View from the cop: Crime & punishment
View from the Cop is moving to a new site on Wordpress. Blogger Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs Police Department gives his take on crime, offers safety tips and give his weekly picks from the police blotter. Follow Steve Rose to the new blog site.
AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > February > 16
Friday, February 16, 2007
Helping your children to outlive you
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve told my kids, a number of times, that I don’t want to outlive them. They told me many times that they hoped I didn’t either. I’m not sure what that means.
All parents are the same way. We llive our lives in a very imperfect world, raise families, pass along the torch, critique them as they raise their families, and go into retirement, enjoy grandchildren, and the “Early Bird” special at the local cafeteria every Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
I want my children to outlive me because that is the way it is supposed to be. Hopefully we all will live a long lives and pass on as an old person who gave back to his or her family in the form of wisdom. In my case, incoherent babbling. All the same, we hope that we will live as long as we were expected to.
That isn’t always the case as we see every day on television and in the papers. And very few of us have not, at least once, passed a horrific car accident resulting in one or two fatalities, looked at it, wondered who was involved and what happened to them. How long did you think about it before your life went back into its regular routine?
That’s normal, it’s a busy world and things happen. You get conditioned to it and insulated from it, at least mentally.
Most men and women in public safety see so much of it that it that an event conjures up very little emotional response. I have worked around homicides, suicides, natural deaths, car wrecks, plane wrecks, deaths from alcohol, drugs, guns, knives, scissors, shovels, ropes, animals, asphyxiation from carbon monoxide, oxygen deprivation during sex asphyxiation, heart failure during sex, screwdriver in the ear during sex, wife finding out about sex, and so on. Most police officers are called into someone’s life or the end result of it, once or twice a week. It’s like a movie. You turn it off when you leave. That’s the plan. It’s a good defense mechanism. We didn’t know the guy so we’re not grieving for him.
The first change comes when you have kids. Anytime you work a death or serious traumatic event involving children, you automatically associate it with your own children. It becomes a bit more personal and you tend to leave more of yourself behind each time. The victim and victim’s family now remains in your thoughts longer.
As you get years of experience under your belt you tend to examine these events a little closer. What control does a young person have who was hit by an out of control car on I-285? Some people say it was their time. How could they prevent it? They simply had no control over that event. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
But what if it were someone who didn’t have to die, who didn’t intend to die but unknowingly drove their life right over the edge of the cliff?
We are so bombarded with drug information and alcohol information that it really is hard to sort it out. As we learn more, we tweak that information so that we can do everything possible to prevent drug abuse. If you ask a parent to name what drugs they would consider that are available to kids, they would name alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and maybe crack and methamphetamine.
What about inhalants? Something that has been around but not really on the front burner of prevention information is inhalant abuse. Inhalant use is widespread across the U.S. The primary user is an adolescent and the drugs of choice are often common household products. The term used for it is ‘huffing.’ The effects are commonly euphoric.
Volatile solvents are liquids that vaporize at room temperature if left in unsealed containers. Paint thinner, gasoline, correction fluid, felt tip markers, nail polish and remover, and glue (such as rubber cement) all contain volatile solvents.
Aerosols are sprays that contain propellants and solvents. Paint, hair products, cooking products are examples.
Gasses are substances that lack definite shape or volume such as refrigerants and medical anesthetics. Abusers frequently inhale gasses found in butane lighters, air conditioning units and propane tanks. Medical anesthetics such as ether, chloroform, and nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is abused more often that the other gasses.
Nitrites are a group of chemicals including Cyclohexyl nitrite, amyl nitrite, and butyl nitrite. Nitrites are mainly used to enhance sexual experiences rather that to achieve euphoric effect. Amyl nitrite comes in small capsules sometimes known as ‘poppers.’
These products breathed in. Inhaling and sniffing, known as “pulling air” from open containers or rags, soaked in the fluid are common. The most dangerous form of this is ‘bagging’ which is exactly what it sounds like. The fluid or gas in put in the bag. The user then puts the bag over his or her mouth and nose or in some cases the bag is placed over the person’s head. Passing out could be fatal. It has been fatal.
When I was in high school, shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, I distinctly remember kids doing deodorant spray. They would take a toilet paper cardboard roll, place a tissue over the top, and spray the deodorant up through the bottom of the roll and through the tissue and inhale it to get high.
I am quite sure that many of you remember someone or know stories of kids who snorted some ridiculous product into their heads without the slightest thought of their consequences.
The best thing you can do is read up on this and any other form of drug abuse you may hear of around your kids, their friends, and the talk around school. Read and research and stay in touch with your kids. Drugs have warning symptoms and serious mood changes and depression have symptoms.
It’s a crazy, busy world but stop and take a long look. Make sure you know and they know that this form of getting high is deadly and don’t think that this happens in other places. It happened right here this past week.
Services »
