Justine Johnson, 22, of Oscoda Township, has been charged with first-degree child abuse and felony murder for the death of Sutton Mosser two days before the child’s third birthday.
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Shit like this is why I disagree with those here that say all drugs should be legalized. It's not just the dope fiends that are affected.
Over the past several months I've posted stories about parents killing their kids, parents that have overdosed while watching their kids and the children ended up dying, and people that have gotten so fucked up they've killed family members.
Then there's the parents and siblings that suffer when they see their loved ones descending into that hellhole of addiction and not being able to do a thing about it. I've seen that pain on my parent's face.
I've got a feeling that 99% of the people that advocate that shit have never had somebody close, really close to them get strung out.
And concerning the few folks that have commented in the past that all dope fiends deserve to overdose because they're a drain on society, check this out:
I did drugs most of my life and not only did I manage to break free of that shit, but I worked my entire life before retiring and have drawn exactly one unemployment check in my life, I did advocacy work for those less fortunate, and I've managed to provide a good caring home for my disabled wife these past few years. But do you know what my proudest accomplishment was? It was hearing my father tell me later in life that he was proud of me.
Do I have all the answers? No, I don't, I don't have any of them, but I do know a little compassion and understanding goes a long way.
Thanks Ken.....
ReplyDeleteThe problem when it comes to drugs is that one size does not fit all; which means whatever the government or society chooses to do is going to be wrong in a significant number of incidences.
ReplyDeleteI do strongly believe that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. I sincerely wish that legislation legalizing Marijuana would also make smoking anything in public illegal. I don't care if you smoke pot, but I don't want to inhale your second hand smoke either.
Dude, if you are close enough to a smoker to inhale their secondhand smoke, you are probably too close or for some reason don't want to be bothered to move out of the smoke....it is not like a campfire and won't follow you around.
DeleteNow I will agree if it is an outside event with seating or other circumstances that do not make it reasonable to move, but otherwise not.
Walking the opposite direction of a smoker or set of smokers, you pass them and have to inhale. It's raining and the inconsiderate f*ckers are huddle near the door you have to pass through. You're at the car hop and the bastard rolls down his window and his smoke comes wafting over.
DeleteYou must be a smoker. You probably don't realize what an inconsiderate asshoke smokers can be. They're right up there with bicyclists that won't share the road for being picks that do not belong in society.
As a former smoker, I am qualified to say that there is no one worse than a reformed smoker.
DeleteI did a lot of drugs when I was young, and thank the lord my parents cared enough to send me to a good rehab in Florida (The Seed). I know mom wanted to kill me at times, but she was a good woman.
ReplyDeleteI'll admit that I have advocated the laws be removed concerning drugs for much the same reason as alcohol. People will do it regardless and bad people are getting rich due to its illegality. I know it is not that simple. People will be hurt whether it is legal or not. There are sound arguments for both sides of this question. You say you used to do drugs. Why did you start? Were you younger and it was the cool thing to do? Did you do it because you are a rebel and were told that you CANNOT do drugs? I smoked pot, snorted coke (when I could afford it) and took speed occasionally (black beautys - bimphetamine). Those were my reasons for doing it. I never did the hard stuff because I knew it might kill me. Perhaps I am lucky to have the wherewithal to see the dangers and was able to resist while others may not. All I know is its against the law now (and has been for over a century) and that is not working out too well. The drugs seem to be winning the war on drugs.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's a single reason why I started but I don't think I'd be too far off if I said being rebellious.
DeleteI do agree 100% that people will do it regardless, but I don't think we should make it any easier to get and use. I do know people that quit because they couldn't handle the penalties if they got caught, so illegality is a deterrent for some.
And I've got news for you - coke and speed IS the hard stuff.
Addiction (different from dependence) is both complicated/multifaceted and in some ways simple.Very complicated in a physiological and psychological sense, simple in that it is a disease model where we ultimately have choice on some level, unlike say, cancer etc. Some are simply more markedly more predisposed to it, I believe genetically, but nurture/nature argument can be made as well.
DeletePoint is, more or easier availability will cast a wider net. By sheer numbers we will catch more that are predisposed to addictive behavior.
People like me, that did go down that path, either get sober, end up on a psych ward or jail, or die from things associated with our addiction. That's pretty much the list of choices. I am all about personal freedom and choice, but I am just not sure opening the gates completely is improving things on any level.I still worry daily that I passed this scourge on to my adult son and it may rear its ugly head one day. Fortunately he is brighter than me. We had a long look at family history, my history, and asked the question, "Is it worth the risk? Do you need to play with fire to have a happy and full life?" Thus far he remains wise.
