Awful situaqtion, I’m full of admiration for how you’re trying to go about this.

Only thing I’d add is on the “scaring him straight” type thing by getting thrown in a cell. On the surface, it sort of makes sense and appeals to a good chunk of the British population’s sensibilities.

There was a program in the States back in the day where they took wayward teens and took them to supermax type prisons to meet inmates and scare them straight. It was wildly popular but ultimately was shown to be a massive failure (its described here on page 332p. Basically, the kids that were “scared straight” were more likely to go on to get into serious bother. Turns out rather than scaring them away from crime, the trauma of being exposed to those conditions harmed them further. In your case, it might have the additional bother of affecting his record as well. I’d be wary going down this route, unless anyone else has a good justification beyond the anecdotal that it works.

I’d get proper Legal advice now regarding his potential arrest and the consequences. Under absolutely no circumstances would I recommend anyone allow themselves to be arrested without representation from the earliest opportunity, even if they are freely admitting their guilt.

I appreciate that walking in to the station with your Son and already having a Solicitor present somewhat undermines the shock tactic, but you’ve no idea how it plays out once he’s under arrest. He could easily incriminate himself or others with all sorts of unforseen consequences.

I was a nob for a long time growing up (15’ish to 25’ish) to be honest. Drugs, alcohol, few police type issues and a night or two in the cells.

I didn’t listen to anyone – my parents were ineffectual (not bad, just not helpful), and when I got in trouble at work and they tried to talk sense into me I wouldn’t listen. Police never got through either, I didn’t really give a damn. I was convinced I knew better and they didn’t understand me. They didn’t but as I didn’t understand myself either who can blame them.

I got into a bad relationship and struggled right through to my late 20s. I just sort of grew out of things(drugs and alcohol and destructive behaviour). I didn’t decide to sort myself out, I wouldn’t have had the willpower. I just grew up a bit and changed naturally.

I guess I was lucky that I got through it relatively unscathed, I could have been in real deep sheeite on many, many occasions.

It’s only now nearly 20 years later and having been belatedly diagnosed with depression and anxiety etc and plumbed the depths with those that I see how bad I was growing up. I thought I was cool and knew best but I didn’t. I was an arsehole sometimes.

I think the only real thing that would have made a difference to me is having a respected ‘father figure’ type to take me by the arm or give me a boot up the arse when required and lead me in the right direction. I can see more structure and a physical outlet may have helped along with counselling but I can only see it now, not then.

Anyhoo, not sure if that’s at all helpful in this situation but just thought I’d put another spin on things. If it helps I’m now 48 and doing alright. Have been for a while thankfully!

TS

Ps I can see you’re doing your damnedest trying to sort things out, hope it all works out for the beat.

Most people are convicted on evidence they give themselves IIRC from my days on the prosecution side of court cases. I hope that solicitor is going to do more than just be present. Your son needs advice on what to say.

Unfortunately for Laurie he’s chosen to deal coke,

I can’t be the only one that thinks you are seriously overreacting to this? Getting a bit of weed and coke and sharing around few mates is dealing? Nuts, that’s just how it works.

Anyhow, all the best. I hope your approach works, but I honestly think you are making the problem worse here. All you are really teaching him is that he better not get caught. And your influence will be reducing by the day btw, he’s 16, not 12.

Anyhow, as I say all the best and good luck.

Getting a bit of weed and coke and sharing around few mates is dealing? Nuts, that’s just how it works

Maybe in your world. Not mine.

But it is how it works, and hopefully it hasn’t gone past that stage. There’s always one person in a group who knows someone and the others “ask” him or her to get something for them. In fact lads like the Op’s son are often nagged by their friends and class mates to buy stuff for them. There’s no pushing drugs onto people, it just so happens he’s the one with the contact. Things can go a lot further but normally it doesn’t.
But yes in the eyes of the law he is a dealing and there’s no getting away from that.

My lad arrested by the Police when he was 16 (seven years ago). Him and some friends had been messing about around some houses where some burgalaries had recently taken place. They were apparently in the garage of a house where a kid in the same school year was living.

