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Addict jailed for baby son's OD...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Addict jailed for baby's drug overdose.
So this is justice? A year in jail for each year that the little boy was alive? :no:
So this is justice? A year in jail for each year that the little boy was alive? :no:
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Should be murder, not manslaughter.
killed her baby son by giving him a methadone overdose
THAT speaks for itself. Junkie - shit parent. Gave child methadone to keep him quiet. Child dies. Whoops-a-daisy.
She probably didn't mean to kill him, but surely anyone with common sense could see that this could possibly kill the baby or at least do some serious harm to him...
Thats child abuse and makes me feel sick. poor baby.
Poor baby.
Errrrm...not all people with heroin habits are shit parents.
Plenty of GP's advise parents to give children cough medicine if their children can't sleep. It's not a huge difference.
Obviously what this woman did was very wrong, but without any information about her circumstances, we can't judge. People in desperate circumstances can often do very silly things. Comments like "junkie = shit parent" and "fucking junkies" reveal far more about the posters attitude to people with drug problems than they say about this case. I expected better of some people tbh.
I WOULD say that most junkies are likely to be shit parents, just like theyre likely to be shit partners too. Heroin becomes the first love. Ive seen it happen. They love their kids but they love heroin more. In the past ive thought that they loved their kid and that was enough and they shouldnt have had the child removed, but now im older and a parent myself Its just so obvious how neglected physically their children were. I hope thats not always the case, but it has been what ive seen
You may think i have a bad attitude to people with drug problems, and in general id say im very tolerant. I believe in freedom to take whatever the hell someone wants to take, but when children are involved, I think differently. I think its near on impossible to be a good parent and a drug addict at the same time, and known drug addicts should be closely monitored if they have children at the very least. Its just outrageous and so sad that this baby had to die of a bloody methdone overdose, and no, I dont feel sorry for the mother, despite her desperate circumstances.
I know my post is crap and using anecdotal stuff, but i hope you get the jist.
Im not sheltered about this sort of thing, and im sure theres more to the case than meets the eye etc etc
It seems to be common practice. I was having a discussion about it in the office the other day. My mum's GP advised her to give us a cough medicine that contains an anti-histamine if we couldn't sleep (Fennegan?). A couple of other people in the office had been advised by their GP's to do the same thing with their kids.
Of course heroin addicts aren't going to be perfect parents. Yes, heroin comes first before other relationships. However, you seem to have this "heroin addict = evil" attitude which, tbh, surprises me. Plenty of people can be bad parents for all sorts of reasons, to autmoatically assume that drug addicts are "shit parents" is bigotry and prejudice and I'm surprised you come out with such crap tbh.
Maybe im just too fussy about what I think makes a good parent. I guess if someone can manage to keep their drug taking totally seperate from their parenting, away from the children, and keep the risks to their children from their drugs or lifestyle completely minimal, and keep a clear enough head that theyd stick to that then thats fine. Ive never met an addict parent thats managed that though, or even heard of one, and by addict i dont just mean to heroin, it could be any drug, or alcohol or even gambling. Street drugs seem to be more likely to be associated with a chaotic lifestyle though, and you cant deny that that would be bad for any child.
As for Heroin = shit parents, it does, its the same with anything, if you choose something before your child and would rather leave him/her crying while shooting up or even playing a video game, YOUR a shit parent.
:yes:
I've never heard of this. If a parent was to do this to their child long term, wouldn't it do some sort damage to them?
In my mind there's a difference between heroin addicts and junkies. Not all heroin addicts are junkies but all junkies are heroin addicts.
I do know of someone who is a heroin addict that looks after her children fine. They're always well turned out, well fed, happy and she never shoots up while they are around. Junkies are the scum that used to sit, passed out in my close while their baby screamed her head off in the buggy or let her crawl around the close floor that was covered in needles and regularly used as a toilet.
If she couldn't handle her baby being awake he should have been taken away from her. Listening to a baby scream all night isn't fun but there are other ways to comfort them than knocking them out with drugs. She knew the concequenses...saying she never meant to kill him is all well and good but tell that to the little boy who was drugged up every night because all he wanted was some love from his mother!
:yes:
Not as normal, but in extreme cases...
Hang on a second here. Being off your face on mind bending chemicals is not bad parenting?
Please explain.
You might also be good enough to explain the nature of addiction (i.e. my needs first) and how this is condusive to good parenting - especially when that addiction is related to chemical which affact your ability to think "straight".
NB You will note that I have not restricted my comments to herion or any other "illegal" substance.
There is a huge fucking difference between giving your child a small amount of cough medicine, which has an active ingredient of paracetemol (which I take sometimes to help me sleep) and giving them opium derivatives. A child not sleeping and crying a lot is not a "desperate circumstance", and only a shit parent would give their child something like methadone in order to shut them up.
I bet your next argument is going to be along the lines of "if it doesn't say it isn't safe for consumption by a person under 6 then surely it isn't her fault".
Any rational thinking person will realise that something they are taking to wean them off a serious drug addiction isn't really going to be the same as giving a baby a wee nip of cough syrup.
Even if she was going to jump out the window, drugs isn't reasonable.
I didn't say it was a small difference. My point is that parents give children medicine to help them sleep, always have done, always will. Now obviously giving a child methadone is really fucking stupid, but parents do irrational stupid things when tired and desperate.
Not desperate? Maybe she had post-natal depression, maybe she hadn't slept for months, she obviously had lots of other problems (she was a heroin addict). Yes, she was very stupid, however I feel that people are being extremely judgemental here because they see the evil word "heroin".
Don't be a prick.
Yes, she obviously wasn't thinking rationally. People don't when tired and desperate and possibly depressed.
Someone stable on a methadone script isn't off their face on mind bending chemicals.
Yes, addiction is "me first", but plenty of parents are "me first" without addiction.
As I just said, people are seeing the bogey man "heroin addict" here and baying for a witch burning.