AAN News »
   

Are Kids Who Bust Their Parents Really Heroes?

By AAN Staff
may 17, 2002  10:29 am
Are Kids Who Bust Their Parents Really Heroes?
After a teenager in Covington, Wash,. turned his father in for growing marijuana, local TV news reporters and daily newspapers fell all over themselves calling him a hero. Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger, asks,"Was I the only pot-smoking parent who was horrified?" Savage savages the "sanctimonious piety" of TV news anchors who praised the stalwart young man. Savage gets both sides of the story. The busted dad has health problems, claims he was growing a small amount of cannabis for medicinal use, and the state legalized medical use of marijuana in 1998. Savage is the only journalist in the area who even bothered to ask. He blames the DARE program for scaring kids. "The DARE kids who turn their parents into the police--some have been as young as 10--expect their parents to get a lecture from a friendly DARE officer about the dangers of marijuana, just like they did at school." Problem is, what the parents get is arrested, which sometimes tears a family apart.
View full article at The Stranger