ZERO TOLERANCE SHOWS SOCIETY'S DOWNFALL

Dear Editor,

Recent news carried a story of a 15-year-old boy in Houston, Texas, who was
arrested and charged with distribution of a controlled substance - a felony.
He was reported to the police by a school nurse for violating the school's
zero-tolerance drug abuse policy.

You might be tempted to applaud the officials for another job well done.
This is surely another example of how zero-tolerance is saving our children
from the horrors of drug abuse.

Before you praise the laws that are doing such a fine job of protecting our
kids from harm, however, let me tell you the little piece of this story that
I left out.

The boy had loaned his inhaler to his girlfriend when she had a severe
asthma attack at school. Both are 15 years old. Both are asthma sufferers.
And both are prescribed, by a doctor, Albuterol inhalers. The girl had
simply forgotten hers at home that day.

I suppose it's good that we got this creep off the streets, though. There's
no telling whose life he might have saved next.

People, wake up. What has this world come to - when the efforts one person
makes toward helping another are not looked upon as everyday routine
occurrences but instead are seen as questionable if not criminal?

If we are so inept that we need so-called zero-tolerance laws to guide and
rule our lives, then we no longer deserve to call ourselves a "civilized
society," if we ever truly did.

As the saying goes, "Where are we going, and why are we in this hand
basket?"

Derek Tombrello

Columbiana