One of the truck drivers who services my workplace told me about what had happened to one of his colleagues who had worked for the same trucking company. I remembered this other guy because he used to service us a few years ago. You probably know that big rig drivers in the US must have a commercial driver's license (CDL), and there are strict rules for CDL holders.
The colleague's sons, aged around 14–16, had given him brownies on a Saturday. The man didn't normally drink, but that evening he did have a couple of beers to relax. He thought his buzz was from the beers. On Monday morning he went to work and his name was drawn at random for a drug test, which trucking companies are required to perform on CDL holders. He failed because he was positive for cannabis, and the company fired him that day despite his protests that he never had smoked pot.
You guessed it: his sons had made pot brownies and thought it would be a great joke to give some to dad to loosen him up. The driver told me this guy's sons thought it was a joke when dad lost his job and his CDL. The poor guy tried to fight it, but got nowhere.
There was a similar case involving a New York cop, Anthony Chiofalo, whose wife admitted to spiking his meatballs with cannabis. She had thought a positive drug test would cause the administration to force him to retire, since he had served over 20 years and had not already retired from the force as promised. A random drug test using a hair sample did catch him. He was fired and stripped of his pension and benefits despite her admission and passing a polygraph test about it. A court ruled against him, ending his fight, in 2010. So this truck driver would probably not have been able to fight his firing in court, either, based on this precedent.
If I were this dad, here's what I would do to the sons who gave me the brownies:
1. File a police report against the sons and press any applicable charges. There's plenty of proof about what happened.
2. Take any 529 account funds or other money put aside for their future university costs and use the money as needed to pay bills—and make sure these boys know that money is now gone. (The money in a 529 belongs to the person who starts the account, so the boys have no standing to sue to get that money. For those outside the US, a 529 is a uni savings account that builds money tax-free if it is used for higher education expenses.)
3. Any vehicles, video game systems, or other expensive items the boys have are taken and sold. Once again, make sure they know what happened to the items and why. As a broad rule with some exceptions, minors cannot do a lot about this because of legal parental prerogatives.
4. At age 18 and upon graduation from high school, the boys are thrown out of the house to find their own place to live—as in, they come home and find their belongings on the lawn to pack and take.
But that's me. Maybe I'm just a jerk. What would the rest of you do if your kids gave you drugs without your knowledge and you lost your job behind it?