Moral dilemma: illegal activity about drugs on criminal, talk about it or not???

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

I have deleted the original post.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[studentdocftw]

 

[ThoracicGuy]

 

[Lawpy]

@efle @Lucca interested to know utilitarian and Kantian perspectives on this matter plz

 

[Pusheen]

Isn't this the Oregon lady with 400,000 of debt from that other thread?

 

[tskbdmnd]

What a homie.

 

[DokterMom]

You made a difficult call -- You had your reasons but can see both sides.

Are you really taking a moral stand here and preparing to defend it?

Or are you just soliciting majority opinion so you can present the appearance of taking a difficult moral stand while making sure there are no adverse consequences to yourself?

The safest course is not to mention it at all. But that hardly presents you with a dilemma, does it?

 

[efle]

I think you did the right thing, I don't view drug use as immoral.

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

I think you did the right thing, I don't view drug use as immoral.

What will the ad-coms think?

 

[Crayola227]

bad don't mention it

medicine frequently requires you to be a stickler for rules

you don't want to show that you're a rule bender/breaker, even if justified
now is not the time to show you're a maverick

 

[Orthosurg1]

What will the ad-coms think?

Why even bring it up? Are you trying to address it in secondaries in some fashion? Personally, I would write about your experience tutoring ex-criminals, but would not mention this specific instance. But that's just my $0.02

 

[Pusheen]

What will the ad-coms think?

They'd probably be more worried about this

I knew him from jail

 

[tskbdmnd]

Yeah no point in bringing up illegal activities. 5 years for a victimless crime though. Damn government, you scary.

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

They'd probably be more worried about this

Haha, I mean, I volunteer in prision.

Thanks everyone, won't mention

 

[Ryuichi]

I think if you can elaborate both sides to your action, and passionately defend it, it is a great topic and could be a major success. Shows leadership and conviction in my opinion.

 

[JustaDO]

Was he in jail after being tackled for sneaking in at a music festival?

 

[efle]

What will the ad-coms think?

Probably worry about you breaking rules if it seemed justified to you.

 

[Astra]

Was he in jail after being tackled for sneaking in at a music festival?

2fast2meta

 

[Lucca]

Do talk about mentoring people in prison.

Don't talk about the drugs thing.

You did the right thing, by all accounts.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Moral issues aside, I can't see adcoms looking on this favorably.

 

[LizzyM]

To flush them?? Really? Call me cynical but I suspect he was going to pass them through his liver before flushing them if you catch my drift. Don't mention it as it will make you seem naive.

 

[Pusheen]

To flush them?? Really? Call me cynical but I suspect he was going to pass them through his liver before flushing them if you catch my drift. Don't mention it as it will make you seem naive.

This is my favorite post on this thread

 

[Goro]

So you have no understanding of the difference between right and wrong???

How about enabling substance abusers? Is that OK?

I have Adcom colleagues who would crucify you the interview room.

What will the ad-coms think?

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

Oh wow thanks everyone. Will definitely not go near issue, thanks a lot to everyone.

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

So you have no understanding of the difference between right and wrong???

How about enabling substance abusers? Is that OK?

I have Adcom colleagues who would crucify you the interview room.

Harsh!

 

[tskbdmnd]

So you have no understanding of the difference between right and wrong???

How about enabling substance abusers? Is that OK?

I have Adcom colleagues who would crucify you the interview room.

5 years though? Since when do we condone locking up sick people for being sick?

 

[Goro]

5 years sounds like more drugs than a "sick" person should have. I suspect someone was dealing.

5 years though? Since when do we condone locking up sick people for being sick?

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

5 years sounds like more drugs than a "sick" person should have. I suspect someone was dealing.

OP said the offender was on parole. Could have originally been in for anything. Getting caught with drugs usually violates any kind of parole.

 

[Crayola227]

Do talk about mentoring people in prison.

Don't talk about the drugs thing.

You did the right thing, by all accounts.

I don't think there's any issue in working with the prison population I think it shows a very unique brand of altruism.

I just think breaking the rules here shouldn't be mentioned.

 

[kb1900]

Should still write the essay but just considering the possible consequences of letting him flush the drugs are not. End the essay with a cliffhanger and hope you get an interview just so an adcom can find out the ending.

 

[Crayola227]

5 years sounds like more drugs than a "sick" person should have. I suspect someone was dealing.

yes, but often dealing is done in service to the addiction. Not saying that makes it OK, because essentially you're hurting others to support your habit, but the root of the tree of evil here is the addiction, an illness.

As far as what @LizzyM said, I don't think that OP was buying a story, but rather was in a situation to let someone off the "hook" (they're already in trouble) or let their addiction continue to dig a deeper hole for themselves. They were in a position to see the book thrown or to give another chance.

