<p>Well, we could legalize heroin, meth, and LSD if you want to take that approach. I have certainly also educated my kids on the risks of alcohol (and am happy to say that their school also did an excellent job as well on that topic). Just because more than one thing is risky is no reason to throw up our hands and say we have no responsibility to educate our kids on these topics and do our best to help them avoid the pitfalls. I am guessing that very few people reading this thread were even aware that pot is closely linked to developing schizophrenia. Sounds like you will just disregard it, but I hope at least a few parents reading this take a second look and give some thought to whether smoking pot is really as “harmless” as you may have thought. The health risks can be severe and irreversible.</p>
<p>OP, if you are convinced that alcohol is even more risky to their health than pot (and I don’t disagree), why are you defending underaged drinking so strongly?</p>
<p>Why would we legalize heroin, meth or LSD? That seems absurd…this was a conversation about a student with a fake ID and a roommate that was smoking pot.</p>
<p>OP I’m glad the dean saw the forest through the trees.</p>
<p>“Pot is harmless” is one of the biggest con jobs of the past 40 years. How many millions of people accepted this premise? Sometimes the very people who have been strident about second-hand smoke, phosphates in detergent, food additives, and red meat think pot is God’s gift to humanity.</p>
<p>Coley–Sounds like things will work our for your son. The consequences seem appropriate for him, and the Dean sounds reasonable. No record on his transcript. I am glad you had a couple of glasses of “milk” to relax. It was a stressful time for you and your family. Lots of worst case scenarios. Lots of judgments made by perfect strangers. You have raised your son much like we have raised our daughters. And we have similar attitudes to the drinking age and all. I hope things continue to move along so that you can put this behind you.</p>
<p>As far as all those arguments go about which is riskier - pot, alcohol, etc., it seems that people are selective about what they’re afraid of, and it may have little or nothing to do with the actual statistical risk involved.</p>
<p>For example, aren’t we all afraid of the dangers of radiation exposure following the horrible occurences in Japan? </p>
<p>How many Americans died last year from radiation exposure from a power plant? Zero.</p>
<p>How many Americans died last year from particles emitted by a coal fired power plant? More than 13,000! And look at that lovely map:</p>
<p>Pot, alcohol, driving a car, and eating chocolate have risks and benefits. Even tobacco does as well, although in that case the benefits seem generally poor.</p>
<p>"I don’t know if I’m totally correct, but they were searching for things from your son’s roommate. So anything they found in your son’s possession (the fake ID) can’t be confiscated. And he can’t get in trouble. This is all providing they had a warrant, which would have clearly dictated what they were searching for, and what their search boundaries were. "</p>
<p>That is incorrect. The school can search the dorm rooms. They cannot search your off-campus apartment, however. Stoners should live off-campus.</p>
<p>“BTW, to whoever equated turning in a student for smoking pot to turning in a hit and run driver…absurd. I told myself I was going to ignore the ridiculous analogy but sometimes I can’t believe what I read online.”</p>
<p>I brought up that analogy in response to the warning: “snitches get stitches” comment. Absolutely in no way did I say the wrongdoing of a fake id was equal to a hit and run. In fact, anyone who says I said that is either woefully misunderstanding, or is outright lying, or is deliberately twisting what I did say in an effort to suit their own agenda. If anyone feels I have equated the seriousness of those 2 things, I encourage them to re-read my comment.
I brought it up to serve as a “snitch” example -not equating two wrongdoings-, not even comparing the seriousness of the 2 wrongdoings, but demonstrating all “snitches” are not evil.</p>
<p>I am curious-
Coleytown, based on your posts, I guess you will soon be suing the school for what you say was was an illegal search? (post 25). You said they had “no reason” to search, but posted that their policy permits only reasonable(with a reason) searches.
I’m sure you believe student should not have to do even one minute of comm service because you believe the search was illegal. I’d agree, if it was illegal student should pay no penalty- but the school should! Just as some posters have said about the student, they(the school) must also be responsible for their actions, if their actions were in the wrong. If they were the wrongdoers, then they should face the consequences.