I don't portend to have all the answers, hell any of them. Even as someone sober/in recovery I don't think weed should illegal. Alcohol is light years worse on every conceivable and measurable level. Alternatively probably not a great idea for someone like me to use. Yeah, people gonna do what people gonna do. Maybe facilitating the chances that the wider net results in more misery and death might cancel out some of that "freedom".
I do know this; I would mountains, do anything in my power to prevent my son's life from spiraling downward into the abyss. I was fortunate as was Wirecutter, I came out on the other side. Penalties got me to consider, but did not keep me sober, that requires more. I can sit down with a fellow drunk (or any addict) and and share where the path goes, I have walked their dirt. I have my health and family. It was just one tiny step from being different. So no, I don't think opening the gates completely and casting the wide net is the answer, but I don't know exactly what the answer is. My apologies for the wall of text. Just felt moved.~~dirtroadlivin
Naw, you're good man. Thanks.
DeleteIt took awhile for my step dad to tell me me he was was proud of a me. Also, a high point in my life. Work Hard, Do Good.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your blog
i was on drugs in my youth, IV shit. i tried to quit but my friends at the time would pull me back into it. they only way that i could get away from it was to move far, far away from them and cut all ties. people who have never been there don't realize that it's not the drugs so much, but the lifestyle and the people that you hang with. i still like my weed.
ReplyDeletewifey calls it my happy horny stuff.
See, that's the way I did it too. The only way I could quit using drugs was to quit the lifestyle entirely. I got away from the town and the people and found other things to take up my time.
DeleteI honestly think that's why most people aren't helped by rehab. They go in for 30 days and learn how to deal with the addiction, then they go to a halfway house for another 30-180 days working the program and they do great because they're away from the influences. What happens next? They get dumped right back into their old neighborhoods and among their old friends and they start using again.
Plus not all rehab is equal. In some places it's become an industry. In Manchvegas on the Merrimack (NH), for example, I know of dealers who work IN the halfway house (nominally as a janitor).
DeleteI used to think all rehabs were designed to fail because they were a for-profit business or got huge grants from the government. Repeat customers mean more money.
DeleteThey were never your friends, they were jyst getting high buddies. My druggie nephew conflates the two also. That is some twisted mindfuck.
DeleteMyself, although not having gotten into drug scene, completely know and understand the importance of changing one's environment in order to quit. Its simply common sense. Its twisted logic to say one learns of that only from personal experience. There ya go. That will be a nickle.
Not to mention while in residential rehab, you're stuck with the worst possible peer influences - other druggies.
DeleteWonder how often residences go off the reservation?
CC
Mentally ill people (including parents) have killed with drugs, without drugs, with and without religion....
ReplyDeleteRiiight. Oh sure. That argument is a dead end. Its same same as saying, everyone else does it, so I'm good to go.
DeleteThe real, true answer; we are of a sinful nature in a fallen world. But hardly anyone wan5s to think of the ramifications of that. They even want to ignore it. Even though it offers the very best understanding from which to derive the very best healing.
Anyway, carry on treating the symptoms but not the cause. Rehabs sometimes work. But they are expensive and do not offer guarantees. Because they tackle the wrong thing.
I believe, no matter what substance the so-called parent is under the influence of, if they maim or kill a child, ANY child, they shpuldbe put to death, post haste. Unfortunately Michigan has no dearh penalty.
ReplyDeleteWell said, Kenny.
ReplyDeleteOhio Guy
Alcohol is a drug. A HARD drug, right up there with crack, meth and smack. Alcohol addicts people, kills people, destroys careers, lives and families. Alcohol abuse is strongly correlated with family violence; including incest. Similar correlation to violent crime. Yes, drugs, like guns, are bad news whenever used by unsavory people. It's not a "drugs" problem; it's a people problem. The solution - I don't know.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Opiate/meth etc withdrawal will make you feel like you wanna die, but it aint gonna kill you. Alcohol withdrawal can and sometimes does kill. It's addiction is arguably just as powerful or more-so that any other drug of choice. Widely available and somewhat socially acceptable, with all the same bad outcomes. Ravages the body over time, results in a pretty debilitating death if you live to the end stages. Hard indeed.
DeleteI see it like this, do we want to live in a nanny state or do we want to be a free people ? Can't have both at the same time.
ReplyDeleteLots of bad shit happens all the time and being illegal doesn't stop it, it's just illegal, rocket science I know.
No I don't advocate for meth or heroin, although I still personally believe it's a decision that the person should make, sometimes they get strung out by legal pharmaceuticals then are cut off and have to go looking elsewhere, RIP Pat, love and miss you brother.
I guess my biggest issue with drug laws is the way it treats weed, they love to spout off about it being a gateway drug but the truth is if it was treated like it should be, home grown and personal use of your own, you would never meet the meth/heroin guy so no gateway nonsense. In truth the government created the gateway drug dealers. Despite the ridiculous movie Reefer Madness there were no problems with weed in the past and the the reason it was criminalized was to keep the federal cops, Eliot Ness types, working after the repeal of prohibition.
