DOPE
by Dan Savage
May 16, 2002
After a teenager in Covington, Washington,
turned his father in for growing marijuana, local TV news reporters
and daily newspapers fell all over themselves calling him a hero.
Was I the only pot-smoking parent who was horrified?
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Karen O'Leary
does sanctimonious piety better than anyone else in local television
news--and that's saying something. As a group, TV news reporters
excel at sanctimonious piety, especially when a story involves
drugs. Last week O'Leary, a.k.a. Our Lady of the Pursed Lips,
reported on "a drug bust turned into a family affair."
Aaron Palmer of Covington, Washington, was turned in to the police
by his 17-year-old son for growing pot in his garage.
"Neighbors say the kid is responsible
and hardworking, a member of the ROTC program," the scowling
O'Leary intoned at the beginning of KIRO's coverage. Palmer was
arrested late Tuesday night, and O'Leary was on the air Thursday
with an exclusive interview with Trevor, "[who] told me about
his gut-wrenching decision and the fallout from it."
Cut to Trevor, the busted dad's clean-cut
17-year-old son. Trevor showed O'Leary and her camera crew around
his father's garage, the spot where his father was allegedly growing
pot.
"It's messed-up," Trevor said,
complaining about the King County cops who busted his father,
tearing his house apart in the process. "They trashed it
too thrashed."
Apparently no one warned Trevor that cops
called out on a drug bust don't tiptoe through the grow room,
or any other room in a suspect's house. Like all kids his age
in Covington, Trevor is likely to be a "graduate" of
Drug Awareness Resistance Education (DARE), a class taught by
smiling uniformed police officers. In DARE classes, cops tell
kids that marijuana destroys lives, people who smoke marijuana
need help, and cops are the good guys who can provide that help.
DARE doesn't warn kids that calling the police on their own parents--as
DARE graduates all over the country have done--can result in their
homes being torn apart.
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