Friday, December 18, 2009

Young and stupid

I'm really enjoying the social experiment being run by Cactus Kate over her catching the 17 year old daughter of some acquaintances doing ketamine in a Hong Kong lav. The overwhelming majority of advice in the comments is basically "dob the bitch in for her own good," thereby reinforcing the notion that NZ is a nation of narks.

Never mind that each respondent went through their own initiation to sex, drugs and rock n roll. Few if any would have wanted their parents informed of their personal experimentations; their fumbles, their foibles, their indiscretions, their mistakes. The serious fuck ups; pregnancy or arrest, sure, the parents should be informed. But by the teen caught in the middle of it, not some Big Sister grapevine. For the rest, it is all part of the lessons in owning one's shit.

For the record, ketamine is a fairly shitty drug. It's not as if it's bad per se, it's just that it's boring and a little bit desperate. It's the drug you have when you can't find anything else. It's like Withnail drinking lighter fluid:



Secondly, I assume that CK has some code on indiscretions. I bet a 17 year old Cactus caught in flagrante delicto wouldn't have appreciated her parents getting the gory on it. Nor would I imagine that she would like her Tiger Woods trophy wives to get wind of her infidelity intercourses through coarse sources.
So the issue is now of course - do I tell the parents?

Again, not so much a moral objection to drugs but the kid is 17. Kids shouldn't be doing drugs. As I said to her she should wait until she is older so she can afford to buy better drugs.

Upside - none really other than if she dies of a drug overdose it would be rather bad
Downside - when she is finally caught the little shit will no doubt rat me out to her parents for having previously busted her with it and consider my silence consent to her behaviour.

My advice to Cactus from my humble experiences goes thusly:

No, do not tell the parents. You are not a fairy godmother, you are a lawyer. If anything, advise the client gratis but do not appeal to the familial judges immediately. As many parents know, their kids should not be drinking, screwing or getting stoned at 17. Yet they do, or at least might. If the parents haven't instilled some scruples or survival skills in their kids, that's on their head.

I'm not familiar with the details on Hong Kong's drug policy, and I can't be arsed researching it, so I'm going to make a gross assumption. Namely that the whole Asian continent has a fucked up view on drugs, preferring life and death sentences a la Shapelle Corby.

Here's hoping the emo in question is smarter or luckier than the average Australian, and keeps ahead of the undercover cops in one of the 'notorious nightclubs' of Hong Kong. Hey, if worse comes to worst, the parents might be able to baksheesh an exile for her if she gets done.