“I”m not allowed to play in the backyard at my other house,” he tells me without looking up from the spot where he is driving a small pick axe into the dirt, determined to find the gold that his imagination has assured him is there.
We were playing together for just about 10 minutes. I immediately stopped my less-hopeful digging and asked, “Why is that, sweetheart?”
Still without looking away from his newly dug gold mine, he replied, “We have a really big garden in our backyard and our dogs are back there and none of my friends can go back there either, so we can only play in the front yard or in the street in front of our house.”
“Oh”, is all I replied, but I felt my heart cry out. The boy was speaking of the 28-foot marijuana plants in his backyard, in the city limits. He said his mother told him they”re olive trees.
I”ve been aware of this large pot grow in his backyard for months and have taken every reasonable step that a caring adult concerned for a child”s health, safety and future can legally take.
Complaints were lodged with the city. Photographic proof was provided to the police and child protective services was called. Everyone was mildly apologetic, but obviously frustrated saying, “There”s nothing we can do.”
Nothing you can do, I question? So there”s nothing we can do as a community, as concerned adults, as law-abiding, tax-paying people to protect a child from the heightened threat of home invasion, robbery and the emotional, mental and possible physical trauma the child will endure. What of the emotional toll, feelings of insecurity and anxiety about lies, sneaking and constant looking over one”s shoulder the adults in his life, growing the marijuana that is typical in these situations?
There”s also embarrassment about filth and stench in and around his home, associated with budding marijuana and the eventual processing of the marijuana? Then the potential of shame when he”s faced with, “Just say no to drugs” campaigns supported by his school and teachers he looks up to.
Apparently unless the child consumes the marijuana, no one gets involved.
The boy”s hope lies in the hands of our justice system where a man draped in a long, black robe will make the final call on whether to protect this child. Meanwhile his odds of becoming the next generation of pot grower, believing that taking up his own, future children”s backyard space and exposing them every day to the unsavory labors of growing marijuana, is an acceptable and reasonable lifestyle.
Victoria Del Frate
Lakeport
