really “helping” to do. It felt good to think that I possibly converted one more person to the pro-liberty, anti-Drug War side. Or, maybe I just left some poor schmuck thinking “there sure are a lot of nutbags around Atlanta!” Well, one can hope…
More marijuana madness in this morning’s paper- an Iraq veteran who lost both legs was awarded a house by a charity for his sacrifice. The house was designed for him and to help him live with his disabilities. He was arrested with 12 ounces of marijuana. That’s right, they rescinded the house because of this arrest! horrible.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/72C89D10ADC2AAD5862575640017D222?OpenDocument
Marty,
That is the saddest thing. Very apropos of this thread too because I know first hand that marijuana effects combat vets’ ability to keep their kids.
While no one – least of all the morons that work for CPS – is willing to recognize that marijuana works great for people who’ve experienced the hell that is combat. Sad.
You guys need to listen to old (#22).
I think he is a Super-Hero.
I don’t know what DARE is like in school these days, but I think I will forbid my kids from participating. If they offer to pay for Radley, Norm Stamper, and some other speakers to come balance it out, I might reconsider.
Two comments rated collectively -49. Cool. Not sure why you chaps are averse to the word fuck though. Hopefully your fainting couch was near by when you went down.
#25 | Helmut O’ Hooligan | February 21st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Rage much? Engage in fear-mongering much? We are either with the children or against the children, is that what you’re getting at? Look at what commenter frijoles junior said in comment #4, Old. No one here is advocating that we turn a blind eye to child abuse and/or exploitation. We are simply objecting to placing the bar so low that one loses their kids for smoking a relatively harmless intoxicating weed.
Hell, I am not saying I am right, but I do know a few things about how the world works. I have read, agreed, and up voted many of your comments Helmut O’ Hooligan, and I think you and I could probably drink a whiskey together and have a fine time. Frijoles junior wrote probably the most astute comment on this thread. I would drink a whiskey with him, or her, as well. I thought we were all commenting on Balko’s site, did not realize that I must bring proper grammar, well thought out ideas, and logic to these comments.
Hell, it is a swindle when the state can take your kid away because you smoked a bowl or two while the kid is about. If that is the criteria, I have a few friends that will lose their children. Some of them are not bad parents, some of them are. Several posters have chalked up the kid in this case to being spiteful. Perhaps the kid is spiteful, but perhaps the kid thought she needed help from the community, and sought that help out. I do not think that the kid seeking help is such a bad thing. Sure, the family life is ruined, but hell, most family lives are shit to begin with.
#9 | Nick T | February 21st, 2009 at 10:05 am
Old,
…
You don’t know what you’re talking about!? You don’t say.
I know what I am talking about.
Like any stupid, intrusive beauracrat, you’ve justified 99% of the role such people play by alarmistly describing the other 1%. CPS people DO NOT follow the law, they don’t even pretend to follow the law, they just run around acting like they “save kids,” and use that to justify everything they do.
Yah, the fucking world would be much better off without bureaucrats, I do not deny that. But guess what fella, we are a collective now. We were a collective when those damned pilgrims came over, and we are a collective now, so get used to it, you have only had since 1492 or so, to realize we are a collective.
#26 | ghjost | February 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 am
@ old. do you realize that your argument goes out the window when it becomes crude ad hominem.
Get my fainting couch ready!
#27 | meeneecat | February 22nd, 2009 at 1:37 am
Old is completely off his rocker…I’m not even going to dignify his comment with an answer.
Yet you wrote five paragraphs!
#24 | PogueMahone | February 21st, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Heh… She is sooo grounded.
Cheers.
Quoted for posterity.
@ old —
Well, I never!
(monocle shatters)
Gonzo | February 22nd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
@ old —
Well, I never!
(monocle shatters)
That is hilarious.
old- bully for you to come back with a reasoned and (somewhat) polite reply. i quit reading the comments sections of many well respected publications due to the inane posters that seemed to monopolize them.
what you’ll find here is (usually) very polite and informed discussion; even when people disagree strongly. it seems that it’s getting more and more unusual to find quality, rational discussion like this on the interwebs.
I think that people who trade their brains in for a temporary change in chemical being are incredibly pathetic. However, their pathetic nature is not entirely their fault. The Lord knows that the US—as a country, nonethelrss—has sidelined integrity for substance abuse. This may sound like convenient rhetoric but I assure you that if a parent is willing to smoke marijuana in the midst of their child, they must be taken to REHAB!!!! They must not be processed as a criminal but they should, in my humble belief, have to pay a fine as though they got charged. That way, the government could cover a portion of the rehab and the offender would pay the full fine. This should only apply in the case of marijuana though because marijuana is not known to be associated with hostile powers anymore, as cocaine is to Colombia or heroine is to Afghanistan. The KIDS!!!! Stop thinking about glazing your eyes over and think about KIDS WHO ARE BEING EXPOSED TO FUMES UNNECESSARILY!!!!!