Teen jailed for 8 years, for giving a toke to 2- and 4-year-old nephews who are then placed into care: Just another fine day in the War on Drugs madhouse
Okay, this is just fucking insane:
A teenager shown on a video coaxing his 2- and 4-year-old nephews into smoking marijuana was sentenced Thursday to eight years in prison. Demetris McCoy, 18, pleaded guilty to two charges of injury to a child/causing bodily injury and agreed to testify against his co-defendant, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported online Thursday.
When the video was made, the children’s mother was sleeping in another room, police have said. She was not arrested. The children, their mother, grandmother and McCoy lived together at the time. The children have since been placed in foster care.
I truly don’t know where to begin with this one…
First, it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain and half a heart that you don’t send (even older) teenagers to jail, unless the crimes they commit are truly horrendous. Smoking marijuana and ‘coaxing‘ 2- and 4-year-old kids to take a toke doesn’t even come close to being a serious crime.
Yes, it was a stupid stunt but let’s be honest, that’s what teenagers do really well: stupid stunts. Holding a joint to a baby’s lips is just dumb but not nearly as moronic and dangerous as most other things teenagers get up to almost routinely and to describe this act as ‘causing bodily injury’ is just insane.
More than insane, it’s malevolent. Proving that some authorities will just invent the strongest of charges whenever drugs (and a certain class of young people) are involved.
Now, we come to the truly magnificent part of the story, though. While the police grudgingly admits that they did not see ground to arrest the mother of these children, because she was sleeping in another room at the time, the authorities came with another solution to punish her.
So, they placed the children into foster care. Never mind that the authorities already put one of the kids’ uncles in jail for introducing them to the dangerous world of drugs, now they are taken away from their mother as well, because… Well, just because, really.
I’m not sure how you would even begin to measure the different sort of damage you inflict on a child, by giving it a toke or by separating it from its mother but then, the War on Drugs is not about any kind of sane measuring. It is a war waged by moral imbeciles and bad faith politicians who truly don’t give a damn about the horrendous damage they inflict both on society as a whole and a chosen selection of its individual members, while they preen and poster on their futile stages.
So, another few teens sent to jail, their lives most probably irreversibly damaged in the process; two babies taken away from their mother, with who knows what future horrors and heart-break as a result of this – just all in a day’s work in this ongoing and criminally stupid War on Drugs.
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July 25th, 2008 at 12:32
This is what happens when the merciless and corrupt are in power. The teen should be given a stern talking to, by all means. Now his life is ruined because just as he was going to start out into the world, finding a job, building a life, he’s going to spend 8 years [there are countries were killers get far less than that] in jail, only to be corrupted more. He won’t be able to find a decent job and because of that he’s going to end up in prison again. But that is the goal: the prison-industrial complex needs slaves to work for free for as long as possible.
The little children are torn from their mother through no fault of theirs or hers. The heartless cruelty is testament alone to the society they live in. Their lives will be ruined to and they will have issues with abandonment and rage all their lives. Two tokes, 4 lives [or more] ruined.
There is no war on drugs. There is only a war on the citizenry under the guise of a war on drugs.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:41
Thanks for the comment. The War on Drugs is stupid, both in its philosophy and its effects. It was Clinton though who started to make matters a Hell of a lot worse with his ‘three strikes and you’re out’ doctrine.
J.
April 12th, 2009 at 11:39
I agree with Jantar; it’s Dan I’m aiming this at:
“The teen should be given a stern talking to, by all means.”
Haha. A stern talking to and no ice cream for a week. More like a serious ass-whoopin’.
While an eight-year prison sentence for an 18-year-old is a ridiculous punishment for giving two toddlers some reefer (cocaine was also found in the young ‘uns systems), you’re totally painting the teens responsible in exclusively rose-colored hues. Not all teenagers sentenced to prison are on the fast track to capitalistic success before the mean courts interfere and poison their futures with punishments for their actions.
The type of person to give two- and four-year-old kids marijuana (and cocaine)… let alone be dumb enough to videotape it and be caught with it while being investigated for burglary…
This probably isn’t the upstanding model citizen you need for your insanely one-sided crusade against the courts.
The war on drugs is a joke, we all can agree on that. But this guy shouldn’t have been putting spliffs in two little kids’ mouths. If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
“The heartless cruelty is testament alone to the society they live in.”
Come on, dude.
April 12th, 2009 at 17:42
Thanks for commenting, John and I do agree.
Ah well, stupidity is its own reward, I suppose - though in this case personal stupidity meets with a moronic drugs policy, with predictably dire results…
J.