In a day and age when parents really need to be looking out for the safety of their children, they should be encouraging their kids to avoid trouble with the law. Parents should be there to provide solid, authoritative parenting, so consider all of the possible meanings of “You mean drugs other than pot?”
· I can’t believe they’re still making such a big deal about weed after all these years.
· I used pot when I was young and I turned out okay.
· As an adult, I still smoke on occasion.
· My kids could be doing a lot worse like robbing banks.
· At least they’re not doing cocaine or heroin.
· I don’t let my kids smoke and drive.
· I tell them it’s okay, just don’t do something stupid like get caught.
· My children and I have an open and honest relationship. At least I know what they’re doing—unlike some parents I know.
· I make sure my kids are using in a safe manner.
· You can’t stop them; they’re going to do what they want anyway.
And there they are— many of the cancerous justifications some parents use to soften the reality of what they’re doing, which is allowing their children to use illegal and dangerous drugs. Here’s another point. We may all be created equally, but we’re sure as hell not raised equally. Some kids are truly handicapped by their parents—parents who make the illogical and misguided assumption that teenage behavior cannot be controlled. Along similar lines, some have absolutely no clue as to how to go about controlling their kids. Others simply cannot be bothered.
I was speaking to a neighbor of mine, who was stunned by the news of her twenty-one-year-old son’s drug test results. He was trying to get a job somewhere or the other, and had tested positive for pot and cocaine. How was this possible, she wanted to know? Her son couldn’t be a regular cocaine user. I tried to keep a straight face. This parent had a reputation for turning a blind eye to her kids’ pot use back when they were in the public school system. I should have called her on this point, but I let it go. So I found another way to get my point across. “Do you know where he gets his marijuana?” I asked. She did not but she assumed it was clean. “How do you know? Did either you or your son watch the person who rolled the joints?” No. “Do you even know where the rolling paper came from?” She did not. “Then don’t you think it’s possible someone could be slipping cocaine into his joints?” She considered the possibility and reluctantly agreed with me. “Maybe there will be heroin in his next cigarette,” I told her. ”In fact, I read where one guy smoked pot laced with embalming fluid.” At this point, I can almost hear what she’s thinking: Dammit, I knew I couldn’t trust him to smoke. I give the okay and he goes ahead and tests positive for cocaine.
5. Cancer Visits Wall Street and the Boardroom
My parents were enthusiastic coffee drinkers all the years I was growing up. I can still see Dad’s old coffee mug resting on the kitchen counter next to the range. The caption on it read I Can Resist Anything but Temptation. When I reflect on that stained mug, I recall some of the modern day financial scandals we’ve been forced to swallow and digest as a nation. Corporate corruption surrounds us, it seems. Of course, for every jackass with his or her hand in the till, there are scores of others doing the right thing. Unfortunately, today’s headlines seem to be reserved exclusively for the crooks, cons and scam artists of our times. Unfortunately, I’m about to contribute to that trend. I have a rather lengthy Power Point presentation dealing with business ethics that I use with my lectures. In it, I discuss several disturbing business scams with which I’m sure you’re familiar.
Item- A ring of body tissue thieves hits local funeral homes and cons the mortuary workers into giving them access to bodies. In many cases, the criminals steal bones and replace them with PVC piping. Item- Former Enron executives Skilling, Causey, and Fastow are serving jail time for fraud and corruption that led to the energy-trading giant’s collapse. CEO Kenneth Lay died before learning of his sentence. Somehow, this group of enterprising men (The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind call them) managed to hide $500 million in debt from stockholders. Shares of Enron stock plummeted from $80 to under $1. Item- WorldCom’s Scott Sullivan and Bernard Ebbers have been tossed in jail for hiding $4 billion from investors in the country’s largest bankruptcy. Stock dropped from $60 to $16 to just 5 cents. Sullivan had to surrender a 30,000 square foot mansion in Boca Raton that he had been constructing with company cash. Item- Tyco’s Dennis Kozlowski lavishly spent company money like a drunken sailor: $56 million in bonuses for himself, $11 million to furnish his Manhattan apartment, $17,100 for a traveling toilette box, $15,000 for a dog umbrella stand, $6,300 for a sewing basket, $6,000 for a shower curtain, $5,960 for two sets of sheets, $2,900 for coat hangers and $2,200 for a metal wastebasket. Item- A Kentucky couple bilks aspiring authors out of $1.5 million and then skips town. None of the authors got their books published and the two scammers, with only high school diplomas between them, serve time in federal prison. Their scam: upfront money from authors to publish their novels. Item- Florida pharmacy giant Eckerd Drugs (now CVS) estimated, one year, that employees had stolen $5 million in merchandise right off the store shelves. The company was forced to pass the losses off to consumers by raising prices. Item- Monsignor John A. Skehan and Reverend Francis B. Guinan, two Delray Beach, Florida priests, were accused of misappropriating $8.6 million dollars of parish funds. The money was used to purchase real estate in Florida and Ireland. The rest of the cash went toward gambling trips to Las Vegas and The Bahamas, a rare coin collection, as well as the support of a couple of girlfriends.
Imagine the Cognitive Dissonance associated with Enron and WorldCom scandals. Thought #1: Stealing is wrong. Thought #2: I’m in a position of public trust, yet I’m stealing millions from hard working Americans. Result: I feel absolutely fine about myself. How about you?
Feel fine? How on earth would this be possible? Well, consider that the majority of these financial giants pled not guilty to their charges. Only a handful copped pleas and rolled over on their superiors. This resulted in several high-profile trials that cost the public millions. Of course, prosecutors succeeded in securing convictions against all of these meatheads. Meanwhile, thousands lost their retirements and have been left in financial ruin. But this scandal leaves us with a very disturbing question: Is it possible for the ring leaders of the Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia and Tyco scandals to steal and defraud in such a prolific manner, yet feel absolutely no empathy for others? Absolutely, many in the business world say. It’s called Narcissism and sociopathy— terms I’ll explore a bit later on.
I Look out for #1. That’s Justification Enough for me
For now, however, suffice it to say that the term narcissism finds its roots in Greek Mythology. Narcissus, a handsome youth, fell in love with his own reflection in the waters of a placid pond. He sat himself down on the shore of that pond and gazed continually at his beautiful reflection. There he pined away and died, and from that spot sprang a flowering plant we now know as the narcissus. Narcissism has evolved into a full-fledged Axis II personality disorder, although it doesn’t look like it will survive the cut for the next diagnostic edition of what’s known as the DSM (it will probably be included under the general umbrella of psychopathy). Anyway, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV- TR (Text Revision) has a very thorough description of this disorder, starting on page 714. Basically, narcissists have a grandiose sense of self-importance, and are preoccupied with fantasies of incredible success, brilliance, beauty and power. They have an incredible sense of entitlement that springs from their convictions that they are special, unique, above all rules and laws, and deserving of special treatment and status. They routinely exploit situations and others in order to achieve their own personal goals. They lack empathy for others