# Teenager Busts Dad for Growing Pot **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 16, 2002, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325 "2002-05-16T03:33:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/41 "2012-03-22T05:12:10Z")
Sounds like he really hates the old man, maybe it was as simple as not letting him have the car or as bad as incest. We don’t know the context but man he could have had free dope for years. ---
**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 22, 2012, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/42 "2012-03-22T06:47:25Z")
> [@florez](#): > > Help should always be out there for family members who are in harms way, and anyone who hurt their elders or children would upset me enough to call on an intervening agency, no matter what was the cause of the abuse. > But I do not believe that using children to turn in their own family members, by coming in to their schools and basically training them to become tools for the local police department, is the best way to go about stopping people who grow a few marijuana plants. > In the case of my daughter’s boyfriend, he had deep regrets for getting his parents in trouble, and he saw first hand the resulting damage. He felt exploited by the people that claimed to care. > He was a vulnerable child, who wanted to please his teacher, and others in a D.A.R.E. type program, and a heavy price was paid by him and his family. First, he didn’t say that was the only reason he was calling the cops, and second, do you honestly think this kid SHOULDN’T call the police, if his father is abusing him? Maybe that’s the only way he CAN get his father busted. But no, he shouldn’t call, he might ruin his father’s life because he’ll be caught growing WEED!!! Christ. We’re not talking about a D.A.R.E. case here. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/43 "2012-03-22T07:18:33Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > First, he didn’t say that was the only reason he was calling the cops, and second, do you honestly think this kid SHOULDN’T call the police, if his father is abusing him? Maybe that’s the only way he CAN get his father busted. But no, he shouldn’t call, he might ruin his father’s life because he’ll be caught growing WEED!!! > > Christ. We’re not talking about a D.A.R.E. case here. I don’t think you read post # 34. I don’t have all the details, but it sounds like a horrible situation for the boy and his grandmother, and he did the right thing in that situation. I agree with you that he had to protect his grandmother and himself in any way possible. I also believe that the boy did what he had to do, and that his father got what he deserved. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/44 "2012-03-22T12:14:38Z")
> [@Tedster](#): > > Well, the kid is a good little nazi, isn’t he? This pretty much sums up how I feel. If the kid discovered dismembered murder victims in the garage, it would have been right to call the cops. But pot plants? I hope the kid someday learns that crimes exist on a continuum, and some things shouldn’t be crimes in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/45 "2012-03-22T12:18:51Z")
Actually, it being a zombie put it in a good context for me. I’m rather curious how the thing resolved, and how the kid and/or his father is doing this day. I wish a follow up had been done. I did a Google search and didn’t find anything. There was a hilarious op ed in IIRC [marijuananews.com](http://marijuananews.com), or something like that. The little idiot actually said, of his father “He’ll probably blame me!” That was priceless. But, at any rate, I wonder how the kid turned out. 10 years after ratting out ol’ dad. Did he get his college education, or is he a drunken wife abuser? Both? I’m also wondering, now, about that girl to whom President Bush the first gave the medal for doing the same thing. Has there ever been a follow up search/study on these kinds of things? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_I\_Am](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@Sam\_I\_Am](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_I_Am)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/46 "2012-03-22T18:30:36Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This pretty much sums up how I feel. If the kid discovered dismembered murder victims in the garage, it would have been right to call the cops. But pot plants? I hope the kid someday learns that crimes exist on a continuum, and some things shouldn’t be crimes in the first place. Or parents could hopefully someday learn not to do something illegal if they aren’t prepared to deal with the consequences. Kids have their own sense of right and wrong, and are also prone to making mistakes. It’s not fair to put them in this situation. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/47 "2012-03-22T21:52:59Z")
> [@florez](#): > > When my daughter was growing up. a program called D.A.R.E. came to her school, and encouraged children to turn their family members in for such as this, and the kids took it seriously. > My daughter did not turn in any family members, but destroyed the two humble pot plants that my brother had been growing in his light and foil bright closet. > No one in our family rewarded her for this behavior. And years later she dated a guy, who told her that he had ruined his families lives; sending himself and his two brothers into unhappy foster care experiences, and causing much needless suffering by turning his parents in for a few pot plants . And you weren’t mad at your brother for doing something could have screwed over your family? What if he had an ex-girlfriend or ex-best friend who was angry at him and told the cops about the pot? Children could have been removed to foster care. The pot isn’t the point, the point was that he was doing something illegal that could have gotten people in trouble. He decided that violating a stupid law for his own fun was more important. