Agree

by Colette Georgii

Created on: March 14, 2008   Last Updated: November 21, 2009

There should be mandatory drug testing in all public schools for administrators, teachers, and students. For too many years now schools have been getting away with allowing children to use their bathrooms for illegal drug use.

Parents who don't use drugs are the last to find out when their children have been using drugs in school.

Schools should be safe havens for caring parents to send their children, not places where children are taught things they wouldn't learn in their own homes.

Parents who don't use drugs are innocent. If the flow of illegal drugs into our country can not be stopped, we as concerned citizens should at least feel our children are safe in our school systems.

Parents always learn too late. A case in point is where a six-year-old boy was given drugs on the playground by a drug dealer. At some point the drug dealer told the six-year-old that he would have to pay for his drugs and gave him a gun. The little boy went into a store and shot and killed the store clerk.

Another parent learned too late also when her daughter at the age of 17 began having mental problems caused by drug use - one of her schoolmates had given her drugs at the age of 13 on her way walking to school. The parent was a substitute at the daughter's high school but did not know also that the students were smoking marijuana in the bathrooms. She never visited the children's bathrooms.

Another parent also learned too late when her son tried to commit suicide and then discovered that all the peanut plants she thought her son was growing were really marijuana plants. He told her they were peanut plants and she believed him. Why wouldn't she? We always trust our children until it is too late.

Drug use in the United States is in a catastrophic state. How else can we stem the tide of illegal drug use but to enact and enforce stringent drug use laws. There should be no drug use in public schools.

Public schools are places for learning not places to breed illegal activities. And drug use isn't just an illegal act it is dangerous for the health and well being of our children who are still growing and developing.

All public schools should be drug free, not just middle schools and high schools, but also elementary schools.

Many children who use drugs come from families who use drugs. But these children should not be allowed to influence students who do not come from drug families. Most likely children from drug-free families would never use drugs if it were not for encouragement by their peer group. Is this called socialization? Children don't need this kind of socialization.

As a nation we have let the drug situation get out of hand by not understanding that drugs like marijuana are dangerous drugs due to drug propaganda that tells everyone that marijuana will not hurt you.

In reality marijuana is as dangerous as any drug and more cancer causing than tobacco

The statistics

According to information at www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/def/du.htm in 2003 statistics from 35 metropolitan areas revealed that one-half of drug misuse deaths involved one of the following drugs: cocaine, heroin, marijuana, stimulants, club drugs, hallucinogens, or non-pharmaceutical inhalants.

Facts about marijuana:

1) Short term effects

* problems with memory and learning

* distorted perceptions

* difficulty in thinking and problem solving

* loss of coordination

* increased heart rate

2) Long term effects are the same as for any of the other drugs.

3) The risk of heart attack more than quadruples in the first hour after smoking marijuana.

4) Has the potential for increased cancer risk. Marijuana smoke has 50 to 70% more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke.

5) Marijuana impairs the immune system's ability to fight disease.

6) Chronic marijuana use is associated with depression, anxiety, and personality disturbances.

7) Job skills, intellectual skills, and social skills decrease with continued use of marijuana.

8) Students who smoke marijuana get lower grades and are less likely to graduate from high school.

9) Smoking marijuana every day is directly correlated with a reduced intellectual level all of the time.

Marijuana is just one of the drugs used by children and others in public school systems. Cocaine and meth amphetamine are also dangerous drugs that are being used by students. Many students are also using over the counter drugs and prescription drugs.

If you want your children to do better in school you need to take away the drugs and make mandatory drug testing available for all school students and school officials. This might seem harsh but we have been asleep while these forces have taken over our schools, our children, and our country. We need to reclaim the United States for the United States and for the people of the United States, if at this late stage it is possible.

Reference:

www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/marijuana.html

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