Rachel Lucas recently threw the principle fetishists a bone with an identically-titled blog entry, conceding that it is sometimes appropriate to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face stand on principle. She describes some goofy cable TV show she recently saw in which some parents state that if their kids are going to smoke pot anyway, they (the parents, who I’ll dub the Idiot Parents ) should go out and buy it for them, so at least the kids won’t have to deal with drug dealers and the parents will supposedly have more control over the quality and/or quantity of the drug. Rachel writes:

The moment of my epiphany was when one parent said something that was almost verbatim what I’ve said about voting for McCain and the fact that you are getting a new president whether you like it or not so you may as well do what you can to get the less shitty one. It was something like, “Well, Billy IS going to smoke pot. There’s nothing I can do about that, he’s GONNA smoke it no matter what I say. So I may as well at least try to keep him as safe as I can, and if that means I have to buy it for him, I will.”

Quickly I ran it through my brain: what if I had kids and was in this situation? Would I get drugs for them just because that was better than them getting drugs from strangers and scumbags? Especially if I knew for a fact that my kids were just dumb enough to get busted and would almost certainly end up in jail if I didn’t choose the lesser evil by getting the drugs for them?

Shit no, I wouldn’t! Because it would violate my principles. As in, the principle that it’s wrong to give drugs to a minor, and that doing so would be a tacit approval of the harmful behavior. I would be sending a very clear message that I don’t really have a problem with my kid doing drugs, even if I’m telling him that I do and that the only reason I give the drugs to him is minimize his risk going to jail. Yeah, giving it to him is the lesser of two evils, but it’s STILL EVIL.

Rachel’s basic conclusion is right, but her rationale misses the mark by a mile. Yes, from the perspective of anyone who assumes kids shouldn’t smoke pot, parents who don’t buy the stuff for them (let’s call them/us the Non-Idiot Parents) are right, and parents who do (let’s charitably call them the Idiot Parents rather than, say, the Pushers) are wrong. No, it’s not because the Non-Idiot Parents are more principled than the Idiot Parents. Nor is it because the Idiot Parents are illogical. Their logic is fine; the problem is with the premises upon which it’s based. In effect, the Idiot Parents take it as a given that their children’s “primaries” are over, and the only remaining choices are between (1) pothead kids who score their own shit and (2) pothead kids whose parents score it for them. This, in turn, depends on blind adherence to at least four asstastically stupid premises, which the Idiot Parents appear to accept as gospel:

1. Nothing I as a parent can say or do (or decline to say or do) will have any influence whatsoever on the likelihood that my kid will smoke pot today, tomorrow, a year from now, or at any other point in his life.
2. Notwithstanding Idiot Premise #1: buying a limited quantity of illicit drugs for my kid will absolutely guarantee that he won’t buy any more. If I don’t buy him any pot, he’ll scrape up whatever cash he needs to buy all the pot he could possibly want. But if I give him half the pot he wants for free, he’ll just smoke that much, and quit. It won’t even occur to him to spend any of his leftover money on the rest.
3. While I have absolutely no capacity to influence my child’s behavior in any way (save for the limited exception of Idiot Premise #2), I do absolutely know better than my kid about everything, including which weed constitutes the “good” stuff and which weed does not. Never mind that Mota-Boy has smoked more of that crap in the past week than I’ve seen myself in a lifetime; I’m still the expert on picking the “right” dope, not him.
4. Beyond Idiot Premise #3, I’m a lot savvier than my kid in general. So if I do the dirty work for him, I’ll never end up getting caught myself, let alone end up spending a hell of a lot more time in prison for getting caught as an adult attempting to purchase with intent to distribute to a minor, than the kid ever would if he got caught as a minor attempting to score the same weed for his own personal use only.
5. Either that, or as an alternative to Idiot Premise #4, I’m convinced that my kid would be better off having a parent in prison for several years and/or becoming a ward of the state than he would be doing a week or two in juvenile hall and getting grounded for a month when he returns.

I submit that if you actually believe the first three premises and either the fourth or the fifth, the inescapable conclusion is that the appropriate, loving thing to do as a parent is to buy your kid all that pot he wants (or at least enough for Idiot Premise #2 to kick in). After all, what good is it to stand on the hollow “principle” that you should send your kid Message A rather than Message B, if you’ve already conceded that the only message he’ll ever get is B? Once the A train left the station, the best you can do is to mitigate the effects of B.

On the other hand, if you don’t buy the above premises, the equally inescapable conclusion is that buying pot for your kid is not “the lesser of two evils, but … STILL EVIL.” It is by far the greater evil, right up there with voting for Obama (either directly, or by throwing away your vote) because McCain is too liberal.

Contrary to the principle-fetishists, it’s not just the lesser evil that is “still evil.” The greater evil is, too. Eviller still, in fact. Now go do the right thing.