Thursday 2 April 2009

Everybody's On Drugs

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a high school student, and infront of you has just been placed a drug survey. This is completely anonymous, but your answers will be used to better understand the level of drug use in your school. In the following pages, you will be asked questions like, "How many times in the last week have you used crack cocaine?" or "How many times in your life have you used LSD?" or "How many of your close friends smoke pot daily?" Could you possibly resist the urge to tell the local substance abuse association that you drop acid every day, with no negative consequences?! Doubtful.

Our little prank came back to bite us in the ass though, with, as Farny says, "enormous, sharp fangs!" We are apparently too short-sighted to realize that, word got out that everyone in the school buys, sells, and uses ecstacy five times a day, there would be consequences. The people most bothered with our youth's hypothetical drug use is, not surprisingly, the clergy of Le Roy. Anyone who has attended a religious service in town this month has probably been warned about the evils of drugs. Catholics, even if they were zoning out, were lectured on the dangers of excess amounts of alcohol (small amounts are cool though, we have some in church).

Apparently, some young girl informed an unknown priest or minister or pastor that, students can buy any drug, at any point throughout the school day, in any hallway in the building. While I've certainly whitnessed a few shady (and usually pretty obvious) meetings in the hallways, I don't believe that I could easily pick up some acid after Calc (not that I would want acid after calc).

While we're not exactly going to be "punished", I think we can expect some more presentations like the anti-drug-use one we had last month... which some may argue is, in fact, cruel punishment. Although, I don't know what better way to keep kids away from drugs than showing video of destroyed organs, damaged brains, and teens dying from overdoses.

Does Le Roy have a drug problem? Sure. Is it worse than surrounding towns? Probably not. Drugs are always going to be present in a high school. While I don't see any harm in creating some programs to try to combat teens' drug use, I'm thinking that GCASA should rethink their source of information. Because even the finest, most mature students cannot resist to fill in the "yes" bubble next to, "Have you used heroin in the last 24 hours?"

At least I can't.

Disclaimer: I don't do drugs.

3 comments:

Jim Mignano said...

No lie... I answer those surveys 100% truthfully. Hahaha.

Molly Kate said...

That's because you're square

Joe Mignano said...

FYI...I am sure LeRoy is no worse than other neighboring towns in terms of drug usage. But from what I can tell, it has gotten FAR worse since the time I was in school.