Drugs in north american schools

Discussion Open Forum
1

I have a daughter on a school exchange program in a north eastern state of the USA.

We were warned of drugs being present in the schools.

My advice to my 15 year old daughter was to get boys to “keep their snake in its cage” taken of course from the movie “Meet the Parents” and if she is under severe peer group pressure then green leafy smoking is the least dangerous but I would prefer she does nothing except music in the sex, drugs and rock and roll thing.

Now, I find out in an email that everybody is on “meds” She is boarding so is exposed to the girls 24 hour a day routines.

What is wrong with America that they have all the kids at this school on medication of some kind. Also, if they expect to take drugs as a daily life necessity then I can see how it translates into more and harder drugs.

Australia has a drug problem of well of course, in the outer suburb private shcool my children attended it was almost non existant. Inner suburbs, well the closer you get to the CBD the more drugs there seem to be from talking to other parents.

Now, I need a tie in to Taiwan somehow so this thread should be here!

2

I went to american schools my entire life, (fairly recently as well, I graduated High School in '99)…there was nothing of the sort you were talking about. The school was literally right across the street from Chicago( the street it was on served as the city boundary), so it’s not like we’re talking about the middle of Kansas. A few of my friends smoked pot, but that’s about it…you hear some people saying that they tried other things, but you got the impression that they were just all talk (like, trying to be “cool” or whatever, because the junkies life used to be so glamorized in American media). There wasn’t, nor isn’t, a mandatory drug dosage, or whatever you’re talking about. And if there is, you should find a new school…because your daughter is probably actually at a mental institution.

3

ironman,
i share your concern. simply put, the meds problem is the result of overzealous psychiatrists and school councelors trying to put a pharmaceutical cause/remedy on everything from school boredom to kids just not knowing what to do with their lives.
kids today are taught not to dream big, not to reach for the stars. they developing personalty problems that should clue us into how unhappy they are, but instead we just say the cause is chemical and give them ritalin, prozac, or other dangerous drugs.
in a more radical way of looking at things, we need to CAN THE WHOLE SYSTEM AND START OVER. i hate the way the education system makes mindless workforce robots rather than bright young people who can take control of their own lives and be more than productive, be amazing!

this is my opinion about drugs in schools. it is the result of do gooders trying to rid america of every vice. when you do that it explodes, like during the prohibition era (error,no joke).
the fact is, there have always been drugs in the US, but you never saw it. the old guys handled the business discreetly. it was kept down on skid row and never showed it’s face in regular, middle class america. it was the thrill pill of the ‘elite’ and cool or the dregs of society. when the feds decided to really come down on the old guys and their organizational way of doing the vice business, the thing exploded. the columbians took over. the old guys became investors only, but their hands never touched it. as a result, you have gang warfare and such.
nowdays, the situation is even worse. the old guys are gone and the new younger crowd plays the game with no ‘rules’ whatsoever. they even use the drugs they’re selling. and they’re ‘importing’ guys from sicily who don’t care about the rules laid down by the old guys. they are totally ruthless.

4

I finished highschool in '01 (private school here in Brisbane, Australia)… and like axiom has said… some kids here smoked pot, that was it, nothing got out of hand. I wasn’t aware of anybody at my school… or friends from other schools that had problems which required them to be placed onto medication

I really don’t understand what’s happening to kids these days :unamused:

5

I live in Canada, but the border we share with the US is practically non-existant on a lot of things. (And on others it’s there for sure: Cows, Soft Lumber, some general views and beliefs, etc. etc.)

Tendencies between both countries are common though, and I wanted to chime in… could make for a very interesting discussion this topic.

First off, Canada (and Canada’s youth) definitely has a different look on drugs (both prescription and street). Canada is actually moving to decriminalize Marijuana (something that the US doesn’t particularly like). The polls are out there that indicate that an increasing number of kids are smoking pot (roughly 40%). This is on par with alcohol use. I can guarantee that marijuana use will surpass alcohol in the younger age ranges.

The amount of street drug use will depend on the school, area of city, and socioeconomic status of the families of the kids that attend. My public high school was in a good part of the city where students were from middle income to a bit above SES.
The biggest drug used for sure was marijuana, but I know that there was Ecstasy, Mushrooms, Acid, and even Crystal Meth (very prominent where I live) were readily available if you really wanted it.
There was never any talk of cocaine or heroin or some of the other hard drugs out there.

I can see this being true to almost any high school in my city, and in my country as well as in most parts of the US (but I’ll let the americans confirm).

So… the street drugs are definitely present and if your daughter wanted to get them she could. It’s all about knowing who to talk to and which crowd you’re in.
Besides the experimentation that goes along with adolescence, it is my opinion that just because the drugs are there it doesnt mean a kid is going to use them. From what I gather, you have a good and trusting relationship with your daughter… my guess is she’ll stay out of it.
In my opinion it’s really how children are raised, the family situation at home, the parents, and in some parts the media, that really influence them…

Prescription Drugs:

Definitely a huge problem both in the US and in Canada (but I believe more so in the US – I’m trying to remember the facts from my lectures on anti- psychotics, depressents, etc. etc.)

While I agree with you rantheman that part of the problem is overzealous doctors… the parents that bring their kids to the docs really have the expectation of receiving medication that will instantly fix their child and make them bearable again.

This is a problem of our society. The overuse of drugs. It happens with antibiotics, morphine, ADs… everything. It’s not just the doctors faults, It’s the fault of the direction our society has gone. The pharmaceutical business is absolutely horrid…

Wow, sorry for the length. By the way I’m a 21 year old medical student, so I will be dealing with this all the time. Its very interesting learning about it.

