If you can’t see the hyperbole in “Christian Military Boot Camp”…and not infer there is…oh, what’s the point?
Hyperbole from you now. At least I can see it.
The clue-phone is ringing. Ex-Lax is not a controlled substance. How is your comparison “more accurate”? Do I really need to explain this to you? Pick a real example next time, and thank you for playing.
And yes, someone who puts a foreign substance in their “bosses chocolate shake” for the intent of causing bodily harm does deserve a jail sentence - not a 22-year hyperbole of one, but they do deserve something.
I feel nothing but pity for people that think it’s funny or cool to poison other people, regardless of the legality of the substance or the ultimate impact. Try working on your value systems a little.
You know, I expected, as with any issue, there would be the “apologists”. I really did not expect the mass outpouring of apologists for a kid who tried to put an illegal substance in someone’s food, for the purpose of pleasure or to see how they would react.
I also noticed (later on) people decided to gang-flame me, and ignored completely Guin’s and vanilla’s comments. Why do you think that is?
Anyhow - have morals really slipped so far in the World that this is excusable in any way?
(anecdote about poisoning friends snipped)
OK…I can obviously see which side you will be on. If you really think that what you did did not deserve a criminal record, when you yourself admit:
then why talk to me? I will never have a meeting of the minds with someone that admits to giving a harmful substance to their “friends” without their knowledge (you imply that it is without their knowledge in your post, if not, please correct me…). We have no grounds for communication on this subject whatsoever.
Oh, this is an easy one. I step proudly up next to Guin, Anthracite and vanilla.
Yes, I smoked pot. Yes I was 14 once. No, it never occurred to me in my wildest dreams to make someone ingest ANYTHING that I had, against their will OR without their prior knowledge.
Hey, Gary, you seem pretty darned outraged that we are even a bit angry about this. 14-year-old “prank” and what-not. You almost sound angry that we’re considering reacting SO strongly that we might be violating that nice little boy’s civil rights.
You forget a few basic things. Or perhaps more accurately, the basics of respect, right to control one’s own body and self-destiny aren’t a part of your post-apocalyptic world where 14-year-olds are cute scampy l’il imps incapable of an adult thought or act.
I’m gonna say something really incendiary here, and I’d love for Gary to tuck this atrocity in the back of his head for about 15 years or so, until he has a daughter who is 13…14…15. And, he gets told by the young man who sexually abused her after getting her stoned at a party that, " hey man, weren’t you ever 14? DUUUUUDE, she’s GONNA get laid someday ANYWAY !!! ". Keep today in mind, cocksocket- and see how laid back you are on that day. It’s totally irrelevant whether or not ANY of those kids were prior users, OR whether or not any of them might ever use in the future.
You think that age is an excuse? He knew exactly what he was doing, and exactly why. He premeditated the drugging of a number of people his age. I guess a detention is just about in line with your thinking, since he’s just a zany 14-year-old l’il man, huh?
It’s something I pride myself on. And yes, that last line is sarcastic too. I’m really surprised that no one seems to think that “Christian Military Boot Camp” could possibly have indicated I was using hyperbole, especially as it’s a Simpson’s line…
More hyperbole. How does treating him as an adult and asking for prison time equate to “executing” him?
And no, it certainly gives me no satisfaction to “ruin” his life (and you are wrong on this point too, as he is the only one ruining his life. Society did not force him to poison his friends and an educator.) It does give me satisfaction to think of sending a strong statement to teenagers that “hey, you know what? Poisoning people is, uh, wrong, dude!”
You know, it reminds me of an anecdote. A 15-year old brother of a friend of mine broke into a neighbor’s car, and caused more than $1000 of damage trying to get the stereo out. When caught by the police with his ass still hanging out of the door, his mother begged the police not to arrest her “little boy”, as he was “just a stupid kid”. The neighbor declined to press charges, swayed by her tears, and the kid spent a night at the station, getting a “stern talking-to”. A week later, this 15-year old laughed to me and said he was thinking of stealing some CDs he wanted from a pawn-shop window by smashing a rock through it. I asked him why he was going to risk getting in trouble again, and his response was “Hey - I better do it now, before I’m 16.”
Any teachers want to come on in and state how lenient they would feel about being poisoned by one of their own students? Anyone?
So what you’re saying is that the introduction of a foreign substance is more a crime than the introduction of an over-the-counter substance? The way I see it, there are two “crimes” here:
Possesion of a controlled substance.
Giving a “drugged” brownie to an unwitting victim.
Where “drugged” is used in the same sense that an Ex-Lax milkshake can be considered drugged. Whether or not it’s a controlled substance has no bearing on crime 2. Had some one had a fatal reaction to the substance in question, he should be charged with a separate crime: manslaughter. The controlled substance just adds another crime to the list, it does not make the introduction of a drug any worse.
I note that you make some pretty harsh assumptions regarding “intent” in the section I’ve underlined (I’m assuming this applies also the kids motive and not just to my theoretical example). You want to try a 14-year-old as and adult and send him to prison as a convicted felon. You consider my statement about “ruining the rest of his life” in light of such a conviction hyperbole. I suggest it is your own value system which need re-evaluation.
You know what, you’re absolutely right. I was reacting to what I think is an overly sarcastic tone, but by that measure I should have done the same to the OP, which was equally sarcastic. I apologize for the flame, but stand by the opinion content of what I said.
Irony of the whole thread: He chose “Bluesman” as a username. “Straight Dope:” OK / “Dope Hidden In Food:” NOT OK. This kid deserves some kind of punishment, not just a little slap on the wrist. But you folks who think we need to go outside the existing criminal codes to deal with this really scare me. I would love to hear your opinions on car theft, I bet they would make the Sharia[sup]*[/sup] look lenient.
*Or, Shari’a: Islamic legal traditions
Well, Anthracite, I’m going home for the weekend. I was hoping you would have a chance to respond to me before I left. Damn…have a good weekend though.
I’m ex-teacher, so I don’t know if I count, but in the UK, you stnad in loco parentis when you have the kids at school, or on a school trip. IF children under my care had been drugged or poisoned & if the same had happened to me, I would have been furious. Especially if the same ahd happened to the staff caring for the children, as you then wouldn’t be competent to care for them (plus on many trips, you’d be the one driving the minivan full of kids…).
The kid at the very least would have been suspended from the school & quite possibly expelled - one pupil at my school was expelled for dealing pot from a spare locker, another was expelled for slashing my tyres. The matter certainly would have been referred to the police, although I have no idea what crime he could be charged with in this country. It would also be up to the crown prosecution service whether to press charges & if so, whether to try him as an adult, which is increasingly done for teenagers, and about damn time too.
I’ll be surprised if there aren’t some private lawsuits for personal damages over this in the states, no matter what the criminal cases bring out. The teacher may not be free to do so - they may have been told by their headmaster exactly what line to take & doing otherwise, no matter what their personal feelings, may jeopardise their job.
Stop beating that straw man. He didn’t do anything to you.
Gosh, TWO straw men!
The lineup of stupid straw man arguments on the “Let’s try him as an adult!” side of the argument here is amazing. You could arm ten cornfields with this many scarecrows. Let’s try to list them all:
Fisherqueen said “I am appalled at the people in here who don’t see a problem with this.” and yet there are no people here who have said there was nothing wrong with what happened. Rye sort of implied it, if you look it it sideways with your eyes squinted, but did retract his statement
Cartooniverse claims that “Nobody really cares if you think it’s just so fuckin’ cool, dude, that a 14 year old caused others to ingest a controlled substance.” Of course, nobody said that, so what the hell is he talking about? He also claimed that “You (mswas)will probably always think it’s really cool to drug up strangers,” an accusation that can only be fairly termed a lie, since it appears to be based on no logic or evidence at all.
Later, Cartooniverse says “Hey, Gary, you seem pretty darned outraged that we are even a bit angry about this.” Nothing in any of Gary Kumquat’s posts even hints that people should not be a bit angry about it, so what the hell’s this about? “We should not try him as an adult” does not translate to “We shouldn’t be angry at all.”
yosemitebabe, responding to Gary Kumquat’s comment, said “Oh sure. Call it a “prank” and it’s OK.” Except he didn’t say it was okay. So what the hell is SHE talking about?
Anthracite, responding to Beelzebubba, said “I feel nothing but pity for people that think it’s funny or cool to poison other people, regardless of the legality of the substance or the ultimate impact. Try working on your value systems a little.” Well, that’s nice except he didn’t say it was funny or cool to poison other people. What the hell are you talking about? I think his value systems are a lot more reasonable that some I’ve read evidence of in this forum, that’s for sure.
Anthracite then goes on to say that “You know, I expected, as with any issue, there would be the `apologists’.” Maybe my definition of “Apologist” differs from hers, but it seems to be that arguing that a particular crime is still a crime but kids should not be tried in adult courts is not apologetic.
I’ll say it again; this thread has set a new SDMB standard for straw man arguments. It’s truly fascinating how people will make stuff up when POT is part of the topic. Why is the suggestion that a 14-year-old not be tried as a adult eliciting so much hate-filled vitriol and dishonest arguing?
How do you know that? I don’t have the California Criminal Code memorized, and I doubt that you do either. It very well may be a different crime depending on whether the substance introduced is controlled or not.
It’s notable that the section in of the California Penal Code defining “assault” contains this paragraph:
I would have a lot to lose if someone drugged me without my knowledge. I would consider it a violation of my person and my rights, and I would be outraged.
Having said that, do I now have the right to suggest that a 14-year-old is best dealt with by the juvenile justice system? Can I say that there are mechanisms already in place which take into account the perpetrator’s immaturity, without it being suggested that I condone this sort of behavior?
Oddly, I have managed to incorporate both a respect for an individual’s right to choose what they ingest, and compassion for idiotic adolescents into my worldview. Who woulda thought?
Let’s review this. You post a scenario whereby you wish drug rape upon my daughter, as some judgement upon the views of her father, and you call me contemptible?
Back in high school, one of my friends threw a graduation party. Live band, couple of keggers, big bowl of jungle juice, and tons of kids. Someone thought it would be really funny to toss a few hits of acid into the jungle juice without anyone else knowing.
The brother of a friend of mine drank a quite few Mason jars of the punch and ultimately OD’d, receiving permanent brain damage. All these years later, he is still living off of Social Security disability.
Shit, that little prank was funny as hell and all the red emergency lights on top of the ambulance that took him away was like fucking cool, dude. :rolleyes:
I realize that pot is nowhere near as dangerous as acid, but the fact remains, they may be pranks but they sure as hell aren’t innocent. This kid knew exactly what he was doing and should be punished severely, however I do not believe that he should be punished as an adult.
I can say with all sincerity that anyone, regardless of age, who fed my child brownies laced with hash, would be thinking adult punishment looked pretty damn good in place of the punishment I would dole out. This kid is also very lucky I am not his mother, otherwise, he would be hating life for a very long time.
Just so it’s clear, I have been ambivalent as to whether or not this kid should be tried as an adult. Seeing him expelled from school sounds like a good start in the punishment dept., though.
The thing that gets me is the “but it’s only pot” line. “Oh, sure, it’s bad, sure, he shouldn’t have done it, but it was only…pot!”
Well, screw that. No one gets to decide for anyone else what is and is not a big deal. You have to respect your fellow human beings enough to not force something upon them without their consent. (For instance, I’m a vegetarian. Had someone decided to pull a “prank” on me, and spiked my food with meat, I’d be pissed. I probably wouldn’t try to get them arrested, or anything. But I’d consider them to be the supremest of shitheads. No matter what their age. And no amount of “but it’s just meat!” would have made me feel any less furious about what some SHITHEAD decided that I should ingest.)
NO ONE gets to decide that “but it’s just…” for someone else. Bullshit.
Nearly all of the people who have commented negatively on the student’s action have stated that they would feel the same no matter what substance was put in the brownies. To the extent that the discussion has remained centered on marijuana, it has primarily involved people who have an allergic reaction to it. Can’t say as I’ve seen anyone freaking out over marijuana in general.
Thanks for contributing to the straw man pile, though. We’ll just prop him up right over here.
Una, for what it’s worth, I got your post. I saw that it was mostly hyperbole, to make a point.
Gary, I had to laugh at how stupid you were, since I ASSUME most people KNEW the pop was spiked, and such and such.
I think this kid needs to be tried as a JUVENILE. And Monty-in Jesus’s time, slavery was also seen as moral. Does that mean we should use that as an argument?
…that the “brain damage” you spoke of probably came from the “jungle juice” (grain alcohol punch?) by itself or the “juice” and some other drug. As far as I know, nobody has established that you can OD on LSD yet. Yes, if someone does not know they ingested LSD, they might have some kind of psychotic break or commit suicide (the CIA proved these points).
LSD does not cause massive brain damage on one dose the way alcohol does. There have been cases where people took LSD every day for years and have brain “seizures” (drift off and come back) but no one dose ODs in the classic sense. (If someone can document an LSD OD without other drugs involved, I would love to see the evidence) Alcohol is bad shit by itself, or with other more mundane drugs, no LSD necessary. Mix alcohol with enough sedatives and you are talking almost certain brain damage and coma, if not death.
Can’t say as I’ve ever noticed it. You always speak your mind forcefully and well, and I’ve respected you for that from the first, and you normally don’t seem any more sarcastic than anyone else. To be frank, sarcasm seems beneath a person of your education and accomplishments.
**
Don’t watch the Simpsons so I wasn’t aware…
**
I’ll grant you that it’s not the same as executing him. Be that as it may, there is a reason not to treat his as an adult: he is not an adult. The law distinguishes between children and adults, and children, for the most part, are not held legally responsible in the same way that adults are.
**
So he still doesn’t need to go to adult prison to make that statement possible.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that he should get off scot-free, or with nothing more than a “stern talking-to”. I don’t think juvenile detention is a walk in the park, but they do try to reform the offender instead of just warehousing him. There’s community service, drug diversion, a variety of constructive punishments, in fact.