Regardless of the potential harm that drug use can cause to the user, a real friend wouldn't turn in a friend for using drugs alone. While some drug use involves illegal drugs, whether or not the friend suffers legal consequences should not be the business of friends or family.

Child abuse is another matter. Children are helpless victims of people who turn into monsters. Strangers often have no idea that a child is being abused. Acquaintances may not suspect, but if they do they may worry that their suspicions are not based on sufficient evidence. Authorities don't know abuse is occurring unless someone tells them. Doctors have been known to overlook signs of abuse. Friends and relatives may be the only hope a child has that someone will figure it out and do something.

There is no doubt in my mind, or in the mind of most people, that - difficult as it may be - reporting a friend who is guilty of abusing his/her child/children is the only thing to do.

If a friend both abuses his/her child and uses drugs that's all the more reason to turn report the friend. Drug use adds a number of additional potential dangers to the child. In addition to potential physical harm, a parent who uses drugs will likely destroy his/her relationship with his/her child.

Since those familiar with substance abusers generally say that it can take losing everything before someone decides to get help, turning in the friend may actually offer the only hope of having that friend change his behavior. So, not only will the child benefit, but the friend and the relationship between parent and child may benefit as well.

Turning in a friend is not an easy thing to do, but it is unlikely that anything good can come out of ignoring the situation. Turning in the friend at least offers the hope that the individual will change. If the parent will not or cannot change then it is important the child at least has the chance to live in a healthier, more stable, environment. The child who gets to grow up in a safer, more stable, appropriate, environment will be better able to deal with having an addicted parent than would the child who, himself, is not whole as a result of being raised by an addict.

Abusive behavior doesn't usually stop on its own. It usually escalates. The longer a child is subjected to such behavior, the more likely he is to be seriously damaged emotionally. He's also more likely to be physically harmed or even killed.

Knowing that a child is being abused and saying nothing amounts to being an accomplice. In the horrible event (as in the case of Haleigh Poutre of Westfield, Massachusetts) the child ends up beaten into a coma (or dead) every person who stood by and did nothing is to blame. Anyone who has any reservations about turning in a friend for child abuse (with or without drug use) should search Haleigh Poutre's name online, look at the smiling little girl in the dance recital costume, and read about the vegetative state and brain stem injury an abusive adult chose for this child. Haleigh Poutre made the news because the Department of Social Services wanted to "pull the plug" on her. For every abuse victim who makes the news there are thousands more who don't, either because the abuse has reached the murderous stage or because nobody even knows. Abusers don't generally stop themselves. Others need to stop them - and stop them before it's too late.

Learn more about this author, Lisa Hunt Warren.
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