Drug war outrage, one of an occasional series

[nancylebov]

Why some people use "for the children" as a curse:

Hell, this case wasn't even about drugs to begin with. The kid in question shop lifted a pack of candy bars and got placed on probation. Later the kid tested positive for the fake marijuana that was outlawed last legislative session. I wasn't aware that a test had even been developed for the fake stuff. However, when I googled it I found that they have indeed developed a test to rapidly detect any fun one might possibly have.

Then the parent sent me the paperwork for enrollment and it was right there in black and white.

"Parents, Guardians, or Custodians is/are made party to herein shall"

X Submit to and pass drug and alcohol screens at the request of the drug
court team.

I could just quote the whole damned thing, but you might as well follow the link. Parents not allowed to drink alcohol in their home, must get permission to give their kids drugs, even if the drugs are prescribed or over-the-counter, must allow access to any drug court team member at any time, and all of this with potential job/money consequences which could cost them their house.

All this tyranny is for white people-- black kids just get set to jail.

The Idaho Supreme Court has found that drug testing parents of juvenile criminals is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. It's a start.

Link thanks to The Agitator.

Comments

[siderea]

Parents not allowed to drink alcohol in their home, must get permission to give their kids drugs, even if the drugs are prescribed or over-the-counter, must allow access to any drug court team member at any time, and all of this with potential job/money consequences which could cost them their house.

I'm for it.

That is nothing more or less than requiring parents to adhere to the same medical treatment protocol as is medically indicated for a substance abuse case. The alternative is pulling the kid with the suspected substance abuse problem out of the living situation in which he's exposed to others using intoxicants and administered uncontrolled meds, and placed in an institution in which he is not exposed to those risks. And putting the kid in an institution is traumatic and awful for the kid.

So, yeah, if your minor child is, on reasonable grounds, suspected of having a substance abuse problem, you can either provide them clean and sober living situation at home, or the state can take the kid out to protect them. And with any child endangerment case -- and lets be clear, drinking in front of an alcoholic when the alcoholic isn't free to leave your presence is endangerment -- the state once involved arrogates to itself the right to spot check you, same as if you left a 4 year old to babysit a 2 year old.

I see this as being on the same continuum as considering parents' first amendment rights to freedom of worship insufficient justification for allowing them to depriving their children of medically necessary blood infusions or other medical care on religious grounds.

Children's medical rights are simply higher priority than their parents' right to get drunk or high. Children's right not to be abused or neglected is a higher priority than their parents' right to privacy.

Now, if someone wants to argue that in this case there was insufficient grounds for the drug court to consider the kid to have a medical problem with substance abuse, you'll get no argument from me -- not least because we don't have nearly enough information to know. Since the patient/defendent is a minor, and HIPAA pertains, I don't expect we'll ever get other than the parents' version of the story.

And if someone wants to argue that addiction is not a medical problem, or not serious enough a problem to warrant child protective services or analog getting involved to ensure appropriate care over parental objections, well, I'm certainly if dubiously open to that argument.

But, some years ago, there was a research study into the causes of asthma in inner city kids. These were, if I recall correctly, kids with pretty serious cases of asthma, the kind that lands them in the hospital. The researchers gave the kids digital video cameras and said, "Show us your world. Video everything and anything in your daily life." And the kids did. As one might expect, they recorded around their houses showing their families as they went about their regular lives. And the researchers were appalled to discover, when they reviewed the submitted videos, parents who had sworn to doctors they never, ever, ever smoked around their kids, casually smoking around the house. Parents who had been informed that smoking triggered their kids' asthma attacks, and could kill them.

And, based on my work with both child abusers and substance abusers, nothing about that surprises me at all. That's how I expect some non-negligible percentage of people to behave, unfortunately; some parents just really suck and they are statistically more likely to wind up with their kid in some sort of trouble because they suck. And it's why I think a very high level of privacy-invading supervision of parents of kids with special medical needs that conflict their (the parents') addictions is absolutely warranted.

I'm all for adults' rights to put whatever chemicals they want in their bodies. I'm just more for the right of children to medically appropriate lifesaving treatment.

[nancylebov]

The kid was picked up for shoplifting. Not a substance abuse problem.

The parents were told that it was ok to drink at bars.

"Uncontrolled meds" sounds very scary, but if there isn't a reason to think the parents are using ordinary medications irresponsibly, does it make sense to have everything vetted? Also, the risks to the kid aren't all in one direction, depending on how long it takes to get permission to give a medication.

Do you think the degree of risk to the family (losing jobs and home) justifies this?

Do you have information about the average effects of this sort of restriction? Parents clean up act, kids do better? Parents clean up act, no effect on kid? Parents don't clean up act, kid institutionalized, long term results are what?

[siderea]

I'm sorry to be pissing in your parade. Usually I'm on your side in this, but I think you've seized upon a case that isn't actually the example of injustice it was proffered to you as. It might be, but that argument is not actually made in the article you link to. Instead, there's a lot of indignance and insinuation and spin in there intended to hook the outrage of "freedom loving people" if they just don't look too closely.

