WHEN DRUG WAR TARGETS KOOL-AID, IT'S GONE TOO FAR

IT starts with Kool-Aid. Before you know it, kids are hooked on
Ovaltine.

The War on Kool-Aid has come to O.T. Bonner Middle School in Danville,
Virginia. The school suspended eight students for one week for
sniffing Kool-Aid powder.

The students were charged with ``possession of contraband'' because
they were ``using Kool-Aid in a way that imitated the use of illegal
drugs,'' school officials explained. They could have been suspended
for a year on the charge of ``using a look-alike drug.''

Of course, the brightly colored powder isn't illegal, nor does it look
like any illegal drug known to this editorial board.

``This is your brain; this is a public school bureaucrat's brain on
Kool-Aid,'' snorted Steve Dashbach, national director of the
Libertarian Party, which publicized the incident.

Courtesy of the Libertarians, there are other examples of zero
tolerance run amuck:

Two kindergartners playing at a New Jersey school pointed their
fingers at classmates and made shooting noises. Bang-bang. You're
suspended for three days.

The parents are considering a lawsuit to clear the tykes' ``permanent
record'' of the offense lest they later be branded as
violence-prone.

A Maryland school suspended a 9-year-old for violating the school's
no-gun policy. He'd drawn a picture of a gun on a piece of paper.

A seventh-grader in Kansas got a three-day suspension for violating
the rule against ``racially divisive'' material. He drew a picture of
a Confederate flag.

Whatever happened to talking to children?

Zero tolerance, zero sense.