19 years old on pot and selling!!! What should we do? (parent, son)
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Please don't listen to the wackos on this board who don't know you or your child. Put yourself in his shoes for a moment a good paying job fresh out of high school is $10 dollars an hour thats about 24k per year before taxes then you take another 16% for taxes and he is left just 20k per year to live on. Ill pretend for a moment that he will be able to find roommates and his monthly rent will only be $350/month not including utilities another 150/month then he has to feed himself 200/month car insurance is another 50/month does he have a phone cause theres another 50/month does he have to drive to work 400/month for fuel thats a total of 1200/month in base expenses or 14400/per year of his 20k take home.
This gives your naive child only 5600 dollars a year to make mistakes and this assumes he can land a $10/hour job and has roommate to split the cost of rent.
So your kid isn't mr. perfect but you brought him into this world and you are responsible for him regardless of his age.
30 percent of americans have used cannabis thats about 100 million of us. I am sure some of your good friends do as well be reasonable do not quit supporting your child over a green bush that encourages people to eat cheetos.
BS!!!!
Their "child" is a GROWN MAN. If he wants to live in their house, he needs to abide by THEIR RULES. Period. PERIOD.
They are paying the bills, not him. If they say, "Around here, we all dress in tuxedos and prom dresses for dinner," and he wants to live there - then he dresses in a tuxedo (or, a prom dress if he wants to be radical!).
When he's paying his own way, he can run his own household. Until then, as long as they aren't requiring him to do anything illegal, they get to make the rules.
So far as I see, the only rules they've tried to lay down are "Don't smoke weed in our house" and "Don't sell weed on our property." Perfectly reasonable. What - he can't manage NOT to do those two things?
He clearly has zero respect for the rights of others.
So your kid isn't mr. perfect but you brought him into this world and you are responsible for him regardless of his age.
I have a problem with this statement. Dealing drugs is illegal. A parent does not have an unlimited responsibility to allow and adult offspring to live at home regardless of his activities.
I have a problem with this statement. Dealing drugs is illegal. A parent does not have an unlimited responsibility to allow and adult offspring to live at home regardless of his activities.
No legal responsibility.
Moral responsibility never ends.
No reason a child shouldn't be allowed to stay at home as long as the child is meeting their adult responsibilities (job, college, whatever). Though, admittedly, many children want out as soon as possible.
Also never understood the cultural phenomenon of kicking out your children. I understand encouraging, helping them and preparing them to leave but forcing them? No way...
Of course, selling and using drugs gets you kicked out posthaste.
If you don't throw him out or call the cops, have fun dealing with this until your home is raided for drugs and you're all taken away in cuffs or your son owes money and his dealer comes after him, or his burnout customers don't have any money but knows that he has the stash in his house.
You know that there are drugs in your home. If you do not act on that in some way, you could be arrested. Or in danger.
I second finding an Al-Anon or better an Al-Ateen meeting ASAP.
Al-Ateen is for teens who have family who are addicts, not for parents of teens.
I guess a support group of some kind could be useful for the parents for support and advice. However, I think it's important to note that the 19-year old son is most likely NOT an addict and should not be dealt with as if that's the case. Contrary to popular belief any use of an illegal substance does not equal addiction just like any use of alcohol does not equal alcoholism.
To me this sounds like a typical pothead teenager who does not need to be enabled to be lazy. If he has to take care of himself and support himself he will. He may couch surf for a while but sooner or later he'll mature and get his act together. I would suggest that the parents give the son a date to be out of the house - two-three months should be enough - and then stick to it. If he is stepping up, getting a job and looking for a place by all means help him if you can. It's a lot to save up for first months rent, security deposit, and everything you need for an apartment and in my opinion it's a parent's job to help with that to the extent that they can, financially, emotionally and practically. But if the son isn't willing to help himself taking care of all that for him would harm him more than help him. Don't throw him to the wolves but don't pamper him either. Allowing him to stay home, making his money by selling pot and not being responsible is not helping him.
Why not print out some apartment ads for places he could afford, sit him down calmly without being confrontational and tell him that you think he would benefit from getting his own place, show him the ads and engage him in finding an apartment. Sit down and figure out how much money he has to come up with and work with him to come up with a plan on how he can do that. Make it a cooperation and present it as a good thing rather than give him an ultimatum and tell him he's getting kicked out. If he refuses to cooperate and help himself it may have to come down to a confrontation, maybe even with help from the police when moving day comes around, but that should be a last resort, imo.