It's true as docs we get faced with similar ethical dilemmas, however, the essay/interview isn't the place FOR YOU to initiate such a discussion if the stance you're taking is not only this controversial, but shows you taking what many are going to consider an ethically problematic choice. Even if it seems "right."

 

[Crayola227]

I've had to follow rules I thought were wrong. It pains me sometimes.

You have to protect your license. You can't help patients if you don't. That's usually what I tell any patient about substance abuse when I get backed into a corner. They seem to respect that for the most part.

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

yes, but often dealing is done in service to the addiction. Not saying that makes it OK, because essentially you're hurting others to support your habit, but the root of the tree of evil here is the addiction, an illness.

As far as what @LizzyM said, I don't think that OP was buying a story, but rather was in a situation to let someone off the "hook" (they're already in trouble) or let their addiction continue to dig a deeper hole for themselves. They were in a position to see the book thrown or to give another chance.

It's true as docs we get faced with similar ethical dilemmas, however, the essay/interview isn't the place FOR YOU to initiate such a discussion if the stance you're taking is not only this controversial, but shows you taking what many are going to consider an ethically problematic choice. Even if it seems "right."

Ok thanks everyone. I think it was the right thing; if I could have another chance, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I knew him pretty and knew how much he was working to get clean.

Anyways, I won't talk about it at all. I'll talk about my prison work and that is all, thank you again to everyone!

 

[LizzyM]

Ok thanks everyone. I think it was the right thing; if I could have another chance, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I knew him pretty and knew how much he was working to get clean.

Anyways, I won't talk about it at all. I'll talk about my prison work and that is all, thank you again to everyone!

If he was working to get clean, why did he have drugs on him?? Your critical thinking skills need work or you are going to be eaten alive.

 

[JustaDO]

I used to tutor ex- prisioners. One day a student had drugs on him. If caught, he would probably 5 years in jail, b/c he was on probation. I granted him an emergency bathroom break to flush down the drugs. He was begging me, and I said yes.

Ex-prisoner implies that this would be out of jail, thus, so who would actually "catch" him? You were literally tricked by someone so that he could take a hit.

I imagine you had a smug look on your high ground while he was shooting up, never realizing you didn't hear a flush.

I could have another chance, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I'm sure he would too.

 

[Mad Jack]

So you have no understanding of the difference between right and wrong???

How about enabling substance abusers? Is that OK?

I have Adcom colleagues who would crucify you the interview room.

5 years in prison will do far more damage to a person than this particular act of enabling would.

 

[JustaDO]

5 years in prison will do far more damage to a person than this particular act of enabling would.

I'm sure admission committees would love the idea of enabling substance abusers.

Their disbelief of his gullibility would get him a full $cholarship.

 

[Mad Jack]

5 years sounds like more drugs than a "sick" person should have. I suspect someone was dealing.

He could have had other charges unrelated to just drug use. Or he could have been caught with a high penalty drug. Look at the penalties for LSD, crack, and ecstacy- three pills of Molly will land you several years, care of our lovely drug laws.

 

[Mad Jack]

I'm sure the admission committees on medical school would love the idea of enabling substance abusers.

I'm not saying this in regard to admission- obviously he shouldn't mention this- I was more saying from a sociological and psychosocial perspective, five years of prison is more likely to do more harm to the guy than this single act. Prison doesn't help people, it ****s them up pretty bad and makes them more of a danger to themselves and society more often than not in the case of nonviolent offenders.

 

[LizzyM]

I'm not saying this in regard to admission- obviously he shouldn't mention this- I was more saying from a sociological and psychosocial perspective, five years of prison is more likely to do more harm to the guy than this single act. Prison doesn't help people, it ****s them up pretty bad and makes them more of a danger to themselves and society more often than not in the case of nonviolent offenders.

Would you say the same if this were a dealer who is introducing new users to drugs? Someone on parole has already been in prison. He's out with the hope that he can do well in the outside. If he can't, back he goes.

 

[Crayola227]

He could have had other charges unrelated to just drug use. Or he could have been caught with a high penalty drug. Look at the penalties for LSD, crack, and ecstacy- three pills of Molly will land you several years, care of our lovely drug laws.

possession of psychedelic mushrooms is a FELONY!

 

[Mad Jack]

Would you say the same if this were a dealer who is introducing new users to drugs? Someone on parole has already been in prison. He's out with the hope that he can do well in the outside. If he can't, back he goes.

If he were a dealer, that'd be one thing. Unless he's dealing marijuana, then whatever (seriously, I couldn't care less, more harm is being done by your local liquor store if you look at the public health statistics, yet you don't see us hauling those guys off to prison).

