Your other post is a whole lot harder to answer.
I'm sorry to hear about the kid killed by dealers. It happened once in my old neighborhood in Florida. It was horrible. I didn't know the family; never even learned the kids' name. But my daughter and all of her friends and schoolmates knew who he was. And the dealer killed him just before school got out by hanging him right on his front porch.
I don't know how in the world we can keep young, adventurous kids out of the black market on an individual basis. In fact, I can't think of a better way to encourage them to it than what we're doing right now. Methamphetamine is not much different from Adderal or Ritalin, except that it's more tightly regulated and so more attractive to criminal enterprise.
No doubt, there's serious danger in pharmaceuticals. Kids crush and mix pills and overdose all the time. And anyone can drink themselves to death w/ $40 worth of rotgut liquore or get snarfed and staggar out in front of a truck or go skinny dipping and pass out.
But pharmacists and bartenders don't kill deadbeats. They don't have to. They have lawyers and Leo to enforce their contracts and sales in a (very slightly, in some cases) more civilized way. In exchange for those services, we get the right to license them. We allow them to do business w/ consenting adults and we yank their licenses or fine or sue them if they don't operate within those limits.
I think the best way to keep kids safe from dope dealers is just exactly the way we put an end to their abuse by bootleggers. My dad's father was chief of police while his uncle was the towns biggest bootlegger. He told me lots of stories from those days. If anything, it was worse than some of what we're hearing about these days. It only took 13 years in a 15 mph world to put an end to that lunacy. I don't know what it's going to take to turn it around wrt other dangerous, habit forming drugs after three generations of it.
There are other pressures at work that make gangstering seem so appealing to young people. We don't allow kids ta' day any responsibility or respect anywhere else. No working, no having your own money, no loitering or skateboarding... no unaccounted for time and
certainly no adventure. And it's getting worse. Since the homeland security bill ent through, teenagers are no longer allowed to open savings accounts or checking accounts, even w/ a parents underwriting.
We could keep a lot of kids out of the drug trade, I think, if we were to do away w/ most of the child labour laws. Most of them have nothing at all to do w/ protecting the kids from exploitation. The one's I've bumped into all have to do w/ enforcing compulsory schooling.
But all these newly critical problems w/ kids ta' day seem to have to do w/ the way we're treating them, not w/ defective kids coming on the scene. Sending off the round kids to pound them into shape to fit our square holes is not the answer.
I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't
agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it
would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.
--GW Büsh, CNN.com, December 18, 2000