I don’t agree with your opinion that this was an illegal search, but I urge you to stand up for your rights, and the students’. Let the court decide who is right. If you believe the search was improper, as you said, then I urge you not to accept any penalty imposed. Insist they drop the charges. Hire an atty if necessary. File suit if necessary.</p>
<p>Or has your opinion changed on the school’s right to have done the search? I hope a relatively small, <em>in-house</em> punishment for the student had no effect on your opinion about accepting the search as valid.</p>
<p>““Nope… this person got on her high and mighty horse and decided everyone else’s kid would have to deal with police, lawyers and the absent homeowners would be left to deal with their own mess and the police but not her or her little darling””</p>
<p>Momofthreeboys,</p>
<p>I think we must live in the same town, lol. I prefer to parent and discipline my own kids, not the court when it comes to things like this. If this parent was so concerned for the well being of the kids, she should have walked in that party, made sure no one was hurt and then pick up her cell phone and have kids call their parents one by one to get picked up. But no, let the police and courts do the parenting, pleeeeease!!</p>
<p>“I went to Reed, I studied very hard while I was there and barely drank. I smoked some marijuana in high school but never at Reed, I just didn’t like it much. The drug reputation at Reed is really overblown, it is very easy to go there and find a group of friends that don’t do drugs.”</p>
<p>Sorry for picking on Reed in particular. I was trying to make the point that there must be hundreds of schools at which being “busted” for pot or a fake ID would be considered a quaint remnant of a bygone era…and the perps would almost be viewed as martyrs. Considering the direction things are going in this country regarding weed, in a few decades the civil war reinactors will be replaced by people reinacting marijuana arrests to educate the youth on just how oppressed the harmless weed smokers were in the olden days.</p>
I assume this is a serious comment and not a Saturday night live comment.</p>
<p>There are two reasons I do not drink … 1) I do not like the way any alcohol tastes unless if is hidden in something non-alcoholic (used to be a big reason and now is a small one) … 2) The big reason … the affect beer has had a numerous men on one side of my family; the affect on them, their spouses, and their children. Drunks, especially mean drunks, do not make particularly good family members. One memory I will never forget is one family member leaving a family event, with family members who he claims are his closest relatives who he had not seen in two years and would only be in town for a day or so, leaving at 10 in the morning … why did he leave … to get the free beers being handed out at the club.</p>
<p>Addictions can ruin lives … and beer works as well as any other drug to ruin lives.</p>
<p>intparent your links were interesting, so thanks for sharing. One issue though, highlighted in one boy’s story in those links, is that often people with mental health symptoms use marijuana in an attempt to cover up those same symptoms…thus the mental health problems whether it is depression or schizophrenia started prior to the pot use.
Unfortunately even legitimate depression drugs can cause suicidal ideation and lead to the very suicide they were trying to prevent.<br>
And of course many people use alcohol to cover up depression and other mental health issues, and that often leads to alcoholism. Scmaltz, alcoholics certainly do “freak out” if they are unable to down a couple of beers at lunch. There are certainly more stories about harm via alcohol than pot, but I agree that using anything to cover up or mask other symptoms is harmful, and that any substance that harms someone should not be taken by that person.<br>
regarding legalization, alcohol was illegal at one point in our history, so laws certainly can change. And alcohol was made legal again despite some people drinking themselves to death, causing car accidents, or going into alcohol fueled rages.</p>
<p>“OP, if you are convinced that alcohol is even more risky to their health than pot (and I don’t disagree), why are you defending underaged drinking so strongly?”</p>
<p>I’m not defending underage drinking, I just think the 21 year old drinking age is ridiculous and does nothing to curb alcohol use by young people. All it does is make them sneaky and often binge drink because they take advantage of it more when they can get it.</p>
<p>I don’t believe there should be any drinking age. If the US was more like Europe then there would be far less overindulgence in alcohol. It’s no big deal, Europeans have a beer or a glass of wine or two and that’s it. It’s not rocket science.</p>
<p>I also believe in people being responsible for their own behavior and self-regulation when it comes to what we put in our bodies. Are we all so weak that we can only control our drinking/smoking/etc. by the government? How about some self-control?</p>
