Someday human technology will advance in such a way that we can answer that mighty problem. Someday.
Yeah, sorry, no sympathy for the kid. I mean, it’s unfortunate that she’s dug herself into a hole that’s going to be a pain in the ass for her family to get her out of, but she had to have known it was against the rules to carry weed around school.
You can’t hold a person to a social contract you pull out of your fucking ass. They didn’t ask to be born, they didn’t ask to go to school, and they sure as hell did not ask for marijuana to be against the fucking rules. Imagine a newspaper headline – “Child bruttaly sodomized for littering, hospitalized”. Yes littering is against the rules and the child probably knew that. Would you have no sympathy then? Just an exaggerated version of the same phenomenon.
Okay…the same thing happened to my kid. I got a lawyer.
The law in Illinois says that the state has to provide an education until the kid reaches the age of 16. They have schools designed for the pot boys and cutter girls and there is no cost to the parents. I suggest you look into it.
This was back in '93, I think. Don’t know what the law is now.
Yeah, this is crap. That whole ‘didn’t ask to be born’ routine implies a sense of entitlement that’s insane. “I didn’t ask to be born so you’re responsible for me!” Well, yeah, for a while the parents and the schools are responsible for kids. But the flip side of that is that they can make rules that have punishments for being broken.
Hell, I speak as a man who, as a boy, did his last three and one half years of high school in one of those ‘schools for troubled youth’ places Kalhoun just referenced. I’ve seen too many of these kids (and was one of them!) to buy the whole ‘Wah! It’s not fair!’ argument.
I don’t agree with the “woe is me” bullshit, either. But the fact is, some kids are screwed up, but taking the structure and benefit of education away from them isn’t going to solve the problem. Was my kid stupid for bring pot to school? Sure. But that doesn’t mean he’s a lost cause.
And nor was I. But keeping me in the public school system wasn’t doing anyone (me or them) any good so off I went (it was that or jail, really).
And what was provided was real structure, not the nonsense that the public schools provide. We were shepherded around and forced to do many things in a very scheduled and structured way that a normal high school couldn’t possibly attempt to do. It reduced things that I’d seen as optional or not-required to a routine.
Sounds like yours was better than my son’s. His school tried, but they could never get all of them to follow the rules. He eventually dropped out and got his GED. Those were some rough years for us.
Maybe- depending on your religious beliefs- they did ask to be born, but have no conscious memories of it in this life.
Most kids don’t want to go to school. Of course, most kids also realise that they have to go to school to, well, learn anything.
As for the Marijuana thing: A lot of people obviously did ask for it to be against the rules, as it’s illegal pretty much everywhere.
I’d be interested to see any cite you have for this.
Nicotine kills thousands of people every year in the UK alone and is incredibly addictive. It’s legal.
Marijuana is massively less dangerous than tobacco and actually helps with pain relief. It’s illegal.
The difference in legality is because large tobacco companies make lots of money for themselves and Governments, while there are no large companies selling pot.
You know, I never asked for armed robbery to be against the rules. Fortunately, by your flawless logic, I am thus above such laws. I’ll have to print you post as a note of excuse when I rob a bank later.
Seriously though, the girl in question was old enough to realize that carrying around drugs while at school wasn’t a smart move. She was old enough to realize that it violated school rules. Whether or not she made the rules, they still apply to her.
I would also note the inappropriateness of your counter example. Last time I checked, being “brutally sodomized” is not a valid punishment in the school system’s disciplinary arsenal. Maybe being expelled was too harsh, maybe not. We know nothing about whether or not the girl had any previous offenses (drug related or otherwise.) We know nothing about how much marijuana she had or where or not she intended to sell it.
Finally, I would point out that profanity is typically discouraged upon in MPSIMS, but then again, you probably never asked for that to be the case.
Basic logic. We live in representative democracies (for the most part). If people- and by people, I mean “A vast majority of enfranchised adults”- wanted marijuana to be legal, then the laws would have been changed to reflect that. The fact marijuana is illegal in the majority of places- not just in the US, but across the world- suggests that, as a whole, most people feel that marijuana shouldn’t be legalised- or, failing that, don’t care enough to press for it’s legalisation.
Personally, I don’t care one way or the other. I’ve never touched the stuff in my life, but if adults want to get high in their own home, then I think they should be allowed to do so. Provided they don’t leave their homes until they’re back to being sober again, though.
If you believe that (that it’s solely illegal because Big Tobacco can’t get a cut of the action), I’ve got a bridge in Sydney for sale that you might be interested in.
Well, according to NORML,
It’s not quite a majority yet as far as total legalization goes, but I think it’s pretty clear most people don’t think possession of small amounts should result in a kid getting expelled from school.
It sure is. The world is becoming over-run with people who think marijuana possession by 15 year old girls is no big deal.
