When I lived in Philadelphia, I was part of a group that took pets to Ronald McDonald houses, long term care homes, etc.
One visit was to a catholic home for terminal illness patients (it had a weird name, like the home for hopeless cases). There were long wards with dozens of beds. I had a Yellow Naped Amazon Parrot that loved to fly, so I sent him down the ward. He flew a beautiful circle.
My parrot apparently scared one old guy, who jumped out of his bed and began screaming obscenities! I’m standing there with two nuns and this guy is screaming words that were extremely horrible. The C word, MF this and that, etc.
Of course I apologized to the nuns. But they were happily laughing. Seems this guy hadn’t moved or spoken since his arrival a few weeks prior, and they thought what he was doing was just wonderful.
Sounds similar to the story of a current US Senator from FL and his running of the nation’s largest for-profit health care company. Maybe Ralph should run for office since it seems he has the bona fides?
Melatonin patches exist, and there are studies that say they work. But they aren’t knockout drugs; they might help you sleep longer and stay in REM longer while you are asleep, so you sleep more deeply, but a fully-awake person isn’t going to pass out like a tranquilizer. If you had “nap time” in class where kids were lying down and going to sleep anyway, this might help kids sleep longer, maybe.
And that’s assuming these are adult patches with real melatonin, which exist. I can’t find ones for kids that have melatonin; every kids’ patch is “natural” like the link you provided. But the adult ones with real melatonin that I’ve found can look like the one pictured in the news article, so they may have been given adult melatonin patches.
From the article:
Here is an example of an adult patch with melatonin and a cartoon night sky picture on it:
Though I will say that multiple reviews of that product say it doesn’t really work (so this particular one might be snake oil too).
There is pretty much no chance that these teachers are actually “drugging students to get them to sleep”. That’s not how those patches work, and that’s if they work at all, which most don’t, and none of the patches I can find that are marketed toward kids are anything but a “smelly sticker”. Even if it’s a patch marketed toward adults, and has melatonin in it, it’s not going to do that. The article goes on to say:
Both parents said that after coming home from school, their children struggle to sleep.
Any school that has “nap time” has the potential for that, whether you have “sleep patches” or not, so this is hilarious nonsense.
All that being said, the article does state:
The SISD has not identified the teachers involved but said that the alleged behavior had violated its Board Policy FFAC.
The policy states that “no employee shall give any student prescription medication, nonprescription medication, herbal substances, anabolic steroids, or dietary supplements of any type, except as authorized by this or other District policy.”
And there is no question that the teachers violated that policy, if these allegations are true. So the teachers should face discipline of some kind regardless of whether or not the kids were ever in any danger. I mean, who knows, you might have a kid with a severe allergy to whatever weird-ass woo herbal bullshit is put on the sticker, and now you’re dealing with anaphylaxis. It’s not like there is a zero percent chance of harm from these things. Pretty much all schools ban products with peanuts in them, so random magic stickers with who-knows-what on them are so much worse.
There’s an “interesting” new comment on the original article page:
Kuddos to the teacher. And shame on parents. They are non toxic and natural used to help with kids. If you parent your child correctly then a teacher should not have to use natural ways to help student with attention and resting. Not a drug it is natural scent essential oils on a sticker , (i am sure all these people have seen it on social media)help aide just like many . Parents do not have consequences for their disobedient child. Habits are wrong . But giving them alternatives and not spending quailty time with your child to engage their energy and abilities hindering the parent and the child from the learning. They have different kinds and every teacher uses different words. Are you seriously going to take a child that is not age appropriate words correctly. As a parent no child ever understands the whole story. So you are telling a teacher that your child’s health is not an issue. When it is a sticker and no harm is being done. Then you as a parent should not allow temp tattoos, pens, colors, markers, glue, stickers, makeup, halloween face painting, or anything at all on your child. Just put them in a plastic bubble and keep in doors and homeschool because you shame a teacher to help structure and rest your child when you can not and do not at home. Shame on you as a parent for a sending your child to school for someone else to parent because your to selfish and busy to parent yourself. Not all teachers are bad and the ones that are not well maintained should have consequences but this is ignorance on parent. GOD BLESS THIS WORLD and this is why we have so many bad choices that happen in schools. TURN YOURSELF TO CHRIST FOR YOUR CHILD IF NOT FOR YOURSELF. RAISE YOUR CHILD AND A MANNER YOU WANT THE WORLD TO BE. CHANGE!!!
People describe something as “natural” as if that inherently means it’s a good thing. Arsenic and rattlesnakes are both natural too, but if I had a kid I wouldn’t want anyone giving either one of those to him/her.
