PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE

School-Pill Incident Needs To Be Addressed Seriously

There is a popular television public service announcement depicting
teenagers joy-riding in search of something to do and pulling up in
front of a house. It has neon signs advertising it as a 24-hour
pharmacy of fun - where drugs are free.

The house could be anyone's house. The point is that some of the most
accessible and dangerous drugs are already in your medicine cabinet,
dresser or kitchen knickknack drawer.

The reality of that hits home as an 11-year-old student took some of
his grandmother's prescription tranquilizers to Sabal Palm Elementary
School and with a friend handed them out to nine classmates. Seven
swallowed the pills. They were taken to a hospital as a precaution.

Collier County Public Schools and the Sheriff's Office are doing what
must be done. They have arrested the givers and will punish all nine
of the takers.

The fact that this is one of the first such cases we've heard of
indicates that most parents and guardians are already talking to
their youngsters about the dangers of such activity.

Yet, one parent has yet to get that message. The mother of the boy,
12, charged with helping pass out the Xanax says the bust is
heavy-handed and unfair, and goes to show that Sabal Palm in Golden
Gate Estates picks on Hispanics, such as her son.

She does have one part right. "We will resolve this in court," she says.

That is where this case belongs. It is serious.