Al-Ateen is for teens who have family who are addicts, not for parents of teens.
I guess a support group of some kind could be useful for the parents for support and advice. However, I think it's important to note that the 19-year old son is most likely NOT an addict and should not be dealt with as if that's the case. Contrary to popular belief any use of an illegal substance does not equal addiction just like any use of alcohol does not equal alcoholism.
To me this sounds like a typical pothead teenager who does not need to be enabled to be lazy. If he has to take care of himself and support himself he will. He may couch surf for a while but sooner or later he'll mature and get his act together. I would suggest that the parents give the son a date to be out of the house - two-three months should be enough - and then stick to it. If he is stepping up, getting a job and looking for a place by all means help him if you can. It's a lot to save up for first months rent, security deposit, and everything you need for an apartment and in my opinion it's a parent's job to help with that to the extent that they can, financially, emotionally and practically. But if the son isn't willing to help himself taking care of all that for him would harm him more than help him. Don't throw him to the wolves but don't pamper him either. Allowing him to stay home, making his money by selling pot and not being responsible is not helping him.
Why not print out some apartment ads for places he could afford, sit him down calmly without being confrontational and tell him that you think he would benefit from getting his own place, show him the ads and engage him in finding an apartment. Sit down and figure out how much money he has to come up with and work with him to come up with a plan on how he can do that. Make it a cooperation and present it as a good thing rather than give him an ultimatum and tell him he's getting kicked out. If he refuses to cooperate and help himself it may have to come down to a confrontation, maybe even with help from the police when moving day comes around, but that should be a last resort, imo.
My point was they would both provide resources and contacts.
You seem to be missing the bigger problem here, this guys is selling, not just smoking.
Location: A Very Naughtytown In Northwestern Montanifornia U.S.A.
1,088 posts, read 1,951,103 times
Reputation: 1986
He is going to get you thrown in jail because you just posted on a public forum that he is dealing out of your house. He is in the eyes of the law an adult. That makes you allegedly guilty of aiding and harboring a criminal. You just posted the evidence that can easily convict you.
If I were you I would call the police and turn him in as soon as you can before they take you to jail.
The genie is out of the bottle now.
If your parents stood by you ,you need to stand by him.. He is only a kid and the pot thing will become less inportant as he gets older. You will be glad you did. Its not the same thing as him using crystal meth or heroin ....Be supportive to the kid. I would not however let him sell his weed from your house..This would be showing too much disrespect to you and can get you in trouble.
We have a 19 year old barely graduated High School. Got himself involved with the wrong kids and now he is not only smoking pot he is selling it. We have given him more than enough time to get his life started, but the outlook he has on life is absolutely ridiculous. We are filled with so much disappointment, sadness and shame that we don't know what to do anymore.
We took his car away recently because he got in an accident and we are paying for the car. Now we have that mess to deal with on top of everything else. We have given him more than we should have and also gave him many of time restraints, but none of it matters. When we tell him to go out and find an honest paying job he says "What is an honest paying job" We don't blame ourselves for the way he gone in life. Or at least we are not trying to. We keep telling ourselves he picked this path to walk down, we did not choose it for him.
Now our dilemma is getting him out. We just can't see it or do anything for him anymore. We just want him out of the house as long as he is involved in this behavior, but I cannot get into a physical confrontation with him. I have had two back surgery's and cannot afford to be out of work because of a conflict with him.
My wife and I were never into this kind of stuff when we were his age, so we are just lost. I don't want to call the cops on him I don't know if I can live with that, but we already bailed him out once while he was still in high school on a charge that is still pending.
I know most of you will say throw him out, but I just thought I'd ask.
Well, he's selling pot because it's easy money.
Find another way for him to make money, entice him with the numbers/girls that come with a job in another type of sales, which he's already experienced in, and he may eventually shift away from it.
The thing is, selling pot is very low risk and high reward. You need to find something that rewards him more with less risk in order to convince him to stop. Tell him that if he wants to sell pot, that he has to get his own place and you'll still love him but you wont support him in any way financially.
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