# Dad jailed after he helps daughter buy heroin **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082 "2016-03-25T01:58:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/41 "2016-03-26T00:43:53Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > (The following is posted assuming that the father is actually trying to help his daughter) > > And what do you do when the daughter runs instead of going to the hospital? > > Addiction is a nasty thing and it is impossible to get an addict to quit unless the addict _wants_ to quit. Even if the addict does want to quit the success rates for beating addiction are very low. > > Parents, family and friends of addicts have some very hard choices to make and those choices aren’t always clear. Lets say you have the choice either of buying your daughter heroin, in an effort to hopefully find some way to get her clean, or not buy the heroin and have her run and end up on the street prostituting for money to buy the heroin. Which do you choose? > > Slee You don’t need to tell me how bad addiction can be – I’ve already seen it. But what good can he do for her if he’s arrested? I understand what he was trying to do, but now they’re both in jail – that’s not going to help her, is it? The sad thing is that I’ve seen: you can’t force someone to get help, if they don’t want it. And sometimes, enabling someone can make it far, far worse – what happened if he gave her that heroin and she OD’ed? Not a choice I’d want to have to make as a parent. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/42 "2016-03-26T00:49:55Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#): > > What about Suboxone? Suboxone is the brand name for a mixture of buprenorphine and naloxone. The latter component is to prevent the drug from being injected. Naloxone blocks the effect of buprenorphine when combined in IV or IM or SQ form, but not when taken orally. Subutex is the brand name for plain old buprenorphine. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/43 "2016-03-26T00:52:34Z")
> [@Onyerbike](#): > > Calling the police on your drug addicted children for the crime of being addicted to drugs is about _the very worst thing you could possibly do_. I don’t even… No, it’s not. It’s saved more than a few lives. Some opioid addicts get clean in jail/prison, and manage to stay that way after they leave. Granted, it’s an action of last resort, but it’s better to be in jail withdrawing than shooting up a mix of heroin, fentanyl, and god knows what else and dying from that. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/44 "2016-03-26T01:30:22Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You don’t need to tell me how bad addiction can be – I’ve already seen it. But what good can he do for her if he’s arrested? I understand what he was trying to do, but now they’re both in jail – that’s not going to help her, is it? > > The sad thing is that I’ve seen: you can’t force someone to get help, if they don’t want it. And sometimes, enabling someone can make it far, far worse – what happened if he gave her that heroin and she OD’ed? Not a choice I’d want to have to make as a parent. ☹ My niece was involved with an addict last year. He was a pilot, lost his job and was just about to lose his license and went to stay with his parents, presumably because his parents were trying to help him get clean. His parents found him dead from an overdose on thier bed. Fucked my niece up right good, that did. I know people who have died from ODs, in drunk driving crashes, suicides, murder/suicides, burned to death from passing out with a smoke, beat to death over a bottle of booze. I could go on but it gets depressing counting up the ways the addicts I have known have used to get themselves killed. Sometimes there isn’t a good answer. Sometimes people make odd/bad choices for the very best of reasons. Sometimes people don’t have the resources or the knowledge to deal with addiction. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/45 "2016-03-26T01:43:49Z")
Exactly. Addiction is a bitch. ☹ (I know someone who died even after getting sober, due to the effects on her system) ---
**Author:** ![Onyerbike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onyerbike/32/5402_2.png) [@Onyerbike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onyerbike)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/46 "2016-03-26T02:56:19Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > No, it’s not. It’s saved more than a few lives. Some opioid addicts get clean in jail/prison, and manage to stay that way after they leave. > > Granted, it’s an action of last resort, but it’s better to be in jail withdrawing than shooting up a mix of heroin, fentanyl, and god knows what else and dying from that. Please, prisons have plenty of drugs in them. You think the dirtiest dope in the world is being slang outside, rather than inside, a prison cell? Prisons also have hideous scumbags willing to trade drugs for all sorts of hideous reasons to vulnerable addicts. Not to mention, you have just told your kid that you think of them in the same terms as you do rapists and murderers. Whatever trust they had in you, is gone and never coming back. If your kid is committing crimes that aren’t just taking dope and being a loser, then sure, they have things to answer for; drugs are never an excuse to go and do bad things. I just think that issue aside, involving the cops is usually a counter productive idea even if it is a ‘kick up the arse’ style of intervention without lasting effects like doing time or fines; best intentions are admirable but sometimes blinding and the police are not experts or angels in this regard. In fact, I rather imagine police have (or should!) better things to do. To qualify, I won’t condemn or condone what this father did. I don’t know him or the girl or heroin enough to feel justified in feeling one way or the other except miserably sorry about the whole thing. I do have a close friend that has dealt with methamphetamine addiction in his family, and yeah, it sucks. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/47 "2016-03-26T03:29:51Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Also given the few facts in the article the guy may be telling the truth but it’s possible they were both planning on using the drugs. It’s so severely wrong and dysfunctional but I’ve known people who did hardcore drugs with their parents, these things happen more often that you’d think. That’s what I wondered too. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/48 "2016-03-26T03:38:09Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Is it possible (legally and practically) for especially well-behaved, smart, or wealthy addicts to get a bottle of methadone to take home, or is it daily clinic visits for everyone? Former clinic administrative type here: Back when I worked at a methadone clinic (as a job - I myself have never been an addict, I’ve just know a few thousand at this point) EVERYBODY, without exception, had to come to the clinic daily for their methadone. Wealth would buy you jackshit (well, maybe more street drugs, but the point was to get off them, right? Right?) ONLY after progress had been made in treatment and a demonstrated interval of good behavior\* would they be allowed a take-home. It would start with a 1 day take-home, so they’d have one day’s dose at the clinic, then take a bottle home for the next time and return to the clinic after _that_. With continued progress and good behavior they would be allowed longer and longer intervals for the take-home doses. At the time, in Illinois, the maximum allowed was a 2-week supply. Only a very, very few addicts had that privilege, generally people who had been on methadone maintenance for a decade or more who, for whatever reason, weren’t intending to detox to sobriety but were stable, holding down a job, staying legal, etc. As a very rough rule, the expectation was _two years_ of treatment, with gradually increased take-home permission for doses, and then they clinic would take _six months_ to detox the patient from their dose down to sobriety. After which the person would still need support to STAY sober. Most people (like Qadgop) would relapse 2-3 times before they achieved long-term sobriety. Real addiction treatment is not the Hollywood 30 or 90 day detox and then all is roses - it takes _years_ and usually involves multiple attempts before you get success. And a significant percentage _don’t_ succeed and die as addicts. - Virtually all addicts use street drugs a couple of times early in outpatient treatment. It is not condoned, and it’s better if they don’t, but it’s sort of expected because, you know, they’re addicts. If they didn’t have a problem they wouldn’t be coming to the clinic, right? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/49 "2016-03-26T23:50:06Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Practically, I’d say no. If you can be trusted to self-medicate unsupervised when your doctor hands you a bottle of methadone, why do you need it? Have you ever known any addicts? Some (actually many) addicts do ration out their “supply” of drugs to last for a certain length of time. Of course, a few will fall into temptation, but many will actually make it. Why is it that an opiate addict is expected to immediately down the entire bottle if given it all at once but that the vast majority of people addicted to cigarettes don’t walk out of the convenience store and smoke the whole pack right then and there? Are they not addicts? Should we require stores to sell only single cigarettes and require multiple visits throughout the day? ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/50 "2016-03-27T00:17:58Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > No, it’s not. It’s saved more than a few lives. Some opioid addicts get clean in jail/prison, and manage to stay that way after they leave. > > Granted, it’s an action of last resort, but it’s better to be in jail withdrawing than shooting up a mix of heroin, fentanyl, and god knows what else and dying from that. But aren’t prisons themselves awash with illegal drugs? Or have I been watching too many sensational prison documentaries? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082/51 "2016-03-27T00:33:37Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > But aren’t prisons themselves awash with illegal drugs? Or have I been watching too many sensational prison documentaries? They can be had there, but it’s not nearly so ubiquitous everywhere as the media portrays. Addicts who want to stay clean in prison can, too. We have NA and AA groups coming in to most of the prisons in my state, and lots of inmates show up for the meetings. NOT because it gets them out sooner, either. Because it doesn’t, in my state. I’ve been a physician to addicts for over 3 decades, outside of prisons, inside of prisons. I’ve seen them live and die on the streets, and also in prison. Sometimes prison is the better place to be, for some of them. That’s not just my judgement as a physician who treats addicts and is a recovering addict also. I’ve heard that from dozens of inmates too. Prisons are not happy places; there is much wrong with them that must be improved. But people can and do get well in them, recover in them, reform and go on to better lives after being in them. To me, that’s better than dying on the streets. Which is where far more addicts die. Would I want to send someone to prison to treat their addiction? Hell, no! We need less draconian drug laws, that emphasize treatment over punishment and incarceration. Prison is hellish. But to me, death by addiction on the streets is worse. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dad-jailed-after-he-helps-daughter-buy-heroin/750082.md?page=2)