Nephews drug debt

[Smarties88]

My Nephew is 16, lives with my Dad and I've recently moved in to care for Dad. He admitted yesterday he owes 2k in drug debt & the dealer has said he is going to come to the house. Nephew's Dad asked him to move out last year after he got involved with some dodgy people & his car was set on fire. He now has no contact with his Dad and Dad has blocked him on social media. My Dad said he could live here but grounded him. It turns out he has been lying about attending college & taking coke at his mate's house.
I'm unsure if I should go to the Police or help my Nephew pay back the debt. I can't afford it all but we could get 1k between us. Nephew is going to the GP for help. Dad is very vulnerable & suffers from paranoia, delusions & hallucinations so I haven't told him what's going on yet but know I need to do this asap. I don't know what to do for the best. Should I go to the Police, contribute towards paying back the debt, ask Nephew to move out & pay a deposit for the halls at his college or pay for private addiction support for him? Has anyone else been in this situation?

How bad is his addiction? Is it only coke or anything else. The dealers have to be paid, even if police are involved their want their money and will put charges on it. The police will do very little as at the moment a crime isn't taking place. Not saying they won't want to help, just not sure how they can

Oh God! What a horrible situation.
If having his car set on fire taught him nothing then what will paying his debt and wiping the slate clean for him achieve, will he just run up another debt and another and another?
I had a similar situation, and it cost me a months mortgage payment, but lesson was learned-thankfully! It still fills me with terror what could have happened.
He definitely needs some sort of help. Do you feel he’s hit rock bottom and actually wants to stop drugs?

You need to urgently contact social care, he's 16 and they can support him/you with this. Just ring your local children's centre and they will take it from there.
I would also contact the police for advice. The fact that his previous address was targeted is a real worry and he is living with someone vulnerable.

Thanks for your replies. He does occasionally smoke weed but he said this debt is all coke. I don't think he does want to stop! He didn't phone the GP as he was too tired! I've reported him as a vulnerable young person to Social Work. Dad's asked him to move out with two months notice so I'm hoping Social Work can help him get a hostel place as he won't be able to afford rent with his weekend job! Dad's very distressed and has taken Nephews phone off him.. He won't be allowed out of the house unattended apart from work until he moves out now. I'm so disappointed & angry with my Nephew!

I would be very, very concerned about links to County Lines. You need to get the full story from DNephew, if his debt is not just from using but also selling when you go to the police you need to make it clear that he is vulnerable in that he isn't living in the family home and that you are concerned about county lines. He will then be treated as a victim as much as a perpetrator.

That is a huge amount of debt to be in for a cocaine habit to owe directly to dealers for just using and I'm unsure how it would have come about. I wouldn't expect a dealer to keep providing cocaine up to this significant sum until previous debts were settled. I second a PP on county lines and dealing but maybe he's not dealing and doing it himself and therefore has no money to pay it back?

He's at such a young vulnerable age but this is serious stuff. If he doesn't want help then you can't help him unfortunately. You can contact social services, you can give him the information for help, but other than that you won't be able to force him to sort himself out. It will stress you out more and drag you in deeper. I really sympathise having experienced the same with my brother.

The best advice really is that he moves away, is there any family or friends he can stay with that live far away? He can start again where he has no contacts or anything? X

He has been buying coke for his so called mates on tic but they have never paid him back & apparently that's why the debt has got so large. He has step grandparents over in Channel Islands but none of the family are speaking to him after what happened to his Dad's car. I messaged his Dad today to give him an update & his Dad said he doesn't care anymore & doesn't want to hear about him. He said we only have ourselves to blame for taking him in. He had a large loving family that adored him until a year ago & I feel sorry for him now being the black sheep although I do understand why his Dad asked him to leave.

Do not pay the drug debt!! @Singleandproud has the best advice here.

You can report this via crimstoppers anonymously. He needs to get help to stop. It's difficult to pay back what he owes. Time for him to get a job.

Don't pay the debt.

All that will do is clear it to allow your nephew to build it up again, and whoever is selling to him will know they can come to you/your dad to be paid off again.

