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Schools report sharp rise in drug incidents
Written by Rebecca Jones on Nov 8th, 2010. | Copyright © EdNewsColorado.org
Can we have numbers for alcohol/tobacco violations over the same time frame? The state has something like 12,000 liquor licensees but nobody honestly suggests a return to prohibition. Alcohol prohibition caused immeasurable problems, not unlike marijuana prohibition.
The fact is that neither alcohol nor marijuana is good for teenagers. Marijuana, however, is demonstrably less harmful than alcohol, from a health perspective. Kids have always raided their parents’ stash or liquor cabinet and blaming Colorado’s compassionate use program for failures on the part of our educators and parents is putting the cart before the horse.
Let’s try telling kids the truth for once: Marijuana doesn’t cause cancer or do brain damage or make you schizophrenic or lead directly to meth and heroin. It makes you kinda stupid and error prone and feels kinda good and eats up your free time and that’s about it. Oh and some adults get really really mad when they find out that other adults (or kids) might use some marijuana without facing inflated consequences for their harmless activities.
Kids who don’t have anything better to do than get drunk or stoned have a problem at home and we shouldn’t be afraid to address it.
Colorado kids have access to the same internet as the rest of us and they can see through the prohibitionist line that the cannabis plant is such a danger to society that we must surrender our civil liberties to stamp it out. They see adults acting like children over a plant growing out of the ground whose active ingredients have never killed anyone on Earth.
“It’s their right to have the cards but it’s not right for them to come to school under the influence of marijuana,” she said. “That totally confused them and they said that didn’t make any sense. I might have said the same thing at that age.”
If she had taken this attitude in other jurisdictions, well, a nice lawsuit would be headed her way. They don’t seem to get it: they are not doctors! If a doctor says it’s okay, it’s okay — anywhere! A medical emergency doesn’t have time to worry about the sensibilities of a few uptight people.
This is getting to be an ADA issue, and I’d expect some issues with a comparison if they are treating diabetics with needles in the same matter.
It’s interesting that the chart also shows a drop in certain municipalities, and yet nobody in those districts was included in the story. Including their side may complicate the narrative. It might also provide some ideas as to how they are keeping substance use low.
I’m all for marijuana legalization, but fail to see how its use helps anybody learn better. It’s not such a bad thing to prohibit being under the influence, especially without life-or-death consequences.