Hundreds of millions of dollars wasted and lives ruined over a fucking plant.
As to assholes spout about they're happy addicts die, you're an ignorant commies, fuck you nobody deserves to die like that.
JD
Freedom, as do all rights, come with responsibilities. You're looking at the idea of being free the wrong way.
DeleteYou speak as if freedom means being free to make bad decisions. Friend, that is not freedom. That is slavery, being a slave to a wicked mind.
No one deserves to die like that. Who held a gun to their head, who forced them to start with drugs, to ramp up drug use in search of a higher high? They did 8t to themselves. But they could have said no. But they call it freedom, free to choose.
DeleteI do not advocate taking away freedom. No way, no how. But I am talking of true freedom, certainly not that which people call freedom in the name of being free to screw up their lives and the lives of others.
The arguements that the government did it, or pharmacists did it, that the man did it; the user is just a pawn conspired against. That all sounds like 7th grade rookie stuff. Weak sauce because it shifts blame from the individual. Users talking about freedom, that's some funny stuff. Its what I've heard for the past 15 yrs from my now 25 yr old nephew. The same nephew who can hardly remember his name and sure as all get out cannot spell his name. Boy genius. And I read that same crap in your comment. Duuude!
Rick
DeleteFirst; You don't see anywhere in my statement that I didn't say you are not responsible for your actions. Freedom doesn't mean get to blame others for your mistakes. It just means you get your choice whether to make them or not.
Second; Pat, a long time friend, was hit by a car when the driver thought he had more rights to a lane of traffic than Pat, who was on his bike at the time. Car driver ran him off the road by passing him in the same lane Pat was in. You see lots of retarded people have drivers licenses and no regard for others that have to share the road with them. Pat went down at 60mph into a ditch that ran parallel to the road and suffered permanent neck and back injuries as well as a concussion and 2 broken legs. While getting him onto a stretcher ambulance personal said they were surprised he was still alive . His venture into street drugs began after the oxycodone that was prescribed by his doctor was cut off due to the new government regulations regarding codine based pain medication. He was still in recovery and great pain when he was essentially cut off so he made a choice. Yes I said he made the choice and it eventually killed him so obviously it was a bad choice. If he was able to keep receiving oxy would he be dead today, I don't know. If they would have started him on something that wasn't so addictive would he be dead today, again I don't know. He did tell me several weeks before he died that he wished he never did been given the ocy because he knew he was in a terrible situation.
The problem with people like you Rick is you want to choose what is freedom and what is not. Freedom means making your own decisions and living with them or dying, it doesn't mean others get to choose for you how you will live your life.
So my response to your crap is
" DDUUUDDDEEEE " you have no idea what freedom really is.
Oh and as a final insult to my brother Pat's situation is that retarded driver that essentially killed Pat was given a $50 fine and 40 hours of community service slap on the wrist, yea... real justice huh.
JD
Ten Four, Ken.
ReplyDeleteChutes Magoo
This is not the result of street drugs. This is the work of the psychiatric industry. Most American are now taking psychotropic drugs and have been for years. They started feeding this crap to children in the '90s. Psychiatry and big pharma are responsible for all of this kind of stuff. Read up on the history of psychiatry it will be the end of us all if we don't stop it.
ReplyDelete"...this is why I disagree with those here that say all drugs should be legalized"
ReplyDeleteYou completely miss the point that whether drugs are legal or not had absolutely nothing to do with these deaths. By your logic, guns should be illegal also because... deaths. You are demonstrating very shallow (liberal) thinking.
No, what I'm saying is these drugs do a tremendous amount of damage as it is. Why make it easier to get?
DeleteSeriously, you're going to try to pin a general statement to the specific deaths in the article? That's pretty fucking liberal minded if you ask me.
Nothing liberal about it. In fact it is just the opposite. Haven't you noticed that governments create problems so they can then have a "war" on that problem? Only then does the problem get out of hand. Same as alcohol in Prohibition. Drugs were readily available before the late 1960's when they were outlawed (to harass the Blacks, in point of fact). Guess what - there was no widespread "drug problem". People weren't killing themselves in droves.
DeleteYep, some people are going to let that shit get out of hand and kill themselves. Darwinism in action. As for the innocent children - they are in GOD'S hands in Paradise. A Christian knows that Paradise is a far better place than Earth. Only the unbeliever thinks this Earthly life is the best.
Anyway, it gives me comfort.