They were held in the cells overnight and the Police turned up at our house at 5am to search his bedroom (he was meant to be staying at a friends house).

A couple of the group had some cannabis on them (not our boy). They were released after about twelve hours in the cells during which time they had been fingerprinted and had their clothes taken away and dressed in what I would describe as black “loungewear”. My wife spent about four hours at the station awaiting his release.

There seemed to be a big element of the Police trying to scare them by showing them the process that happens to criminals. We went along with this rather than demanding his release and it did have some effect and nothing was put on his record.

The effect of this soon wore off though. He changed schools for A-levels and fell in with a crowd of kids from well off families whose lives revolved around drink, parties etc. He did not do well enough in his A-levels to go the the university he wanted to and so we paid for him to re-take two of them the following year.

During this year he spent a few months working for an organisation that housed recovering addicts, troubled kids etc. which we thought would help him understand the downsides of drink, drugs etc.

This did not work as he became increasingly detached from us and kept very odd hours disappearing for days on end and when he was home sleeping for long periods. He had also started wearing a black backpack which he was never without. One time when he came home and had slept for 12+ hours his mum searched this bag and found various drug paraphenalia including a large “rock” of something (think it was MDMA) which was far more than for personal use.

His mother dragged him out of bed and demanded an explantion. It turned out that he was dealing to friends and could not see why we thought it was a problem. This was two weeks before he was due to start university. I tried to get through to him by showing him news articles about people of similar ages who had been prosecuted for dealing but he did not seem to relate to them.

In the end he went to university and was staying in a hall of residence where the local dealers hand out business cards. I know he has continued to smoke weed as his rooms have reeked of it but I think the dealing stopped when he went to uni.

He is graduating in the Summer four years after starting (he failed some of his second year exams and insisted on having a year to retake them rather than doing it straight away) and hopefully will get reasonable grade – to be honest I will be delighted if he scrapes a 2:2.

Sorry for the rambling story – I think what I am trying to say is that kids do not see anything wrong with drugs. He has seen the inside of a cell and been a care worker for damaged addicts but still takes drugs. Basically what his peer group think of him is much more powerful than us, the Police or his future prospects.

Sorry for the rambling story – I think what I am trying to say is that kids do not see anything wrong with drugs. He has seen the inside of a cell and been a care worker for damaged addicts but still takes drugs.

Different drugs are different! some are harmful to the individual, some are not, some cause massive social damage, some do not. for most the harms of prohibition far outweigh the harms of the drug. Taking you getting the lad to work with addicts – I assume heroin addicts or perhaps crack – If he is smoking weed then he does no look at them and see “that could be me”. He looks at them and sees junkies while he is a smoker. He will not identify with them.

This is one of the problems with the ” just say no” approach and ” all drugs are bad”. When your own experience tells you that what adults are telling you is wrong in some particulars in some ways then its easy to distrust the rest of what they say.

People want to get high. Thats a given. In this country for most it is alcohol which is far more addictive and far more damaging to both individuals and society that many illegal drugs.

this is where the harm reduction, informed social policy and informed choices come in. give kids the real information.

Tinas – pretty much every culture throughout history has had drugs they use. Even some animals ( drunk elephant anyone?)

I wonder what the crossover between those teetotal kids and those that use cannabis is?

The teatotal kids – I didn’t mean to imply anything – it was just an idle thought – are they teetotal because they smoke or are the teetotalers non smokers as well?

The point about other cultures is that there seems to be something in all humans that is a desire to get high. Its not just our modern western society. Its a universal across all societies since the beginning of modern humans and also exists in other mammals. chocolate for example started life as a stimulant drink. flying reindeer are fly agaric hallucinations. Coca has been used for centuries in south america. Khat in east Africa. elephants and chimps seek out rotting fruit because it contains alcohol

People want to get high

Some people, maybe most people, but not all. I have never had the desire to get high.

gauss – do you drink alcohol? Ever felt ” I need a drink” after a bad day at the office?

do you drink alcohol? Ever felt ” I need a drink” after a bad day at the office?

