Ben Pappas body was recovered from the ocean soon after he disappeared following the murder of his girlfriend, in which case he is a “person of interest” which is legal language for “we’re pretty sure he did it but we’re not allowed to say that yet.”
Frankly, this just stinks. First Shane and Ali last week and now this.
It’s hard for me to blame Ben. The guy started using pot when he was 12 and cocaine when he was 14 (marijuana isn’t a gateway drug?). Who’s to say how much of what he became was him vs. the drugs? Who’s to say who he would have become if he had been clean and sober? Who’s to say that he’s fully to blame and not the person who gave him weed when he was 12? What about those who supported him in his habit by participating with him, letting him get away with it, selling drugs to him, or not challening him to give the stuff up when they felt prompted to? In my mind they all share some of the guilt for the murder of the girl (not that we know whether Ben did it or not, but even if he didn’t her death seems undoubtedly related to his somehow) as well as Ben’s own death.
The last footage I remember seeing of Ben was in the Children of the Sun video from New Deal. At the time he was the up and comer, the kid who looked like he really had some talent and might go far, and I guess he did before it fell apart. That was back in ’94. After that I left the country and skateboarding for two years and when I got back never heard about Ben again until this. Sad stuff. Death is hard enough, but dying this way is tragic.
Come on dude, no one should share the guilt except the person (or persons) that committed the crime.
Your moral stance is obvious, but there are plenty of people (most I say) that have or do use drugs, and would never kill, or harm anyone.
Well, on the one hand I think it’s dangerous to take any of the blame away from the person who actually committed the crime, because that could clear the way for people to commit crimes and say “It wasn’t me! It was the drugs telling me to do it!” On the other hand, imagine a situation (not necessarily this situation, but just to illustrate the point) where one person encourages another to do cocaine, and while that person is high they go out and commit a crime that they would not have committed had they not been high. Is the person who encouraged the drug use completely innocent or do they share, at least in part, the guilt of that crime? If a bunch of friends get together to drink and one of those people drives home drunk and kills someone is it only their fault or do their friends who encouraged the person to get drunk and didn’t stop him from getting in his car share some of the blame as well?
If we only blame the person who is directly involved in the commission of the crime then we provide little incentive for others who have the power to influence the situation, however slight that influence, to act.
For my part if I had been a friend of Ben’s and had done cocaine with him I’d be feeling pretty guilt right now. I’d be feeling that I had contributed in some way, however small, to the current situation. No, I wouldn’t be feeling like I’m a murderer, but I’d be feeling bad because there are two people who are dead and maybe something I did contributed to that, or maybe I could have done something to help prevent it. Hopefully I’d be thinking about how what I’m doing right now might be affecting others negatively and what I can do to change that.
It’s a hard cycle that’s hard to break and if you throw fame and fortune in the mix…well, look what happened to Mark Rogowski. In the end though, only we are responsible for our own actions.
It’s terrible to see something like this, but if pot wasn’t illegal, just regulated it would be a lot harder for kids to get their hands on it, because there’d be no financial benefit for the seller. Who sells cigarettes or booze to kids? No-one much because there’s no decent margin in it and it’s a common sense thing anyway. If booze was illegal like in the 30′s in the US, then maybe someone would be selling it illegally.
So if pot is illegal, you have to buy it illegally from a dealer, and guess what, maybe that dealer has some blow too. So you can’t say it’s a gateway drug. It’s the illegality that throws it in with properly addictive stuff.
Another point, everyone is responsible for their actions whether they get high or not. That’s the responsibility that goes with it. If you can’t get high and maintain, you better not do it. You can’t blame it on the drug. It’s your body, your roll of the dice, get it squared away. Drug use is not an excuse, but by itself it’s not morally wrong either.
I’d rather blame the law in part. If Pappas hadn’t had his passport suspended and his career doing the thing loved ended, then quite possibly the negative energy and depression which obviously brought him down may have been avoided. Violence is a symptom of internal discontent, which is very sad. If he was involved in his girlfriends death, remorse and depression could have tormented him into suicide too.
In any case, personal responsibility is the key, not Big Brother.
WEX8J8 ysbdwvvqnvjh