But he is. Mom and grandma can go to jail for cultivation. They are the adults.
And even if they weren’t, the kid would still be putting himself at considerable risk.
You want to complain about “ruining his life”? If he gets caught by the cops, then his life will most certainly be ruined!
Total non-tangent, but last night this thread had 420 views, and now it has 666.
Carry on.
Replace seeds with tulip bulbs.
We’ve already been over that, come on, in plain black and white in the thread. If he’s growing, he has to be stopped. If the laws would punish them for a few grams of possesion, then he has to be stopped from having anything. I made very clear that they should check the laws and not allow anything at all which might get someone else in trouble.
The point I was objecting to was caling the cops on him for a joint. Hell, not even a joint but a roach, something that if you were lucky might be one tenth of a gram, hardly felony possesion weight.
But while I’m at it, calling the cops on him for growing is also insane. His parents should be able to stop him from actually being able to grow any seeds as they should be easy to find, and if the kid does it again send him to military school or something, but don’t give him a felony charge on his record.
Is it really necessary to ruin his collegiate and job prospects for the rest of his life? There’s that little box on applications that asks if you’ve ever been convicted of a crime… what’s he supposed to do? Lie and commit fraud, or tell them that yeah, when he was 16 he made some dumb-kid choices, and then his parents ruined his life for him?
Considerable risk? You’re kidding right? Do you know how many pot smokers there are in this nation versus how many get busted? Never mind the fact that it’s not all that likely that someone using only in the privacy of their own home would get caught? Even if he was putting himself at considerable risk, don’t you see that there’s a sizeable difference between getting busted because you screwed up and got caught, and having your own damn parents send you to jail?
So… his life will be ruined if he gets caught by the cops, let’s call the cops on him right away and get over with the waiting game!
Last time I checked, most teens aren’t too keen on authority. Especially when it’s authority which goes nuts over a harmless plant which is demonized. You see, it’s that kind of ridiculous rhetoric which tells kids that adults are not to be trusted. Now I somehow doubt that this 16 year old would take his family’s dire predictrions to heart, and would instead would simply try to be better at not getting caught. If they are, however, non-judgemental and explain how nuts the rest of the country is and how he can get busted, if they’re friends to him instead of authority figures, he might just listen.
But in any case sending him to jail is just a crazy way to go about things. If he gets busted then he gets busted, but making sure that he gets busted, (by his own family none the less!), is simply beyond the pale.
Rough n’ ready analogy:
Your son has taken up tightrope walking. You know that it’s very dangerous, and you worry for him. So rather than waiting for him to fall one day, you just push him right off.
Tough love, after all.
Well, FinnAgain , the last time I knew, crimes committed by a minor don’t go on the permanent record. What kind of consequences do you recommend? It sounds like this kid has no respect for the parental authority. Do we make him stand in the corner? He has to realize that he just isn’t hurting himself. And if he has a roach, where did he get it? Where is the rest hidden? A friend’s house? What about the adults there? This is more than just a little recreational smoking by an adult. What adults do is up to them. What minors do is the responsibility of the parent.
To my knowledge they go on a permanent record but are sealed. However, you still are required to answer in the afirmative if asked if you’ve been convicted of a crime. IANAL so I may be wrong.
Anything short of the police.
Based on… what? For all we know his mom is cool with him smoking pot but wouldn’t want him growing in the house. Wait to know more about the kid before you declare he has ‘no respect’. Kids push the boundaries, that’s what they do.
And thus, talk to him in a non-judgemental manner. Make him aware of the consequences of his actions for other people. And I specificaly said above, if he tries to grow again, ship him off to military school or something.
Any of a myriad of places?
Maybe there is no ‘the rest’. Kids don’t have a lot of money, maybe he bought a dime bag and smoked most of it. Besides, most likely we wouldn’t be looking at felony weight anyways.
Maybe they’re cool with it. Maybe they smoke too.
More? I don’t think so, no. Same dynamic involved pretty much.
True, which is why his parents should talk to him and lay down some rules.
If he did happen to have enough cash to buy, say, a reasonably sized bag of dirt weed and had more than twenty grams, he’d be looking at a possible sentence of five years and felony conviction.
