DRUGS IN SCHOOLS

Joseph Califano of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
decries the easy availability of drugs in schools. And it is a big problem.
And with the start of school an important problem to deal with.

To deal with the problem we have to understand the magnitude of the
problem. Half of all teenagers will attend a school where drugs are sold
used or kept. About half of all teenagers will have smoked marijuana by the
time they leave school. Twenty-one percent will have used some other
illegal drug.

So the question is who are the kids buying the drugs from? Certainly not
from Columbian drug lords. Nor from Mexican border jumpers. Not even from
outlaw bikers or the proverbial pusher in a trench coat. Kids in school buy
their drugs from other kids in school. So these budding John Hancocks are
getting their start in the schools. Not exactly the kind of education we
had in mind though is it? Smuggling though an ancient and noble American
profession is not exactly what we want for our children.

The funny thing is we have confronted this problem once before in our
recent history. It happened during alcohol prohibition. The schools became
saturated with booze dealers and children were all too often coming to
school drunk. Some women of the time were so incensed at these goings on
that they formed an organization called "Women's Organization for National
Prohibition Reform." Their main object was to get alcohol dealing out of
the schools. And as far as we can tell they have fairly well succeeded.
Kids say its harder to get alcohol than illegal drugs.

Other benefits that this organization promised would follow from
legalization were: control of the liquor trade, putting bootleggers out of
business, restoring respect for law enforcement, and taking the profit out
of crime. In addition since kids would no longer be learning the drunken
lifestyle at school they could learn temperance at home and in the church
with some hope that these efforts wouldn't be counteracted in the public
schools.

And you know what? It worked.

And here we sit today with prohibition going full blast and no mothers to
oppose it. I'm waiting for the day when a group of mothers wakes up to the
fact that the best way to get drugs out of schools is to put them in drug
stores. Its not a perfect solution. But at least then the drugs will be as
hard to get as alcohol.

E.J. still needs a job so he can rejoin the community . If you can
help Leave a message at:

http://sites.netscape.net/ejpagel/freeej