'WAR ON SHARPIES' A WHIFF OF THE ABSURD

RALEIGH - They say truth is stranger than fiction.

At times, it's more absurd than fiction. Some stories, that happened
to be true, would never be published or made into a movie because
publishers and producers would say the story is so weird no one would
believe it, and there no one would want to buy the book or see the movie.

Take the case of Eathan Harris as an example. Young Eathan is an
8-year-old student at Harris Park Elementary School in Westminster,
Colo. He was suspended from school, originally for three days, for
violating the school district's substance abuse policy.

His offense: After using a black Sharpie marker to color a small area
on the sleeve of his sweatshirt, a teacher noticed him smelling the
ink from the marker and from his shirt, according to a KUSA-TV
report. I'm glad those kind of policies weren't in effect when I was
in elementary school, or the principal might have called my parents
to come pick me up from school.

I can certainly remember liking the smell of magic markers back when
I was a youngster. But I don't ever remember getting a buzz off of
the smell. Maybe I was too young and naive to know what a buzz was.
And maybe my elementary school teachers had enough common sense to
know that there was nothing wrong with what I was doing.

In any event, the school reduced young Eathan's suspension to one day
after receiving complaints from his parents.

Now, I'd think that if I were the principal at that school, someone
higher up in the school administration or the local school board
would have had a word of prayer with me and I would be offering
apologizes to the youngster and the boy's parents. I'd also be
assuring the boy's parents that his records would be purged of any
mention of the ridiculous suspension. But no. Principal Chris Benisch
defended the suspension, saying that the act was "really, really,
seriously dangerous" and that the boy could "become intoxicated."

Really? Seriously? Apparently not. According to the KUSA-TV report, a
toxicologist at the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center says the
claim is nearly impossible. Such markers are non-toxic and you can't
get high from them. Liberator Online, a libertarian online
publication, lampoons this war on drugs, calling the action a "war on
Sharpies."

The principal takes this absurdity even further. "We've purged every
permanent marker there is in this building," he said. Now, I have
serious reservations about our decades-long "war on drugs." But I do
believe that schools should be one place that our children can go
without coming into contact with illegal drugs. After all, our laws
do have compulsory school attendance laws.

We've got a long way to go before we get there. You don't get there
by promoting and acting on inaccurate information. And you certainly
don't get there by punishing children for harmless, inconsequential acts.

If you're thinking about writing a book or a script for a movie,
don't bother. This story is to absurd to sell.