Re: Contracts, Responsibilities, and Drug-Dispensing

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>]

Timothy C. May writes:
> -- If someone makes a contract, formal or informal (with some caveats), to
> supply a dose of drugs, alcohol, whatever, at some specified time, then
> this is fine. But if no contract exists, not supplying the drugs is not
> interference in choice. (Is, for a example, a Mormon interfering in the
> rights of a friend by refusing to supply a drink to a visiting friend? Am I
> interfering in the choice of others by refusing to allow cigarette smoking
> in my home? Examples like this are easy to find.)

If you bring a child to someone's home, and you tell them "here are
the kids' meds -- you'll give them to the kid on time, right?" and you
say "No" right then, thats fine. However, your friend accepted custody
of the medication and of the child, did not indicate that they had no
intention of dispensing the child's medication on time, and in essense
failed to comply with normal standards of behavior -- contractual
behavior, as it were. It appears that you are trying very hard to
retrofit this behavior into your theory of what's acceptable for
people to do based on your personal distaste for a particular
treatment -- a treatment you do not understand for a condition you do
not understand, impacting a child that is not your own.

> -- If someone claims there is an _implied_ contract in this case, this
> falls apart after the first "refusal" to supply the dose. That is, Vickie,
> the mother, is well aware that my friend is returning the Ritalins to her
> unused, in the kid's backpack.

I agree that the mother at that point understands what is going on and
shouldn't be sending the child over. However, I'd say that as a social
matter, the person refusing to give the child their medicine is not
doing anyone a favor. "You see, my son, I'm demonstrating that I can
be Holier than Thou by refusing to give your playmate the medication
his parents instructed me to give him. Since I have a right not to do
so, I can exercise that right and create stress and demonstrate how
little regard I have for the way people choose to raise their own
children. Someday you can follow in my footsteps."

> It's always useful in discussing "rights," as Perry is doing,

I believe I was discussing a cognitive problem, actually, and not
rights. The only right I discussed in detail was every person's
right to tell you to mind your own business, just as you loudly tell
everyone else.

Perry