It wasnt aimed at me, but in the past maybe, although tbh i think i just drank a lot becsuse it was normal. I definitely dont anymore despite working with some big drinkers, im quite happy drinking soda water. I quite like a beer, but I quite like alcohol free beer too. And never particulalry feel the need to ‘drink’.

Which goes back to my original point. People saying “its normal to want to get high and deal small amounts” are possibly correct in their own social circle, but their world view isnt reflected in the population at large who mostly dont take drugs, and increasingly dont drink either.

Oh, and no I have never felt ‘I could do with a drink’ when stressed. Which is just as well as it doesn’t seem to work.

Great attitute. I’m coming to the conclusion through practice that it doesn’t work, but drugs and alcohold are almost in the DNA of the UK so very hard to step away from. Interestingly Nietzsche hated alcohol, basically he put people who drink (even if they were athiests) in the same bucket as religious headbangers. Using something external to avoid and escape reality.

Random fact – most high hazard sites in the UK have D&A testing. One place I worked for brought it in from having nothing. Instant 30% fail rate for class A drugs. Almsot mindblowing how prevalent drugs are in society. Let that sink in next time you see a big scaffold somewhere – nearly a third of the guys that built it were probably wasted.

Drug testing – some drugs can be detected for a long time in your system – cannabis for weeks IIRC. Others become indetectable very quickly

nearly a third of the guys that built it were probably wasted.

No, nearly a third had trace amounts in their system which is a long way from wasted. Class A’s tend to get expelled fairly quickly (a few days) whilst weed can be present weeks after use.

People want to get high

Some people, maybe most people, but not all. I have never had the desire to get high.

Good for you but it was pretty obvious TJ was making a statement about the population in general.

I can’t be the only one that thinks you are seriously overreacting to this? Getting a bit of weed and coke and sharing around few mates is dealing? Nuts, that’s just how it works.

It works like that when you’ve seen it from the inside, if you haven’t then it’s easy to be an absolutist about it. I wouldn’t call it dealing and the scale of it was what I based my assumption of the police/CPS not being overly bothered on. IANAL

If nothing else ths thread is a great insight into people’s inability to deal with facts and refuse to accept them even when presented by those who know more about the subject matter than they do. People are being honest and speaking from experience and folk are still sticking their fingers in their ears and repeating “nope” over and over. I’d be shocked but Brexit happened already.

It works like that when you’ve seen it from the inside

Well yes, that was my point. If you’re in that ‘group’ then your perception is that everyone is doing it. if you’re in the other 4/5ths of the population on the other hand….

it was pretty obvious TJ was making a statement about the population in general.

……………………………
If nothing else ths thread is a great insight into people’s inability to deal with facts and refuse to accept them even when presented

You said it yourself. The “fact” is that no, the “population in general isn’t doing it, not by a massive margin.

The other extrapolation from that is that 70% do

Except that the statistic underneath the bit you quoted showed that 80% don’t.

Anyway, we’ve dragged this off topic, my point was simply to counter those that were making out that drug use was supposed to be normal and that somehow everyone was doing it when the stat’s simply don’t back that up in the slightest.

tjagain

Member
Tinas – drug use includes alcohol, coffee, tea, chocolate, cigarettes

This is the curious thing is that that isn’t included in people minds. I think it’s nuts that the boy is getting taken to the police for being the supply point for a few friend (read the only guy that knows where to purchase, it’s a million miles away from dealing), but if he was the one that looked old enough to get served in the offies attitudes would be wildly different.

I’m not promoting drug use btw, I just think the approach here is wrong. The idea of taking the boy mtbing and doing things, and in general separating him from that side of his social life would be much more successful if approached in a non confrontational manner, imo. I just don’t see much benefit from the confrontational approach. More likely to drive the boy away.

Just an opinion, I may well be wrong, hope I am.