Bolding mine. This is completely different to your previous comment
People not really caring to vote *for * something does not mean that they are opposed to it.
I would also point out that many laws have been passed before countries have full enfranchisement of the adult population. The fact that the laws exist doesn’t mean that they were voted in. Many laws are also not voted out because the prevailing government of the time does not make time for a referendum.
I’d like to see some figures for that, too.
mm
Jumping in late here - Administrator in a public school district in Illinois, the district does have to make alternatives known. Most districts either run their own, or contract with some kind of alternative school.
I agree groman’s an idiot. The girl brought pot to school, there are consequences, she’s paying for it. It’s a tough time but not the end of the world. I served on a school board for several years - LOTS of kids that were expelled for drugs were able to to petition for early re-entry by showing they attended some sort of drug education and had been testing clean.
Some districts in Illinois have something called first-time offender contracts. IF it’s a relatively small amount, and IF you have an otherwise clean record, and IF you sign the contract that says you can be tested and will go through the ‘program’, then you get a 3-5 day suspension, and an expulsion which is stayed pending completion of the time period. Say you get a 1-year expulsion, then you get a 1 year contract. Screw up with more drugs during the contract and you get the remainder of the contract time out of school and riding with mom or dad to the alternative school in the next town.
We did that for a lot of kids - we’d listen to the principal’s judgment a lot, and had a few kids even catch me later at their graduations and thank us for the second chance.
Stupid, inflexible people shouldn’t be leading kids.
In my state, Louisiana USA, possession of any amount of even a look-alike to marijuanna requires a 2 year expulsion, no exceptions. We cut the the elementary (k-8) kids a break-that requires only a one year expulsion. And transfers to another school doesn’t do any good. The expulsion is state-wide. Any pills, even aspirin or a prescribed medication, causes the same result. If a child HAS to have a medication during the day, the parent is supposed to come to the school and administer the drug. But under the table the secretary will help out-I am told their desk looks like a pharmacy counter. As you can imagine the risks being taken are huge. But under no circumstances can the child bring any pill to school. I strongly object to illegal drugs of all kinds just on principle, but these laws are just ridiculous.
Maybe it’s just because we do things differently in Canada (or at least did when I was in high school), but I’m having difficulty understanding why the school and/or school board has any role to play in this.
When I was in high school, drug users and drug dealers, if arrested by local police, were subject to the Criminal Code of Canada, and possibly the Drugs and Controlled Substances Act (or whatever it was called in those days), and all the sanctions it contained, as passed by the federal Parliament. Conviction in a properly constituted court meant jail time, and jail time necessitated missing classes (suspension, if not outright expulsion for lengthy sentences). But no school ever launched sanctions against a student unless and until the student was found guilty in the correct court. In other words, the school waited until the criminal justice system rendered a verdict.
Do American students not have these privileges? It would seem to me that a publically-funded school saying that a student is guilty and enforcing sanctions against the same before the student has actually been found guilty by a properly-constituted state court violates the “innocent until proven guilty” doctrine that Americans seem to be so proud of.
I don’t wish to start a heated debate, and I am as anti-drug as anybody can be. But am I missing something here? If a person is arrested on drug charges but is found to be not guilty by a state court, what recourse do they have against the school/school board who has already initiated sanctions against them based on the fact that the school/school board thought them guilty?
Again - only speaking from my own experiences as a board member and then as an administrator: Most high schools here have a police officer inside, working as a liaison officer. Most of what they do is educational, but they have a security role as well. When any student is found with anything suspected of being an illegal drug, the on-site cop is called, or if the school doesn’t have one - the local gendarmes are summoned.
Unless the student says “yep, that’s my stash of dope”, or even IF they do, the substance is vetted by the authorities before it’s called that by the school. And in every case, whatever charges should be filed, are filed.
The school is given authority by the state to act on internal disciplinary actions before a case winds it’s way through the courts. IANAL, but if one pops in to explain why that’s legal, welcome.
My nephew just got 2 mos. suspension for being caught on camera selling pot in the cafeteria. It was 1 week before his 16th birthday. He has excellent grades and no prior trouble at school so they took it easy on him. His customer got more time and is in rehab because he’s a known pothead.
There was absolutely no way he was going to get out of it. He was caught with the weed which was partially paid for with five Ritalin, which were also on his person, and he was on camera, he admitted it and he tried to flee.
His father still believes he has never smoked pot and that the pot they found in his room belonged to some kids who were at a party gone awry at their house. His mother is just worried that he’s going to be out of the loop socially.
Me, his #1 Auntie and “half-mom”? No sympathy whatsoever. I love him the same as always, but he deserves any punishment he gets and is certainly old enough and smart enough to have expected it. Damn teens with their delusions of invulnerability!