Mom Supplied Pot to Keep Kids Off Street

Criminal Justice

Posted Oct 10, 2007, 11:58 am CST
By Martha Neil

Concerned about obvious risks when she found out her teenage children were using marijuana, Nicola Cooper called a family meeting. Then the self-described "liberal parent" decided to act to protect them from street drug-dealers by supplying them with pot herself.

“Some people give their children alcohol and cigarettes at an early age, but I gave mine cannabis,” the 43-year-old primary school teaching assistant told the London Times yesterday, after she was sentenced to community service by a magistrates’ court in Suffolk for admitting possession of and offering to supply the illegal drug. She admitted that she began giving her children marijuana when her daughter was 16 and her son was 18, and says the entire family now stays away from pot following her arrest--although she still feels she did the right thing by supplying it to the teens.

District Judge David Cooper said he didn't penalize Cooper more severely, with a suspended sentence, because of her good character. Although she resigned from her teaching assistant post at Barrow Primary School, near Bury St Edmunds, following her arrest, Cooper received a letter of support from the headmaster, who described her to the judge as "a valuable member of staff."

“She has an excellent character, but to my mind she is utterly misguided," the judge said of Cooper. "Society does expect a school teacher to abide by the law.”

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