But the prison system is a complicated thing. What if he's on parole for something ridiculous? What if he's got some marijuana on him, but he's got a job and two kids at home that rely on him, and he happens to be a decent father? There's a hell of a lot of "what ifs." The original offense matters, the drugs matter, the intent of what to do with them matters- it all matters. But OP seems to have known the guy and his circumstances fairly well, so I'm assuming he made the call that took as many of those things into account as possible when making that decision. If this guy was on parole for violent rape and had a pocket full of heroin he was planning to deal at the local high school, I'm sure OP wouldn't have been so kind. But when you grow up in poverty, you see how much harm prison does to people, particularly nonviolent offenders. Yeah, throwing a woman behind bars for 5 years and her kids into the foster system because she happened to be a weekend user of whatever substance sure is doing them all (and society) justice We should be treating these people, not tossing them behind bars.

 

[Mad Jack]

possession of psychedelic mushrooms is a FELONY!

I would love to have someone lay out a logical justification for why that is to me someday, because it doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me why self-ingesting a mushroom that grows in the wild should be a felony. That thing on the ground, growing in ****? Yeah, don't pick it up or you've just committed a felony. The drug war is ridiculous and insane.

 

[Goro]

Some people need to be in prison.

5 years in prison will do far more damage to a person than this particular act of enabling would.

 

[Mad Jack]

Some people need to be in prison.

Without knowing more about this individual's character, it is hard to determine whether he "needs" to be in prison. People are far to quick to think like Javert and think a guy deserves to do a few years for a nonviolent offense without knowing a damn thing about him, which speaks perfectly to what prison and a criminal history does to a person- it strips people of their humanity and turns them into an "other," giving society little reason to integrate with them and vice versa, creating a cycle that destroys lives rather than rehabilitates, particularly coupled with the punitive (rather than rehabilitative) nature of our penal system.

I guess I'll drop this though, as the straight up answer to OP's question is "don't talk about this."

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

If he was working to get clean, why did he have drugs on him?? Your critical thinking skills need work or you are going to be eaten alive.

 

[throk]

You should shut your mouth about my critical thinking skills unless you have put in several years of volunteering work with prisoners as I have. My dad, an oncologist and an academic professor, does volunteer work (minimal pay) at the prison clinic, and he said I did the right thing as well. I'm not going to explain here all the details because it is a waste of time trying to reason with the 60 year old bigots here. Now if you have worked with prisoners before and that sort of population, let me know and we can talk about it in more detail, but if not, I'm not going to waste my time.

Anyways, as I said, I did the right thing, and would do it again. In fact I did it several times.

But I'm not going to talk about it in the essay.

Everyone knows that admission into medical school is all about beating the system, and AdComms here are proof of that. So just be conventional, take all the easy classes with the easy professors, study 1+ year for the MCAT, do shadow work and suck up to a researcher to get some papers, volunteer and exaggerate the hours, and you'll get in.

what a stupid line of reasoning. You came here to ask what admissions would think, not what admissions persons that have worked with prisoners would think, and it's nonsense to say your judgement can only be questioned by the latter.

If you need to tell yourself its ok because daddy approved and LizzyM is a bigot and it's just all about gaming your way to good scores and publications, fine. But stop embarrassing yourself doing it here publicly

 

[Lawpy]

You should shut your mouth about my critical thinking skills unless you have put in several years of volunteering work with prisoners as I have. My dad, an oncologist and an academic professor, does volunteer work (minimal pay) at the prison clinic, and he said I did the right thing as well. I'm not going to explain here all the details because it is a waste of time trying to reason with the 60 year old bigots here. Now if you have worked with prisoners before and that sort of population, let me know and we can talk about it in more detail, but if not, I'm not going to waste my time.

Anyways, as I said, I did the right thing, and would do it again. In fact I did it several times.

But I'm not going to talk about it in the essay.

Everyone knows that admission into medical school is all about beating the system, and AdComms here are proof of that. So just be conventional, take all the easy classes with the easy professors, study 1+ year for the MCAT, do shadow work and suck up to a researcher to get some papers, volunteer and exaggerate the hours, and you'll get in.

Apologize to LizzyM right now. Or leave SDN altogether. We do not need members like you who contribute and exacerbate the hatred and volatility in these forums for shamelessly disrespecting adcoms and faculty.

 

[thestrugglingtraveler77]

Apologize to LizzyM right now. Or leave SDN altogether. We do not need members like you who contribute and exacerbate the hatred and volatility in these forums for shamelessly disrespecting adcoms and faculty.

I'm leaving because I'm worried they might find my identity or something, you never know I mean. I have a good chance honestly my stats and all things considered....and I don't want to mess it up. I'm not going to apologize. Bye.

 

[Lawpy]

I'm leaving because I'm worried they might find my identity or something, you never know I mean. I have a good chance honestly my stats and all things considered....and I don't want to mess it up. I'm not going to apologize. Bye.

Anonymity does not excuse malignant behavior. Farewell.