Document text
--> --> Less alarmed by drugs than the drug policies By Brad Carrier Ashland With the horrid events in the larger world, aren't we lucky to have ordinary problems like school drug policies? While they lead to considerable anguish to those involved, as problems go, the mixture of rules, teens and authorities is so, well, typical, ours, and not so bad. I won't chime in with accusation toward some on the board or others, or be against any teachers or students. I'm sorry for all involved. A few people got in the unenviable positions of having to either enforce or escape an overly aggressive policy. Simple lessons on inappropriate behavior grew to a litigious tussle between the burden of authority and the need for balanced justice. Coach John Tredway should be basking in the glow of having led our local debate team to national prominence, but must now deal with difficult, subtle and complex rules and relations amidst angry tensions. He and his students, even the wayward ones, deserve community celebration and support. Instead, presumptive and punitive drug policies are driving our community to ridiculous extremes and their resulting rancor. In a neighboring town the school authorities denied a good student his place in his graduating class because he had pot in his car. All his years of effort and accomplishment counted for nothing compared to this one typical teenage slip. The message to the kids was: `No matter how good you otherwise are, no matter how out of proportion the anti-drug policy has become, you must obey, no questions asked and none answered, because we've got the power." Is this the message we want to send our kids? Not me. I'm against the drug policies in our country. We have more than doubled our expensive, counter-productive prisons, turning hundreds of thousands of otherwise peaceful, law-abiding citizens into injured, resentful "criminals." We have chased dissenters into isolated silence and divided good people from their police and schools. Inclusive dialog is absent. Good people dare not differ. Democracy withers. I object to the tone and tactics of these policies, from the growing federal police state to its presence in our local school policy. Our understandable concern for limits and guidelines has gone awry in the problematic assumption that firmness and punishment makes for good teaching. Our own knowledge of which drugs do what has been ignored and subverted. Despite this propaganda, many teens and parents know the radical difference between pot and crank, between sipping a beer and snorting gasoline, between having a glass of wine and living to only drink wine. We know the important difference between drug use and drug abuse - despite the presumptive, hyper-reactive "any drug or alcohol use warrants suspension, expulsion and the ruination of young careers." Do I want our teens turning to drugs more than they do? No. Do I think alcohol, pot and other drugs are free of problems? No. But do such problems warrant harsh punishments? No. Would I mind if our teachers, police, doctors and congressmen smoked pot on their weekends? No. It's their lives. Do schools instill acceptance of the growing norm: "You have no right to your private lives; we rule you?" Just when in America did we agree to relinquish our inalienable right to privacy and happiness or to presume to prevent others from theirs? So, when the school board revisits the policy they should know there are some of us who aren't as alarmed at the drugs as at the laws and policies against them. There are good reasons to dissuade our youth from getting caught up in these distractions and dangers. I wish we could share that reasoning without assuming the closed-minded, heavy-handed, unreasonable stance we incorrectly imagine most expect. Acting like any drug use is the worst thing in the world is not the lesson I want taught to my kids in this world of far, far worse things. Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing