Comment by dmitrygr
1 month ago
It need not be either-or.
The guy who made the drugs is guilty. The guy who sold the drugs to kids is guilty. But parents who failed to warn kids about drugs and to oversee them properly are also guilty...
1 month ago
It need not be either-or.
The guy who made the drugs is guilty. The guy who sold the drugs to kids is guilty. But parents who failed to warn kids about drugs and to oversee them properly are also guilty...
Generally in an article about arresting or sentencing a drug dealer, people don't bring up that the drug users are actually to blame.
Now if we're in a discussion around the cartels, plenty of people do bring up (and there's also those that get annoyed by it) that the drug users are actually the ones funding the cartels via their drug use.
Along these lines, I think another fun comparison might be opioid use and Purdue.
I think that that is actually an oversight. One needs to consider the entire chain. For example, with proper parenting, there would be a lot less youth demand for drugs. It doesn’t make what a drug dealer does any less bad, nor does it make the efforts of the police to arrest the drug dealer any less important. But it’s suboptimal to consider a small piece of a system, without thinking of the whole.
It's also suboptimal to jail parents for not convincing their child that drugs are bad.
1 reply →
So is the judicial system that is not making this illegal or don't enforce laws to prevent people targeting kids to create early dependence on drugs.
That is a fair point, I did not attempt to make a complete list, of course, but you are right, there are more layers that could be named. All valid. The point I was making is that parents are also responsible.
eg: I grew up in a very nasty place. My neighborhood had a few pregnant 13 year old girls and a lot of drunks and smokers, including kids in their early teens. My parents kept me away from it all, while also both having full-time jobs. They put a lot of work into filtering whom I could be friends with and where I was allowed to be. THAT is the job of a parent.
Sure, sounds like that's great parents you got.
But at systemic level, we must consider the effect of social dynamics globally, not only how the most virtuous citizen deal with the direct situation. Pauperisation of the masses will mechanically lead to more social problem on the overall, even if they will always be brilliant heroes to point to as possible through exceptional behavior. And society that are structurally helping everyone to fall in distress or weak situation also help the exceptional people go further as they are freed from many cognitive loads they would have to deal with otherwise.
I agree it's the job of a parent, but two parents (and with only a single job each) is sadly not the norm in many challenging environments.