Behind the case of a minor dropping out of school early and getting into drugs

16 year old boy slides into mistakes

Hoang Dinh T Day(16 years old), residing in Quynh Thach commune, Quynh Luu district, was escorted to Nghe An Provincial People's Court. Few people expected that the defendant, who was only 16 years old, would be tried for three crimes at the same time: Buying, Selling, and Organizing the Illegal Use of Drugs. Also on trial were Pham Van Hoang (28 years old) and Ho Trong Luong (25 years old), residing in Quynh Xuan ward, Hoang Mai town, who were tried for Buying, Selling, and Illegal Possession of Drugs, respectively.

Wearing a prisoner’s uniform, T. clearly showed off the tattoos all over his arms and neck, which he said he “got because he liked them”. Despite a defendant sitting next to him constantly wiping away tears when he saw his relatives, T. appeared quite calm. Even when his parents walked by, the 16-year-old defendant just looked and turned away.

A relative of the defendant who attended the court said that since childhood, T. had lacked the love and care of his parents when their marriage broke down early. When the couple went their separate ways, the young mother decided to send her son to his grandparents to take care of him so she could go to the South to start a career. His father also worked far away, so he was not disciplined in time when he was young. Especially when both his parents remarried, the love and care for T. was more or less affected.

Although the father later took T. to live with him, his father's excessive strictness and lack of love made the young child more stubborn. After studying in 6th grade, T. dropped out. Life in the countryside seemed peaceful, but behind it were many temptations in society. Although relatives paid close attention and taught him, T. still ignored them and followed his friends in society. From then on, T. got into drugs without realizing it. At first, it was just curiosity and suggestions from his friends. Gradually, this minor became more and more dependent on drugs.

Being young and unemployed, in order to have money to satisfy his addiction, T. developed bad habits, including stealing. Therefore, Hoang Dinh T. was once given administrative education by the People's Committee of Quynh Thach commune about his acts of property theft anddisturbing public ordercarrying primitive weapons.

About a year later, relatives were shocked to hear that T. had been arrested by the police for buying, selling, storing and illegally using drugs. From there, the criminal behavior of this minor was clarified.

According to the case file, on the afternoon of March 3, 2023, while T. was at Pham Van Hoang's house, he received instructions to take drugs to sell to customers. These were the drugs that Hoang had previously purchased from two subjects of unknown origin to resell for profit.

Following the instructions of his senior, T. took some drugs and delivered them to the customer, taking 500,000 VND back. After returning to Hoang's house, the 16-year-old boy took out a homemade drug kit to use.

That same day, Hoang continued to direct Ho Trong Luong to sell drugs to another customer. Before carrying out the task assigned by his senior, T. invited Luong to use drugs with him. This young man burned the drugs in a pipe and gave it to Luong to smoke orally. After satisfying his addiction, Luong took the drugs to deliver to the customer but was arrested by the police.

Based on Luong's testimony, the police arrested and searched Pham Van Hoang's residence, seizing more than 248 grams of drugs. The investigation agency determined that in this case, Luong must bear criminal responsibility for selling more than 1.6 grams of drugs; T. alone must bear responsibility for buying and selling 0.7 grams of drugs, illegally storing 0.21 grams of drugs and organizing for Luong to use.

Lessons for parents

Responding to questions from the jury, defendant T. stated that he had been addicted to drugs for some time. Because of his addiction, he often worked as a henchman for Hoang to get drugs to use. On the day of his arrest, he used drugs twice, and invited Luong to join him.

The defendant's parents, who came to court as guardians, accepted partial responsibility for not being close to their child to educate and teach him. According to the 34-year-old mother, because the couple had separated and gone to work far away, T. mainly lived with his grandparents in the countryside, making it difficult to teach him... The defendant's parents both asked the court to consider reducing the sentence so that T. could soon have the opportunity to return to start a new life. The couple also promised that after their child was released from prison, they would care for and educate T. more promptly.

In the presence of a large number of people attending the court, the panel of judges reminded everyone that the number of young people using drugs is increasing every year. Drugs are easy to get into, but difficult to quit.

At the age of adolescence, children are not really mature, easily lured into social evils, especially drugs, so the family is the support to train them. Therefore, parents need to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge about drug prevention, only then can the family truly become a home, an effective wall to prevent the penetration of drugs.

After considering the role of each defendant in the case, the panel sentenced Hoang Dinh T. to a total of 45 months in prison for 3 crimes; Defendant Pham Van Hoang to 20 years in prison for Illegal drug trafficking; Ho Trong Luong to 7 years and 6 months in prison for Illegal drug possession.

At the age of 16, while his friends were still going to school, T. entered a special educational environment, prison. Hopefully, the sentence for the defendant will also be a lesson for other young people in keeping themselves from the deadly trap of drugs.