Paying off a child's drug debt

[freepath01]

I have a son who is 17 and I recently discovered that he owes €850 to a dealer.

It all started when he was prescribed ADHD meds a year ago. He was taking dexamphetamine prescribed by a psychiatrist . Unfortunately for him, he liked the effects and it became gateway drug to other illegal/pharmaceutical drugs.

He told us that he felt he was old enough to manage his medicine and we trusted him to take it/manage it himself. In reality, he was actually selling most or all of the pills in school in exchange for money to buy vapes, cannabis, and alcohol.

Myself and my husband were none the wiser until two weeks ago when I was buying something on a local website for selling used stuff and noticed that a user near our area had sold a Curry's gift card and an Apple watch which were the exact same gifts that we had given him for his birthday. I confronted him about this and he confessed to selling the gifts and his medications for drugs.

I wish I could say that's the worst of it but he also admitted that he lost some drugs given to him to sell. He goes to a youth group on the weekends and there was a sketchy lad the same age as him who handed him unused pills of morphine and oxycodone after his grandfather died from cancer to sell to other students/anyone he knew. He lost the pills while walking home. There were 100s of pills in a bag which were worth probably close to €1,000.

The lad told him very bluntly that if he didn't get the money or pill backs, he'd have to pay it back or else. What should I do? Should we pay or go to the police? My husband says we shouldn't pay and shop him to the police but my son says that this lad he knows is friends with some scumbag teenagers who would be the type to be involved in hardcore drug dealing/joyriding and might hurt him or our house if we reported it.

@freepath01 Unfortunately for him, he liked the effects

Not the point of the thread and I’m so sorry for your experiences. However, the diagnosis of ADHD includes a paradoxical response to medication and is based on a negative ie if he could actually feel the effects of dexamphetamine in terms of experiencing a high, which is a stimulant, then he’s not ADHD. Due to this, the response is typically carefully monitored by the prescribing psychiatrist right from the beginning. Someone with ADHD is not stimulated or gets high but rather slows down and feels calmer and able to focus.

Precisely! I dread to think how many tens or hundreds of thousands of NHS £ are wasted this way 🤬

Do NOT give him money. He's lying to you. He's been lying to you. He's an addict and he will say anything to get you to give him money.

I'm so sorry.

I work in this field and I also agree
They would sell their granny to get the hit they need

I hope you get the support and help you need OP - your own GP might be able to give you some resources

FGS! Be his parent. Get him out of there. Move him to his GP’s or an aunt’s in the middle of nowhere. Send him to a voluntary project abroad. Don’t pay anyone anything or you’ll forever be a target. Help him disappear for a while for his own safety!

Please MOVE or send him to live with family away from this chaos. Speaking from experience, it will only get worse. A very close person got mixed up with the wrong people, stole anything and everything and caused us so much hurt until he got killed by a rival group. GET HIM AWAY! I can't shout loud enough.

I actually agree with this.
We had a plan that if any of our DC got into this sort of mess, we would up sticks and move to family abroad. Not so easy since Brexit though.

Regarding the ‘lost drugs’, it could be true. It’s a common tactic that they give fewer than they say they do, so when the dealer comes back they’re short & therefore ‘owe’ money. Then they have to keep working.
Personally, I’d march him to the police. You’re in over your head here.

Lost them walking home, aka, 'The dog ate my homework'.

A grand's worth of Oxy is going to be a significant number of pills in bottles/a bulky package. Not the kind of thing that could fall out of your pocket/bag without you realising. Especially as drug users/dealers are really careful with their drugs.

In my (practical) experience, there are a few possibilities here.

• He's lying, doesn't owe anyone money but wants/needs money for drugs. It's a common lie, I've heard versions of it many times. Most parents will do anything to keep their child safe, so he's betting that you'll pay up if you think he's in danger.

• He's been given drugs to hold/sell and he's taken them himself, so he does owe the money.

• He's sold drugs that he's got on tick (credit) and spent the money.

• He's a genuine wally and has actually dropped a grand's worth of pills.

Ignore all the comments from people who've watched Top Boy... actual drug operations stay active by making as little noise as possible, they're not going to start blowing relatives' cars up in their driveways over a few hundred quid.

With that said - assuming he does owe this kid - you say the kid got these pills from a family member and has dodgy mates, not that he owes an actual firm money. I'd say if anything, that'd make it more likely that they'd bring hassle to your doorstep over it. Or they might be all talk.

One thing is for sure, if you keep bailing your son out, he'll keep getting him in trouble.

Would him getting a bit of a hiding and presumably then being ostracized from these people be such a bad thing? Might be just what he needs?

