child exposed to weed

[GreeneQueen]

How can I help a child who is being exposed to weed on a regular basis.
I do my daily walk in the park and on several occasions I saw a boy about 5 yo with a male carer (?father) and a dog (dangerous breed type). The father always smokes a joint which I can smell from the distance. It leaves me outraged every time and my instinct is to want to protect the child but im not sure how to go about that. do i report to SS with the little info i can provide to identify them? or am i being altogether silly to think this can be helped?

he is rather brazen to be strolling along with a joint! Is this a very remote walk?

If you report it, even if you knew the man's name and address, nothing will be done.

When you say a dangerous breed… do you mean a banned breed?

A park is quite restrained these days. The man infront of me in Lidl car park this lunchtime had one on the go. Its everywhere.

At least he's smoking outside not in a small room where the child would get a share.

I have absolutely no problem with smoking weed but a huge problem with smoking anything around kids. Unfortunately social services don’t view this as a major issue for the most part and would be very unlikely to do anything.

Not brazen at all where I live. Regular, almost overlooked behaviour rather.

So squat all to be gained by reporting

Social services aren’t likely to be able to take action here. Smoking weed on a walk is on the lower level of “not ideal parenting”, and it’s not their place to step in over whether a dog is a banned breed or not. They also simply don’t have anywhere near the resources they need for serious caseloads, they can’t come out to hang around the park in hope of seeing this family.

Depends if you know the other parent. I had an au pair who took my kids to the park. A neighbour saw her smoking weed and told me. I was very grateful and sacked the au pair.

It's everywhere and it stinks. Ppl can do what they like...give themselves brain tumours....give themselves schizophrenia....I dont give but other people having to involuntarily breath in that shit really annoys me. My ex neighbour used to smoke it and it crept inyo the cortifors and under other ppls doors until we were all forced to smell it. I think thete should be a law tthat you csn smoke it do long as nobody csn smell ot who doesnt want yo smell it. Otherwise you are not a peaceful hoppie for smoking it but actuslly you are a fascist pig for imposing.the stench on others.

Fascist?

Omg this is awful!!

This just doesn’t bother me. The parents I know who smoke weed are some of the kindest most attuned parents I know. They play and are relaxed around their children, it’s not scary or harmful for them in any way. I would say the opposite about the parents I know who drink heavily. Heavy drinking seems to often lead to violent arguments and scary situations.

I probably wouldn’t do anything about this unless there was other worrying behaviour. I don’t think walking around with a spliff is unusual, I remember in 2000 walking around Alton Towers with a group of friends who were all doing weed- really surprised they didn’t kick us out of there!! It was a work trip too- but guess times have mostly changed.

I bet they’re relaxed!

They don't view it as a major issue because it's not one. Smoking a joint whilst outside with a child isn't causing the child significant harm so it's not going to meet the remit for social services intervention. In the UK parents have the right in law to parent how they choose even if those choices are less than optimal for their children. State intervention is not permitted for low level neglectful behaviour, which arguably smoking a joint might be (but then again it might not)

My guess… there’s more to this

There are a lot of misconceptions here. It's not that social services don't care - but they can only intervene where there is evidence that the drug use is impairing the person's parenting capacity, and where that impaired parenting capacity is having a detrimental effect on the child.

If they get a report like this (presuming the child's name or some other identifying information is shared) they will do checks with the child's GP/ health visitor, school and other agencies working with them. If they come back and say "well actually little Bobby did miss a follow up appointment after his recent chest infection, and his immunisations aren't up to date" and school says "they're great kids but they're often late, and we've had to signpost parents to the food bank more than once.." then that would require more action. But sadly the state just doesn't have the resources to intervene in every single family where a parent smokes cannabis.

It's not a case of sadly they don't have the resources. It's to do with thresholds for intervention. We have article 8 rights in this country and we have the right to live and parent as we choose without interference from the state unless children are experiencing significant harm. Parents smoking weed by itself is not that.

plenty smoke it up to the gates on the school run round here!

I doubt there is any point reporting anything. It’s exceedingly common! The only time it might be picked up on is if there are multiple other concerns involving the family in which case I’d imagine ss/school are aware anyway

Yeah, I think it is fascistic behaviour to inflict something horrible on other ppl if they dont want it. Having to sit in a room and breath in that smell when you really dont want to just because someone else does want to smoke seems deeply unfair to me. It's imposing something on someone against their will. I think there should be designated places you can smoke it. It's so pungent. Why should someone have to have that stench hang around for hours in their private space just because someone else wants to do what they want to do. It's because the poster said it's everywhere now that I'm saying this.. IT IS everywhere. I think inflicting the smell on others should be illegal. Smoke it til you go blue in the face. I dont give a flying . But dont contaminate someone else's air.

It's illegal.