<p>I have more faith in my kids. We always offer them wine or a beer if its being served with dinner at home and 9 times out of 10 they decline. On the rare occasions that they accept, they have never had more than 1 glass.</p>
<p>I am happy to hear about the resolution here. It sounds like the school is handling this reasonably and that the punishment fits the crime and will not be draconian.</p>
<p>However, I am very troubled by much of the discussion in this thread: the prevailing view (including, it seems, on the part of OP and her son) that OP’s son really didn’t do anything wrong and that the school is more culpable for searching the room than OP’s son is for the fake ID; the effort to squash any opposing point of view; and, in particular, the blanket and at times quite strident condemnation of “snitches”, including on the part of OP.</p>
<p>Clearly one cannot always go to the “authorities” to deal with one’s interpersonal relationships. It needs to be a matter of judgment. But equally clearly, students should not be made to feel like outcasts or, worse yet, feel that they are at risk of physical harm (“snitches get stitches”), if they conclude that going to the authorities is appropriate under the circumstances. And it is difficult for me to believe that any of you, including OP, could seriously take the position that there are no circumstances under which going to the authorities is appropriate.</p>
<p>Just to give one obvious example (and I could provide even more clearcut examples, but this is a common one where as a conceptual matter one might be tempted to apply the “snitch” label), dozens if not hundreds of students die each year from alcohol poisoning. Too often one reads the story that the victim’s friends did not want to go to the authorities, i.e., did not want to “snitch” on their friend and risk getting him (or her) in trouble, and so left him (her) to “sleep it off.” Except that, tragically, he (she) never woke up. Imagine how grateful the parents of any one of these children would have been if just one of their child’s friends had chosen to be a snitch.</p>
<p>cosar, just a quick point regarding why some people don’t seek help for someone dying from alcohol poisoning, usually it isn’t so much fear of getting their friend in trouble, it is fear of they themselves being cited for under-age drinking.</p>
<p>3321, excellent point. Umass Amherst is in process of reviewing its amnesty policy (that of if a student calls 911, no action against the caller). IMHO, that is wrong.</p>
<p>Actually, it seems to be evenly divided between those who want to talk about addiction and those who think the laws would be better like they are in Canada, where there is very little alcohol poisoning because there is very little binge drinking, because…wait for it…an 18 year old, or, hey, let’s be conservative, let’s make it 19, to make sure none of the high school seniors are buying alcohol…can buy a glass of wine or a beer and doesn’t have to “pre=game,” or do shots, which is the real cause os the alcohol poisoning.</p>
<p>As for whether the OP’s son didn something wrong, most of us agree, including the OP, that the school has made a very reasonable punishment.</p>
<p>The pot question is a national question, right now. It would be better if pot were regulated, imho. Less chemicals, predictable amount of THC, so that people were aware of what they were doing, getting rid of the dangerous Mexican drug cartels who are currently growing in our national forests, etc…blah, blah, blah.</p>
<p>I’m glad your son will work off his fine. I’m a fan of that kind of work for teenage idiocy.</p>
<p>ETA: Just for clarification, I don’t drink alcohol or use any mood altering substances, and would prefer if my kids did not, as well. I just don’t think it’s my job to make that choice for other people.</p>
<p>“And it is difficult for me to believe that any of you, including OP, could seriously take the position that there are no circumstances under which going to the authorities is appropriate.”</p>
<p>Of course it’s difficult for you to believe that statement, for the simple fact that it’s not accurate. I absolutely DO believe that there ARE circumstances under which going to the authorities is appropriate and I never stated otherwise.</p>
<p>I just don’t believe that the specific case I referenced where one student turned his roommate in for smoking pot resulting in the loss of that roommates scholarship, was the right thing to do. In fact, I think it’s a really rotten thing to do, but so long as he’s happy.</p>
<p>Kids are spoiled, if they don’t get the perfect roommate, the perfect dorm (substance abuse dorms aren’t “nice” enough?), etc., they find a way to get what they want.</p>
<p>I suffered my entire freshman year with a roommate who blasted Neil Diamond songs 24/7. It was a lesson in tolerence, that’s for sure. ;)</p>