A Job That Government Needs To Do

I was reluctant to say anything about this, but since my daughter is blogging about it, I'll link to what she has to say. As part of her MSW program, she has to intern in various facilities at what is called practicum:

I started my new practicum today with teens and it was definitely emotionally exhausting. Kids are ALWAYS hard to work with (in my opinion) compared to adults. They have some advantages: they often lack a long laundry list of financial and legal troubles, and there is hope that you can direct them to be healthy adults. But it is still hard seeing kids so young in so much pain. 14-year-olds should not be meth addicts. 15-year-olds should not be prostituted out to support parents' drug habits. 13-year-olds should not be pregnant. Kids are not KIDS anymore and seeing your ideal of what teenagers SHOULD be like shattered is depressing.

She's told me even more over dinner (which I won't go into detail about here), and it both enrages me and sorrows me what incredibly screwed up homes a lot of kids are coming from around here. And the bad news is: I think Idaho may be better off than a lot of other places in America.

I am very pleased with what I have seen of the meth commercials that Idaho is now running on television and radio. They are hard hitting, and from what I know of the destructive effects of it, accurate and not overblown. This is certainly a valuable activity, to the extent that it causes at least some people to pause for a second before deciding to start meth.

But there are some problems that simply can't be fixed by persuasion. They require the coercion of the state. Children should not be starting to use meth before they are old enough to understand what it is, just because the parents encourage them to do meth with them.