In article , Cathy Kearns says...


"Banty" wrote in message
...

Sure, she can teach her kids. I think there are concerns other and above
just
whether or not her girls may actually harvest and smoke the plants. To
have
that kind of activity under the girls' noses normalizes the activity,
whatever
teaching she may want to do. Sure, she should check the laws in her state
(only
11 out of 50 have even tolerated pot for medicinal uses), but the
neighbors are
either woefully ignorant of (IMO more likely by far) purposely
disregarding the
marginal nature of their activity and are counting on neighbors' reticence
in
order to pursue it. A passive stance on their mother's part doesn't
exactly
reinforce a negative message, does it.

If the neighbors are doing something distinctly illegal and immoral in the
OP's view, then the right thing to do is to contact the police. It sounds
like the OP is not convinced the pot growing is either illegal or immoral,
so she doesn't mind if they grow pot. She is concerned about her children
smoking pot. I can guarantee that regardless of how "good" the high school
her children eventually go to, pot will be much easier to get than by
stealing it from the neighbors.

I think your comment on the "marginal nature of their activity" is exactly
the problem. It's not black and white, but a dark shade of grey. If the
neighbors were running a meth lab she'd call the police. If they were
leaving beer in an outdoor deck fridge she'd remind her kids that stealing
anything is bad, and drinking alchohol at their age is bad, and stealing
alchohol from the neighbors and drinking it is really bad. So where on this
scale does growing possible pot plants fall?



I don't think that runing a meth lab vs. having the kids stealing beer from a
fridge on the deck is a continuum from which I'd try to place anything like this
at all - it'd have to be runing a meth lab in the basement vs. growing pot in
the basement, or running a meth lab out on the deck to having the beer in a
fridge on the deck, or the kids stealing meth from the lab vs. stealing from the
fridge to be a continuum - you're conflating three factors.

Furthermore, I think this thing about the kids actually *harvesting and using*
the pot is a red herring to begin with.

At any rate, where do I draw the lines on these things? Stealing of any sort is
illegal and to be taught against, of course (else why would a red herring
regarding actually harvesting the stuff be brought up? It's to distract us all
to say "hey, it's against any code to be stealing *anyway* so the MJ plants next
door isn't an issue!" Phooey!)

If and when (mostly *if*) our democratic society decides pot is OK, then I'll
think it OK for the neighbors to be growing pot. (And, no, I don't think it's a
human rights issue or anything like that where'd I'd overrule my whole fellow
citizenry).

As to the line regarding whether or not to be calling the cops, frankly I leave
that for egregious and impactful problems that don't have other solutions (and I
think your 'call the cops or leave it totally alone is a false dilemma). But I
don't have to foster and condone stuff either. I put the MJ growing in a grey
area where I woudln't call the cops unless I needed to, but I would expect the
neighbors have the decency not to put it under my nose. Having it in hte
backyard damn well risks that it be reported, they damn well know it, and my
talking about it to them should be greeted with the knowledge that I am *not* at
the moment turning them in.

Banty


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