It need not be either-or.

The guy who made the drugs is guilty. The guy who sold the drugs to kids is guilty. But parents who failed to warn kids about drugs and to oversee them properly are also guilty...

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gusgus01 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Generally in an article about arresting or sentencing a drug dealer, people don't bring up that the drug users are actually to blame.

Now if we're in a discussion around the cartels, plenty of people do bring up (and there's also those that get annoyed by it) that the drug users are actually the ones funding the cartels via their drug use.

Along these lines, I think another fun comparison might be opioid use and Purdue.

	▲	dmitrygr an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think that that is actually an oversight. One needs to consider the entire chain. For example, with proper parenting, there would be a lot less youth demand for drugs. It doesn’t make what a drug dealer does any less bad, nor does it make the efforts of the police to arrest the drug dealer any less important. But it’s suboptimal to consider a small piece of a system, without thinking of the whole.

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psychoslave 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So is the judicial system that is not making this illegal or don't enforce laws to prevent people targeting kids to create early dependence on drugs.

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dmitrygr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That is a fair point, I did not attempt to make a complete list, of course, but you are right, there are more layers that could be named. All valid. The point I was making is that parents are also responsible.

eg: I grew up in a very nasty place. My neighborhood had a few pregnant 13 year old girls and a lot of drunks and smokers, including kids in their early teens. My parents kept me away from it all, while also both having full-time jobs. They put a lot of work into filtering whom I could be friends with and where I was allowed to be. THAT is the job of a parent.

	▲	macintux an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I agree it's the job of a parent, but two parents (and with only a single job each) is sadly not the norm in many challenging environments.