I want to make this really clear: you're using this case as an example, and I don't see sufficient evidence that it is the example you seek. You make assertions about "the kid" and "the parents" in this case, which since you do I will totally take at face value, below. But since pending further information I don't yet grant that this kid and this parent are in the specifict situation you imagine (more on which below), you will find I keep coming to a different conclusion than you, even while, I think (check me on this, below) I come from the same political principles.

I already address most of your objections here in the very comment you're responding to, so at the risk of belaboring my points, allow me to go into a little (uh, OK a lot) more detail.

The kid was picked up for shoplifting. Not a substance abuse problem.

As I have already pointed out, kid tested positive for an illegal intoxicant, and we have no idea what happened next. We only know what the parent told us. Frankly, the parent could be telling us that and not the next line down was "HEROIN.... POSITIVE", and we wouldn't know. Wouldn't be the first parent to "downgrade" just what level of trouble the kid was in when talking about it outside the family. The kid might have said to a staff member of the drug court, "I have a problem," and maybe the parent doesn't even know the extent of it. There's a good chance the drug court used one of the standard substance abuse screening tools, and if so perhaps it revealed further problems. I've HAD a sixteen year old blithely tell me that he doesn't have a drinking problem because he doesn't drink more than a six-pack of beer in an hour, not like a real drinker -- it is amazing what some teens will just tell you if you but ask.

Yes, he was picked up on a shoplifting charge, and then it wound up in drug court. (1) No different than when the cops stop a car for having a light out and find the driver smells of booze, and winds up busting him for OUI. (2) I think it's reasonable to stop and ask it was doing in drug court at all. It's, of course, possible that the whole thing is bogus. I'd like to see some evidence -- or hell even a plausible allegation -- before deciding the people involved are idiots.

Can we avoid the McDonaldsCoffeeCase pattern where people get all up in arms because hearing a carefully chosen half the story makes the courts look stupid, and this is taken as validation of courts generally being stupid? It's not that courts aren't stupid, it's just I like some basis to work with before leaping to that assumption.

For some reason, this went to drug court, and we already have one indication that drugs were involved. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence -- especially when we're only getting evidence from a side that has an agenda to convince us a certain way.

And here's the thing. You haven't come out and said this, but you appear to be trying to argue that there could not possibly be a problem the kid was having that was serious enough and medical enough to justify the suspension of the parents' 4th amendment rights, that we can a priori dismiss the possibility.

That is absolutely incorrect. There is a medical problem of that sort, and it is that serious, and it absolutely could be the case here. It's certainly common enough a condition. Whether it is the case here, we cannot know from what we've been told so far, we are unlikely to be told more from more credible sources because of medical privacy laws (ironically enough) , and the parties telling us what we have been told are highly biased and motivated to mislead.

Substance dependence is a progressive, fatal illness, and it is heartbreakingly common, and because of that, I am not willing to take that possibility off the table.

And in the case of that possibility, the judge's rules make sense.

The parents were told that it was ok to drink at bars.

Right. What's the problem? As I said before, the home needs to be kept intoxicant free, because the kid's gotta be there.

There's a contradiction in the allegations: either the parents have to pass drug and alcohol screenings OR the parents are free to drink away from home. I doubt that the judge so memorably instructed the parents to do their drinking somewhere else if he also enjoined them not to drink at all. So one of those two things is false, and I'm guessing it's the alcohol part of the screening. I suspect they'll only be screening for illegal intoxicants. Which are illegal. And which according to present law, lamentable as it may be, one has no right at all to use in the first place.

"Uncontrolled meds" sounds very scary, but if there isn't a reason to think the parents are using ordinary medications irresponsibly, does it make sense to have everything vetted?

Yes. Pop quiz: Your adolescent addict has a cold and is having trouble sleeping. Is it OK to give him Nyquil? How about Benadryl? Under which circumstances is it safe/unsafe to give an adolescent: (1) aspirin (2) tylenol; (3) ibuprofin? Now under which circumstances is it safe/unsafe to give an alcoholic each of those? How about a meth addict? Now cross-correlate. Your kid is at risk for sneaking drugs of various sorts. Which OTC meds do you have to worry about having interactions with street meds, which your kid might be on that you don't know about?

God forfend the parent take half an hour to make up a list of the common remedies they prefer for various situations -- to say nothing of things the kid is already prescribed -- and submit it to an expert for review and record keeping in advance.

I'm guessing that's not the scenario you imagined, is it? Did you go right to imagining every administration of every dose had to be called in for permission?

Also, the risks to the kid aren't all in one direction, depending on how long it takes to get permission to give a medication.

That's right. And if your kid needs a shot of adrenaline to restart his heart, you can be sure the EMTs will administer it without checking with anybody.

Do you think the degree of risk to the family (losing jobs and home) justifies this?

*Points at all of the above.* That would be an "Obviously, yes."

But it's funny that you ask about risk to the family. That seems to be a mighty odd concern to invoke in a rights case.