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/48 "2012-03-22T23:40:03Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > And you weren’t mad at your brother for doing something could have screwed over your family? What if he had an ex-girlfriend or ex-best friend who was angry at him and told the cops about the pot? Children could have been removed to foster care. > > The pot isn’t the point, the point was that he was doing something illegal that could have gotten people in trouble. He decided that violating a stupid law for his own fun was more important. My brother lived on his own at the time, and my daughter had no right to go through his things. But I did get mad at my brother, he was basically a kid then himself, and has grown up, and learned from his mistakes. However, as wrong as it was for my brother to grow two pot plants in his closet, I still believe that it was wrong for the school to put a child into the position of acting as a junior police agent within the family. My daughter shared with me how films and speakers showed the children what to look for, and how important is was for them to call the police. I question the ethics behind this. Exploiting a child’d desire to be a good little soldier, by making them into tools? ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/49 "2012-03-23T02:41:27Z")
> [@Marconi\_N.Cheese](#): > > I’m curious, why would you do this? Question also applies to others answering in kind. Because my parents raised me to know right from wrong and to have respect for the law. I wasn raised in an environment where that wouldnt have been going on anyway, hell they didn’t even drink, so it’s purely a hypothetical for me. I was home schooled so no DARE program to blame. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/50 "2012-03-23T16:14:54Z")
> [@florez](#): > > My brother lived on his own at the time, and my daughter had no right to go through his things. But I did get mad at my brother, he was basically a kid then himself, and has grown up, and learned from his mistakes. > However, as wrong as it was for my brother to grow two pot plants in his closet, I still believe that it was wrong for the school to put a child into the position of acting as a junior police agent within the family. > My daughter shared with me how films and speakers showed the children what to look for, and how important is was for them to call the police. > I question the ethics behind this. Exploiting a child’d desire to be a good little soldier, by making them into tools? Thanks for the elaboration. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![LIONsob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/76d3ee/32.png) [@LIONsob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LIONsob)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/51 "2012-03-23T17:14:38Z")
I have smoked cannabis for over 40 years and have a son who was went thru the D.A.R.E (to be stupid) program, I never hid what I was doing from him. While he was being subjected to the brainwashing at school we sat down and had a long talk about it and he was made to understand that turning me into the police would end up with him spending the rest of his childhood in the custody of Childrens Protective Services and living in foster homes. He now smokes cannabis, is married and the parent of a 3 year old and will one day have to sit down and have the same talk with his child. It shows just how wrong the eternal war on drugs has gotten when busting someone for enjoying a toke is more important than keeping a famly intact. At about the same time we had a friend who was a Harris County Deputy Sheriff, she was trying to get appointed as a D.A.R.E. officer because it was a cushy job with the best hours and had a unlimited budget to buy cop toys with, according to her the D.A.R.E. officers always got to drive the very newest patrol cars and had the flashest equiptment to impress the kids with, all paid for with our tax dollars! Peace LIONsob ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2012, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/52 "2012-03-23T17:30:23Z")
This is exactly why, from the time my kids were around six months of age, I would sit with them and talk. No distractions, a calm voice, soothing tones. And I’d tell them, above all, please remember, snitches get stitches. ---
**Author:** ![OldLobsterClaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/eb9ed0/32.png) [@OldLobsterClaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldLobsterClaw)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325/53 "2012-03-26T17:33:10Z")
To the law an’ order folks who’ve been posting, would you play the same tune if, say, going to church was a crime as is true with communism? Or if (assuming you like orange juice) it were made illegal? The great majority of drug laws, and especially the drug war itself, are based on ignorant acceptance of the babble of a few mindless zealots like Harry Anslinger, or Tricky Dicky and his toadie drug advisors Jaffe, DuPont and Ambrose. If the kid’s suffering abuse at home and nothing is being done by the authorities, then maybe, just maybe there was some justification for his actions. Otherwise, at best he was pathetically duped by lies and propaganda and having delusions of doing the right thing. At worst, he was as a previous poster said just a spoiled kid pissed off 'cause Dad wouldn’t give him the car keys. If there was no other compelling reason than belief in lying authorities or a case of piss-off then I’d bet that, as many kids found out, their actions led to a world of hell for themselves and their families and accomplished absolutely nothing positive. There is nothing heroic or moral about supporting unjust and destructive laws. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teenager-busts-dad-for-growing-pot/109325.md?page=2)