The old saying is you need a license to drive, you need a license to get married — but no one needs a license to have kids. And some should. There’s an uproar in New Zealand, with dismay spreading throughout the world due to the Internet, over a 9 year old shown in a video who’s drunk and also smokes weed.
No, it isn’t funny. No it isn’t cute. It’s a kid at risk and posing a risk to other kids who might think, gee, if he can do it, why don’t I do it, too? WARNING SOME ADULT LANGUAGE (allowed on TMV which observes “newspaper standards” since it part of the video):
Important to note: schools pay lots of money each year for programs to encourage kids to stay away from illegal drugs and alcohol (I know they do because I do them in my non-blogging incarnation).
Meanwhile, The Toronto Sun reports, police paid the parents a visit:
A YouTube video of a nine-year-old boy in New Zealand who claims to have drank 18 cans of whisky and cola prompted police attention.
Cops in Hamilton, New Zealand, said they paid a visit to the boy’s house Tuesday night after the video quickly went viral in the country.
Inspector Greg Nicholls told local media when officers visited the boy last night, they found him “grossly intoxicated.”
“The young boy was very ill … so much so that calling an ambulance was considered.”
Licensing, anyone??
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.