Is that really better than grounding him and/or making sure he has no free cash?
i understand that you think this is really no big deal, FinnAgain , and that our opinions differ greatly. However, grounding a kid who is smoking and growing is pretty likely, (IMO as a parent) to accomplish bupkis. Also, taking away his allowance or whatever will also likely accomplish nothing. It doesn’t take kids long to find out how to generate an income when they really wish to have cash, and I’m not talking about a job. Too many people I know have come up missing tools, guns, and jewelry because their pothead kid wanted to buy grass. Or, as could be the case here, growing a little and dealing to others. You say slap his wrist and then send him to Military School if he does it again? I say talk to him as you suggest, but to ship him off to an institution seems to be abandoning parental responsibility. Of course, if the adults in question are really as accepting of drug use as you suggest as possible, they get what society thinks they have coming to them if he/they are caught. Is it worth grandma losing her house over? That’s the only point the OP was making, and asked for suggestions. I’ve given mine; you have given yours. The OP will have to decide what is appropriate for the situation. Cheers.
Of course, the situation is in the OP’s hands and it’s up to him (or more properly, the kid’s parent/grandmother.)
Namaste.
To heck with being non-judgmental, this is your mother. “Non-judgmental” implies a lack of rules or acknowledgement that the rules don’t matter. Explain to your cousin the error of his ways and that he is a guest in your 71 year old mother’s house. He shouldn’t be growing it, storing it, or smoking it in her house. It shouldn’t require any further comment and you should end any discussion of the matter before it starts.
The one and only time I had to address such an issue I made it clear in the fewest number of words how I felt. The matter was resolved.
That is being non-judgemental. It’s explaining the very real consequences without launching into a lecture about the Evils of Pot[sup]tm[/sup], or how Potheads are Horrible[sup]tm[/sup], or what have you.
Uh huy.
Meanwhile, back on planet parenting, this kid is on the wrong track and is endangering his Grandmother’s house. She could lose it for growing pot. There is no way you can sugar coat a lecture to spare his feelings. The best the kid can feel about the situation is that he did a stupid thing. Which in this case makes him a dumbass. Trying to spare his feelings just tells the kid who’s really in charge.
~shrugs~
As I’ve already said, it should be pointed out what the consequences of his actions were, and why he shouldn’t do it again, and why it’s wrong.
You can put your foot down and make sure your rules are obeyed without being judgemental, even on Planet Parenthood.
Maybe I’m being terribly naive here, but…is it possible that the growth chamber was meant for a plant other than pot?
I’ve used ad hoc greenhouse setups like the one described in the OP to grow was basil or tomato sprouts. And, yeah, everyone thought I was growing pot.
Does your cousin like to cook? Garden? Is it even possible that the seeds in question could be something innocuous? It might make sense to make sure that the plant your cousin is growing is, in fact, pot before you make any decisions.
Even if it seems really, really likely that the kid’s growing pot.
You could always confront him about it and see what he says. If he was doing what you suspect, telling him just how foolhardy that is for his family might get him to knock it off. That, and the fact that you know it’s going on, and if you catch him at it again, he’s really gonna be screwed.
Yeah, maybe it’s because of my upbringing, but I find guilt to be a very effective motivator.
“Don’t you realize what could have happened to your mother? And your poor grandmother who took you into your house? Do you really want a 71 year old woman to go to jail for your mistakes?”
First, my apologies for being snarky, I usually edit it out before sending. We’re probably on the same page here. There is a difference in calling someone stupid and telling them what they did was stupid. One is an insult and the other is a statement of fact. If there is a normal level of love/respect on both sides then the occassional “you dumbass” will not crush a kid.
I was 16 once and remember well the stupid things I did. That’s what kids do. If my parents caught me I knew the piper was going to get paid.
And I also love gilt. Works great if applied with skill. As does a good pre-emptive strike of common sense.
Think nothing of it, water under the bridge and all that.
Namaste.
Thanks to everyone for the replies.
The first time my nephew was caught smoking pot several months ago, his mom (his dad’s not really in the picture) took away his TV, Playstation, VCR, mp3 player, stereo and CD’s and grounded him for two months. He also went to drug counseling at $100.00 per weekly session. My sister claimed the counseling was “working wonders” until we found this box in the garage.
He’s also failing in school (he’s in the “dummies” class or whatever they call it nowadays) and says he wants to drop out. He refuses any offers to help with schoolwork. So now he’s grounded again and has gotten his allowance taken away. I think every non-violent parental thing has been done.
My sister is following the advice of people at her church as far as how to deal with the kid. They seem like a decent group of people; I think they are planning some kind of intervention. I’m trying to convince my sister to make the kid go live with his dad. That will probably put the final nail in the coffin as far as ruining his life is concerned, but like I said, I’m trying to protect my mom and her property above all.