DHS Policy Needs To Recognize Shades Of Gray

Public school educators say today that it is not just students who are
marking time during the school day who are experimenting with drugs in
various degrees, but athletes and extra-curricular club members who
genuinely want to participate in a full day of learning. The
discipline needed for playing shortstop, or editing a school magazine,
makes it less likely a student will use drugs, but it doesn't rule it
out entirely.

Drugs, whether they are marijuana, crack or alcohol, are becoming more
and more a part of the teen-age environment, and at a younger age.
They pop up in numerous settings off school grounds, and their
presence is posing a dilemma for Durango High School athletes and
their parents, and school administrators.

School rules require that an athlete not only refuse drugs, but not be
in their presence. (Some would say if that is the issue ­ proximity,
not using ­ it could be much worse. Agreed. But behavior does have a
way of rubbing off.) Another student, perhaps from the college, who
has a bottle of gin suddenly makes a social occasion off limits.

Enter the issue of overdoing in loco parentis. Depending on when the
student's sport is played, the ban (on use, as well as proximity) can
apply to summer vacation. That has some parents indignant, saying that
during the summer they should have the authority to say "yes" or "no"
to their child's use of alcohol (a glass of wine at dinner?) at a
family gathering without being in violation of the student's agreement
with the school to play sports.

Those parents are the ones who make a good argument for letting a
young person become familiar with alcohol in a family setting, in
moderation; that demonizing it can make it more tempting than it
should be. There are other cultures that take that tack, and are
generally thought to do a better job than Americans of preparing their
children to use alcohol, or be comfortable with nudity, for example,
by not putting them entirely out of reach.

Should that technique of introducing alcohol also apply to other
drugs? Almost everyone would say no today, as we do, but times can ­
and will ­ change.

The definitive lines between right and wrong that everyone seeks may
be elusive: The nondrinking student who helps his friends who are
drinking reach home without being a danger on the highways ought to be
lauded, not punished.

So, too, the teen-ager who is comfortable drinking in moderation is
probably less likely to be an explosive drinker beginning the day of
his 21st birthday.

Should parents' child-rearing techniques take precedence over school
requirements when they conflict? If not, are schools saying to parents
they know better?

The answers will not be easy ones.