I mean, by analogy, the risk in violating a parent's 1st amendment right to worship as they please is negligible, but that's immaterial, right? The premise of the right to worship isn't about reducing risk to the worshipper.

Personally, I think the principle underlying the right to ingest the mind-altering substances of your choice is that of privacy, the right of people to do with their own bodies as they please. I'm very hard-core about that pro-choice thing. If you don't own your body, what really do you own?

Now, personally, I (unlike you) think the risk to the family you raise here is very low, being as it is so easily avoided -- but I hardly think that, (the lowness of the risk) justifies suspending the parents' 4th amendment rights. "Well it probably won't hurt 'em if we do" is not grounds for suspending civil rights.

But what is grounds is the constellation of facts that (1) they are parents of a minor child and (2) that minor child is substantially likely to have the medical condition of substance dependence and (3) their use of recreational intoxicants in the home is a threat to the health of their child if their child has the medical condition of substance dependence. At which point their kid's medical needs trump their right to privacy.

Do you have information about the average effects of this sort of restriction? Parents clean up act, kids do better? Parents clean up act, no effect on kid? Parents don't clean up act, kid institutionalized, long term results are what?

Glad you asked!

Part 1: "Does drug testing deter drug use? Does it do so in the substance dependent?"

Drug tests are so effective at getting people who are using to stop, that addicts in recovery ASK to be put on testing regimens. Not only has no patient of mine objected to regular urine screens, several have requested it as a service. At my clinic, we've had the problem of walk-ins who aren't our patients asking if they could just come to our clinic for drug tests, but MassHealth won't pay for it if they're not also seeing a counselor here.

It is why random screenings are a part of just about every substance abuse program that can afford it.

So that's the answer to "will the parents clean up their act?": if they can, they will.

Part 2: "What are the effects of parental substance abuse on their minor children's substance abuse?"

I can't speak to the effect of parents using or not on the substance abuse of minor children. I can speak of the effect of parents using or not on the substance abuse of their resident adult children, because that I deal with daily. The prison substance abuse program I work with typically releases its inmates to the homes of either their SOs or their parents.

(If, like most inmates, you don't have any money and don't own a place of your own, when you're released you have to find some place to crash because you don't have the first-last-deposit to jump in the rental market. And Probation needs to approve of where you're going to be staying -- they check it out first -- so often it's back to staying with a 'rent until you earn enough to rent a place of your own. So I (and my colleagues) actually quite regularly work with adult addicts in recovery who are living with their parents.)

One of the single worst risk factors for a substance abuse relapse is being around people who are abusing substances. Maybe the worst risk factor. I cannot tell you how many times I've asked "So you were able to stay clean and sober that long, then what happened?" to hear, "I started hanging out with the wrong crowd." The most recently was last Thursday -- and that is an exact quote. Even more tragic, "My boyfriend/mother/kid sister started bringing it into the house again."

This is necessarily a big focus of substance abuse treatment: "If you're serious about staying clean and sober, who are going to be your friends now? How are you going to deal with family members of your who still use? How are you going to manage, living in the same neighborhood and running into your old drinking buddies on the street?"

For many addicts in recovery, sobriety has meant having to get entirely new friends, having to estrange themselves from family members who won't stop using, having to move and leave behind neighborhoods that felt like "home" to them.

This is why I've written (checks) 2k words on this comment alone so far. From the point of view of anyone who works in substance abuse treatment, the risk to a kid with a substance abuse problem from parents drinking or drugging while he's around is so staggering, and so blindingly obvious, that for a parent object on the grounds of their right to party looks obscenely, grotesquely narcissistic.

Part 3: "Does the parents cleaning up cause the kid to clean up?"

Not so far as I know. The kid having a home in which others aren't using intoxicants is a necessary but not sufficient condition for his recovery. The aim in forbidding the parents is not the fond hope that he will emulate them in quitting using drugs, as if his substance use were a fashion statement and his parents trendsetters. The aim is the same in telling the parents of a diabetic child not to pig out on cake in front of their kid. It's hard enough for the kid not to eat forbidden sweets under the best of circumstances; it doesn't get any easier if he has to abstain while watching you do it.

Part 4: "How effective is pulling the kid from the home vs. not?"

Difficult question with insufficient research. Have a literature review which attempts to get at some answers.

[ETA: Now with added grammar!]

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Well, it fits with the idea that parents are "responsible" for the actions of their offspring. If I am responsible for Johnny's actions, and Johnny commits (or is accused of committing) a crime, then I am liable to some kind of sanction.

This is, in other words, completely consistent with the strictures of the War On Some Drugs.

[madfilkentist]

Parental responsibility normally means that the parents must pay a fine and/or be ordered to enforce restrictions on the child. But the law has a completely unspecified "other things" clause. It looks as if a court can order parents to put on gorilla suits and perform in a circus if the judge feels like it.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

One of my heuristics for voting is that any new law that is sold as "for the sake of the children" or "protecting the children" is almost certain to be bad. No one with honest intent reaches for that button.