Even if he were buying on tic for other people, the idea is the same that he's promising a dealer payment, and I can't believe they would let it get up to £2k. I don't think he's telling you the truth here and you need to know the truth. Lying is at the very core of an addict's nature. I really hope that you can look into sending him somewhere far away. Are you able to get in touch with the grandparents? Maybe not for him to live with them as such (as that is a HUGE ask for grandparents) but maybe they have the local knowledge to help him get housed. If he is homeless then social services surely have to do something and he will only get better if that happens far away. Being housed locally won't get rid of his addiction. It will likely enable it as he will feel comfortable that he has a roof over his head and still has access to dealers. Could you look into this? My brother is in his 40s. Decades of addiction to alcohol and cocaine and recently was under the care of the crisis team and was homeless. Due to the risk of his mental health deteriorating as a result of being homeless, local council found him somewhere , he's going through some sort of out patient counselling for his addiction. We have all tried, we've let him in numerous times but he goes back to his own ways. We had to let him go and as awful as it was to know he was sleeping rough there was nothing we could do any more. I'm sure he thought we were being terrible to him but he was such a liar he couldn't be trusted. I probably won't ever trust him again tbh but time will tell. He's a very selfish narcissistic person, believes he is entitled to help but doesn't actually do anything to help himself at times. My dad has paid dealers off and settled other debts in the past and he still went back to it! He was doing it when my mum was on her death bed (she was only 63 and had cancer) he gave no f*cks. Thought the world was against him and so why should he get clean and sober if we all had such little faith in him anyway. He never wanted to do it for himself. Anyway, I digress, but I hope that gives some context as to where this can go. Cocaine is a VERY addictive drug.

Thanks for all the advice. I've found his step grandpa on FB & sent him a message so hopefully he gets back to me soon. Nephew is going to ask for extra shifts at work to pay back the debt. I'll take him there & pick him up when I can and Dad has offered to pay for taxis to/from work.

With a drug debt this is how kids end up doing deliveries to other parts of the country,been loads of busts in Scotland with teens being caught with high value amounts.be careful with the I'm not paying his debt you have no idea how dangerous the supplier is and to hazard a guess if it's the same people that torched a car I'd be very careful.

What sort of salary does your nephew earn? It's worrying he has racked up debt and you are also at risk. He would have to move out he needs to learn.

Agree with the other poster no drug dealer is going to continue to give you drugs if you have not paid them. Defo more to it.

No. You should not pay the debt back, there will be another one on the way should you do that.

In my experience, the quicker an addict can hit rock bottom the better as it’s only then that they will get better. You paying off debts and bailing him out won’t help that. Boundaries and making him responsible for his own actions is the kindest thing you can do for him.

It’s not uncommon to rack up thousands in debts to dealers. I’ve seen it many times.

I think the police have some sort of special procedure for helping children caught up in county lines....I'll see if I can find some details.

Edit: found some links for orgs that look like they help:

https://nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/drug-trafficking/county-lines

https://www.catch-22.org.uk/contact/

https://www.stgilestrust.org.uk/

He's just on minimum wagw but he enjoys the job & gets on with everyone. We are not going to bail him out. His Dad bailed him out after his car was set on fire so he has obviously not learned his lesson!

He's a silly laddie racking up a debt again so I can see your point of not bailing him out.good luck hopefully he comes through the other side and the situation gets sorted

Surely you are not suggesting that OP should even consider paying!

You do realise that quite often there is no debt ( it's just made up ) and even if there is emit may only be partially real ( due to made up "fees" and "interest" being added ) theirfore if you pay you just invite them to make more and more demands.

If dangerous people are telling OP to pay up or else it is not a debt - it's extortion.

Paying money on demand just because people are dangerous is how protection rackets work not debts and fortunately you don't have to put up with that sort of crap this country because the authorities actually do take it seriously.
If everyone payed up any amount of money upon being told to by dangerous people them robberies and kidnappings for extortion would not exist.

Be aware there's no set 'interest' on a drug debt. It could spontaneously double or triple. I'm not suggesting you help him pay it off quicker, but he needs to be aware if he's paying it off over time it'll be a lot more in the end.

On the plus side (!) if he owes a debt the dealers probably won't tick him any more, so hopefully make it more difficult for him to continue using...

DO NOTPAY IT

I say this as a recovered drug addict.

Soon as you hand money over to this guy he will hound you for more. Or he will consider some of the debt wiped and keep giving it to your nephew to build up a debt thinking you will bail him out.

Get him into rehab ASAP and contact the police.

Seriously OP do not condone this behaviour. I’m talking from years of experience here.

While you still have a chance to get your nephew back get him the help he needs.

He’s played big boy games and with that comes big boy consequences

Id be concerned who he was doing it with too. Unless his friend is quite a bit older (and which case why is he hanging round with a child) I imagine friend lives with his mum and dad and they need warning about this too.

All I’m going to say is friend of friend, parent of child is a police officer, paid her child’s drug debt on the advice of her superiors because literally nothing else would protect the family from the situation. It is naïve to assume that the police can protect people who build up a drug debt.

Sadly untrue. If they know they can make OPs nephew shit his pants and get the money chances are they will keep doing it knowing he will eventually shit himself and pay.