My rule of thumb is: if you can "accidently" overdose from it, it should be regulated. But ultimately where are talking about the human condition. We like to alter our perception, and we've been doing it with any substance we can get our hands on since day 1. (Same with religion) it's part of our natural state. What we don't teach our kids is moderation. We also don't teach them that they don't have to alter their minds to have a good time. We raise them is a society that says it's not a party unless your altered.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to pick this apart. My idea is to legalize everything. From weed to Fentanyl. The catch is, you have to check yourself into a government run camp. You can use what you want, how you want, when you want. All drugs provided by Uncle. No internet, no TV, contact with outside by snail mail or payphone. Basic medical care as is currently provided to prison inmates. No narcan. Maybe Uncle can figure out something the campers can do to make a little money to offset costs. You can leave anytime you want, after 6 months in a detox annex, test clean. Get caught using outside of the camp, first offense, 5 years in prison, 2nd offense 25 years. Get caught selling, 1st offense, 15 years, 2nd offense, 40 years, all with no parole. I'm sure there are holes in there somewhere.
ReplyDeleteCouple of thoughts-
ReplyDeleteI recall a candidate for Supreme Court was deemed unacceptable because he admitted to having smoked weed.
And a former president who said he smoked it but didn't inhale. (!)
Barry Soetoro: "Choom Gang."
The current pResident is demented, and his offspring is (allegedly) a crackhead.
The *War on Drugs* can never be won.
Because it is cancelled by the law of Supply and Demand.
And because those "fighting" it would be out of a job.
There's good money (and some sweet perks I assume) to be made. Not to mention civil asset forfeiture...
I don't indulge. But smoking the occasional hooter in the privacy of one's own home doesn't seem like much of a crime.
On the other hand, there's some other shit out there that is real scary.
My older brother is an engineer who's career has involved some very specialized projects. He is what I call a high functional addict. Although they be very few, he has made serious mistakes on the job. His personal life is perpetually in shambles, permanently one step away from but never crossing his personal Rubicon.
DeleteGee, I wonder why. Not really.
But Ridk there's something you will never understand and that is freedom is not your choices for others. Freedom is making our own choices and mistakes.
DeleteWhat you want is controlled freedom, WTF left you in charge
JD
People get dope sick all the time but cartoon characters on tv don't tell them to kill people. This was a unique case.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that drugs aren't harmful, it's that the "war on drugs" is even worse. Not to mention the associated inevitable increase in concentration of power in the state, and putting the police in opposition to the people. And *some* of the "drugs" are relatively harmless, certainly not worse than alcohol.
ReplyDeleteAs for the collateral damage (kids killed by parents, for example) you CANNOT prevent that. Go look at "medicalkidnap.com" and then come back and tell me that the foster care system does more good than harm. My favorite statistic from that site is the one about 98% of girls (in one particular state) ageing out of foster care wind up trafficked - you don't get that without complicity of foster parents and case workers. And by that I mean like the case in California where the pimp was picking 'em up from their foster parents Friday after school, and returning them (with the foster parents cut) in the wee hours of Monday morning.
We'd be better off overall just flat out legalizing parents killing their kids, just to make it clear it's none of the damned governments business to interfere.
Drugs *ARE* bad. But government "intervention" doesn't actually do any good. In the case of either child abuse or drug abuse.
Legalize drugs! They kill fewer people and ruin fewer lives than a fascist state!
Here in my small city, before the reclassed hydrocodone as a schedule II drug, the medicenter that I went to, when a Migraine became too much to get through on my own, would give me an injection of demerol and zofran, to stop the pain, and to stop the vomiting. They knew that by the time a migraine patient got there, they had reached the point where a shot of benedryl was not really going to help. Because that was all many places would offer.
ReplyDeleteI spoke with the doctor who ran the clinic, when they were discussing the change for the scheduling of hydrocone to schedule II, and we both agreed that it was going to cause a huge increase in the number of drug addicts and drug over doses in some of our lower class neighborhoods, due to people no longer having a safe place to medically get treated for pain, especially by a doctor who recognized migraine as a real disease.
A few years later, all of the predictions have come true. The drug problem has exploded, the medicenter is closed, and the doctor lost his license for over prescribing opioids.
Because you see, if a doctor over prescribes opioids, they will lose their license. But the DEA won't tell them how much is too much.
Myself, I only use opioids now, if really, really needed, such as for kidney stones, or a surgery. The long term use of opioids that I had, made me too dangerous to becoming addicted, and I discussed it with my doctor, and we agreed that the risk was too great, so we work together to only use them, when completely necessary. That is probably the right move for everyone, to remain safe. For those who are in continuous pain, it is tough, as I suffer from constant pain from migraines and a back injury. So for some people, you have to learn how to deal with some level of pain. I know, it sucks, but you do what you have to do.
Think Spongebob could talk to Dr. Jill?
ReplyDelete