If you take the prescription, your medical record demonstrates your suffering for the purpose of claiming PIP etc. Not by any means saying this applies to the poster above - they can answer for themselves. But, people do it.

More likely that he was given the drugs and then “jumped” on the way home. Common tactic by dealers.

So did he lose them or never actually left with them? Typical county lines technique- get them in debt and they need to work it back but the amount goes up and more drugs go missing…
pack up and go - get him away from the area and change his number etc as this will never end and his and your lives will be ruined

Talking from personal experience… you need to call the police, you may be saving your son’s life. Nothing good will happen otherwise

Update security and change locks at home. I’ve heard of situations where door keys were taken as a deposit for payments owed to dealers. Don’t believe anything your son says. The story will change and grow each time he’s backed into a corner, it is far worse than what you already know about. Get the dealer paid off unless you’re planning on moving. Do you have a plan in place for your son? Not just in terms of the drug addiction. He’s going to have to change his entire friendship group. He will only be hanging around with other people who do drugs at this point. Getting a teenager to give up his friends is damn near impossible and he needs to understand that it’s necessary. He also needs to understand that paying off the dealer is a one time dealer and any future situations and he’s out of the house as he doesn’t get to put you in danger. Do you have other children at home?

What a nightmare OP. My friends son was similar and they ended up getting all their windows smashed in one night.

This was my brother. He racked up debts left and right. He'd take out store cards and let other people buy stuff and take the money and never pay them off. He'd run up phone bills with every company, always asking parents for money, parent having to deal with debt collectors and phone calls from companies multiple times every day. Don't underestimate the roll it will take on your family. My parents bailed him out constantly. He's now 45 and living at home.
DH got involved with some 'bad lads' and his parents sent him away for the summer to get him away. By the time he returned they'd moved on and some were in prison.
If you do pay the money have a plan to distance him from this lifestyle and sort himself out.

His story is a load of shit. Yes he is probably using but the story about losing the pills is complete BS. Never pay for anyone's drugs whatever bullshit they tell you. Contact your local social work team re criminal exploitation for advice, and to share the information he told you. Also refer him to your local youth substance misuse service (they are often better than the adult services). There's a possibility he can stop this now but you might have to get him away from everyone he knows as PP have said.

Moving to the other side of the country is the standard advice for a family with a child involved in county lines.

OP, my Dsis had the same issue with her youngest son, let’s call him James, between ages of 17-20. He’s now in prison. It started with prescription meds then cannabis, dealing and using and he got into debt with a local dealer to the tune of £1500. Dsis is a single parent (her ex was abusive), & she couldn’t afford the debt and the gang issued threats towards all family and friends (including our elderly parents). They said they would randomly turn up at the house and break visitor’s cars and attack them if the money wasn’t paid back. She went to the police and they took James into custody for dealing.

They arrested a few of the gang members and James was sentenced to 12 months in prison as he had class a drugs in the house. Dsis’ neighbours complained to the police that they didn’t feel safe as James had brought crime to the street and wouldn’t speak to Dsis again.
She eventually sold her house and moved. James is now 18 and Dsis doesn’t want him back when he leaves prison. Her older son aged 23 lives with her and has nothing to do with James either.

Devil's Advocate - If he does owe people money and they're serious about hurting him over a grand, they'll be willing to do the same or worse if they think he's going to give statements to the police about them (assuming he actually knows anything that would help the police).

If OP is going to go down that route, she should get him out of the area first.

Move him away. Do not pay anybody anything.
Ten times this if you have other children.
Do NOT throw the family under the bus for your addict son.

The last paragraph is the one you have to heed the most if you do not want years of sufferation in front of you.
This should be YOUR rock bottom.
Accepting that means that you will have to confront the fact that this probably is not your son's rock bottom.

This is one of those situations where it is best to learn from the mistakes of other parents of drug addicts instead of making your own because you think that your addict son hasn't got a " junkie" mentality.

People are clearly jumping to conclusions and didn't read my updates. Usual MN behaviour

Yup, this!

OP, is it likely your son lied to obtain an ADHD prescription?

I hope you are reading all these messages, OP.

Best advice here IMHO: 1. move the family asap if you can. If not, send him away. 2. Get his ADHD diagnosis reassessed.

My son takes dexamphetamine for ADHD. He definitely wasn't getting high or addicted and takes the minimum. He used to take it for math classes and sitting exams. He never took it on school holidays or in the weekends. I am probably ADHD too although as a female it wasn't diagnosed much when I was young. I tried one tablet once and it was the opposite of a high. If somebody is getting high I suspect they're not really ADHD. Could he have made up something to get the dexamphetamine in the first place? Dexamphetamine got my son through high school and a university degree so I don't like to see a useful drug demonized.