Free Blog: Smoking Weed with Daddy

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/08/colorado.dad.pot.arrest/index.html

For my free blog, I wanted to find something disturbing dealing with children (and I did). In the article I found, it dealt with a father contributing marijuana to his daughters. The article didn’t give any names for the children, but father Jake Duke had 2 daughter (ages 6 and 7) and is being charged with marijuana possession, distributing to a minor, and child abuse. The charges drew up from an event that took place when the 6-year old tried to start a fire in the bathroom of her elementary school. When she was confronted for her act, she spoke able how she and her father smoked marijuana. It was shocking to one officer because the young girl knew more about marijuana than some adult. The 6-year old daughter even remarked that she didn’t like to smoke the seeds. Obviously, this girl had learned this stuff from observation because as Mesa county sheriff investigator stated “marijuana users commonly discard the seeds and stems from the marijuana plant.” Also, one of the daughters told authorities that her father would smoke weed and blow it in her face when she didn’t feel well. When the police searched the girl’s home, they found one small marijuana pipes, two large bongs, a digital scale, and a small bag of weed. The girls are currently staying with their grandparents after being taken away by child services.

This article was odd to me just because the child was so informal about marijuana. This is something that I would have never thought a child would learn in depth at such an early age. I suppose it’s understandable because kids are like sponges and they take in most of everything they observe. Even so, it’s still wrong for the father to use drugs around his children. He’s definitely not a good model for his children and not good father material. What father blows smoke in this child’s face? Because of his actions, he possibly could have scared the girls for life. Also, when I was reading the article, I wondered where the mother was. Was the mother also a “druggy” that didn’t care about smoking around the children, was the mother not in custody of the girls? If she was in the household and didn’t smoke weed, I don’t see how she could allow her children to live in those conditions.

In relation to the class reading and discussions, I don’t see this article as entertainment. I found this article to be more informing about something odd that is going on around us. I found it to be more of a warning to let people know that there are parents in our neighborhoods like do drugs around their children and the children are observing everything. Also, this article included victims that viewers would feel really sympathetic for. Children are the last thing people want to see getting victimized, in my opinion.