Further insanity of war on drugs: student expelled for bringing non-MJ to school

[Atomic Playboy]

Expulsion isn't about punishing the student, so much as it is about removing disruptive students from the environment. And, it isn't like they can't enroll in another school. Most districts have an alternative school especially for students that can't function in normal schools. That includes things like pat downs and such, as it is a bunch of trouble makers.

So expulsion should never, ever be used for a first offense then. I mean, if your goal is removing disruptive students, I'd argue that literally no single action marks a student as enough of a distraction that they would be impossible to help through counseling. You might reasonably say "what about shooting up the school," at which point I would counter with "that's a real crime; throw his ass in jail and skip the 'expulsion' bit." Bringing a leaf, maple, marijuana, coca or otherwise, does not, in my mind, constitute enough of a distraction as a single incident to say "you are not allowed back."

Expulsion is an abdication of responsibility by the state organization charged with educating the youth, and that's completely illogical. You know what the best learning opportunity is? Making a mistake. You don't learn anything from constantly being told you're perfect, you learn when you fuck up and someone says "here's why that didn't work." Now, granted, if this particular student has a long history of disrupting the learning environment and has been given countless opportunities to change his behavior, fine, expel him. But zero tolerance policies skip all that rigmarole for certain first offenses, and that's a colossal failure of the educational system.

 

[BoberFett]

Yeah! We should let kids bring pot to school! Old enough for read, old enough for weed! How dare we have rules and laws to keep drugs (including alcohol and tobacco!) out of the hands of children.

So to prevent drug use in school, we need to prevent kids from having something that isn't drugs?

Great logic.

 

[shira]

Some additional costs:
1) Any taxes the inmates would have paid that now they won't since the inmate working nor paying taxes during prison.
2) Any taxes the inmates would have paid for the rest of their life that they now won't since they will have a drug conviction on their record that will prevent them from ever having a good, high paying job post jail time.
3) Any welfare that their dependent family members will now consume while they're in prison.
4) Any welfare that the convict and their dependent family members will now consume after prison because he will never have a high paying job again.
5) Emotional damage and formative delays in any young children will incur from losing a parent to jail. There is now a higher potential that the children become trouble makers or even violent.
6) Any violence this convict will now cause to us. A non-violent person who serves prison time is far more likely to emerge from prison a violent person than had he never done prison time. Now we are in more danger than before we created the thug.
7) Any further costs from 1-6 as this person will statistically end up in jail again. Rinse and repeat.

Yes, we have decided as a society that it is good and proper to spend tens to hundreds of billions of dollars to effectively turn not violent drug offenders into violent and hopeless ex (and future) convicts. Who won? Cops, prison guards, judges, and DAs. Everyone else loses.

And don't forget the lost opportunity costs of regulating and taxing legal MJ sales.

Don't forget the lives that would have been saved because the black market for MJ is eradicated, ending MJ-related criminal enterprises/gangs both here and in Mexico.

Don't forget the MJ-related corruption of law enforcement that will continue.

Don't forget that MJ laws will need to continue to be enforced, NOT freeing up law enforcement resources to fight REAL crimes.

 

[Subyman]

The problem is the leaf looks like a pot leaf. How many people actually know the difference from the leaf pictured in the article and a pot leaf? Especially, without a side by side comparison?

And, if you really think something that happened to a 12 year old that didn't result in any legal recourse is going to ruin this kid's chances at college, you're an idiot.

No need for personal attacks. My post was completely respectful to you.

I get that sometimes schools can go overboard. When I was a senior a girl at my school had a dog pop on her vehicle. Since she was 18 and was the owner of the car, she refused to consent to a search and they had to get a warrant (normally, they just call the parents, but couldn't in this case). The police found what appeared to be two pot seeds and she was put into alternative school for 60 days. The seeds ended up never being able to test positive for pot (she didn't smoke pot, btw) and she passed every drug test. Her family fought as much as they possibly could, but she had already served her time before anything happened. And, the only thing that did happen was that the school had a right to punish without testing.

The issue here, wasn't that this was a clear case of the school being idiots. A student was reported for having a pot leaf AND had a leaf that could easily be mistaken for a pot leaf. And, I am going to guess he was fucking joking about it, because he is a kid and a moron.

Adults tend to forget, all kids are morons. They are ignorant, do not know how to behave, and incapable of knowing what 20+ years of being an adult teaches you. They are the epitome of ignorance (they literally have not learned yet or do not understand the effects of their actions, i.e. can't predict out comes) and its our job as adults to teach them. They will make thousands of mistakes, but it is our job to direct them down the right path. I think schools these days are too busy covering their liability rather than focusing on what is best for the kids. Which is why nearly any offense is hyper-punished.

And, zero tolerance for weapons makes me laugh. When I was in grade school I bought a knife and was showing it off and got caught. The only thing that happened to me was the principle confiscated it and made my parents come to the school to retrieve it. I went back to class right after handing it over. But, that was before Columbine. =)

Sad part is, kids didn't immediately change after Columbine. They are still the same kids, adults are now more scared so typical childhood stuff gets blown way out of proportion.