6

Kids doing drugs?

Get outta here! :astonished:

Big city, little town, suburbs, it makes no difference, the only point people who make those kind of comments do is expose their stereotypes. I grew up in a Smalltown Red State and lots of kids did drugs. By far the most abused was alcohol. I’d watch out more your kid bingeing over the weekend and puking her guts out off the back of a pickup truck than I would for heroin or crack. Pot has remained a staple of youth culture since Woodstock and I don’t think anybody expects that to change. Worrying about pot is silly since in small doses it’s the most harmless chemical substance you can ingest this side of caffeine.

Heroin and coke and those hard drugs are for serious hardcore users and unless your kid has been on drugs since 12 and has now gotten bored with booze and numb with pot and needs something even harder to get the usual high, I doubt your kid is going to go for any of that. Mushrooms, LSD, XTC, etc. might be a temptation, though.

Honesty is the best policy. Kids aren’t as stupid as you think and bullshitting them with “Just Say No” propaganda scare tactics will only have them rolling their eyes at you behind your back. That’s the kind of no-tolerance approach they teach in schools and it just does not work - tell a lie to a kid that marijuana is as bad as PCP and then they smoke a joint and say, “Hey, that didn’t do me any harm. They were lying! I bet if I snort a line of coke, nothing bad will happen, either!” Sit down with your kids and tell them the honest truths. Tell them that certain soft drugs are O.K. in moderation but you have to know your limits and partake of them responsibly, and that since they’re kids with no experience who have no idea what their limits are and what they’re getting into, they need to be extra careful whenever they’re out partying with their friends. Tell them about the crazy shit you did when you were a kid on drugs, and the stupid things getting drunk/high made you do.

7

That is exactly the approach I took with my son.

We smoked pot together and also drank together. I think the pot was just the negative example he needed because he hardly smokes pot at all now. I don’t think he drinks much either.

That’s just the way I like it.

8

iron,
reel that kid in! bring her home!

9

Thanks for taking the time to post. The last may have been intended as humour. Okay. Remember it if/ when you have kids.

Its a high class boarding school, fees of USD40,000 a year. She is on exchange and a USA girl will come to Australia mid year (possilby with her meds)

10

[quote=“rantheman”]ironman,
i share your concern. simply put, the meds problem is the result of overzealous psychiatrists and school councelors trying to put a drugs they’re selling. and they’re ‘importing’ guys from sicily who don’t care about the rules laid down by the old guys. they are totally ruthless.[/quote]

That sums up my previous assumptions about the states and to almost the same extent the other English speaking countries. Its just prohibition over again with drugs.

Same as Ronald and his wife working out they should get rid of all the needles. Great solution for spreading nasties.

I don’t know if Holland has the answer or not. At least they have some sort of model in operation.

11

[quote=“Raven”]I live in Canada, but the border we share with the US is practically non-existant on a lot of things. (And on others it’s there for sure: Cows, Soft Lumber, some general views and beliefs, etc. etc.)
Prescription Drugs:

Definitely a huge problem both in the US and in Canada (but I believe more so in the US – I’m trying to remember the facts from my lectures on anti- psychotics, depressents, etc. etc.)

While I agree with you rantheman that part of the problem is overzealous doctors… the parents that bring their kids to the docs really have the expectation of receiving medication that will instantly fix their child and make them bearable again.

This is a problem of our society. The overuse of drugs. It happens with antibiotics, morphine, ADs… everything. It’s not just the doctors faults, It’s the fault of the direction our society has gone. The pharmaceutical business is absolutely horrid…Wow, sorry for the length. By the way I’m a 21 year old medical student, so I will be dealing with this all the time. Its very interesting learning about it.[/quote]

I know one thing for sure. My telling my daughter she can not and must not ever do drugs will just make it more likely and less likely she will tell me about it.

I am already a non present dad in Taiwan so its added to the problems.

12

[quote=“rantheman”]iron,
reel that kid in! bring her home![/quote]

Where is home again. I get very confused. I hope to bring her to Taiwan for a holiday through the year.

13

I find it hard to believe anyone was being serious who said drugs are rarely used in US schools. If they really believe that, I believe they were unaware of what was going on. Admittedly, I graduated from high school 25 years ago, but I doubt that drugs are less common today than they were then. Kids are kids. They want to experiment with new adventures, be cool, rebel against their parents, etc., and it’s hard to resist peer pressure at that age.

As for the type of school you’re talking about, I attended a fancy New England prep school of the kind you describe for two years, and while these are some of the best high schools in the world, with top-notch faculty and facilities and bright, talented students from around the world, drug-use is extremely common. After all, this is a bunch of high-school kids living in dorms together thousands of miles away from their parents. What should one expect? In my prep-school there was some use of mushrooms and acid and even a little coke, but mostly it was occasional alcohol (though not nearly as much as in college) and the pervasive pot-smoking, many kids getting together to smoke it daily – either secrectly doing bong loads in their rooms or in the forest behind the school, etc. Some kids weren’t into that, but a large percentage were and 1 out of 8 students were expelled from my senior class, mostly for pot-smoking.

I believe the situation was similar at the other presitigous prep-schools and I believe the administration’s response was misguided. They wanted to preserve their stellar reputations and pretend that they didn’t have drugs in their schools, but they couldn’t kick the problem out because it wasn’t a few bad apples – experimenting with pot, alcohol, and even mushrooms, coke, LSD, XTC, is a common part of the high-school and college experience for a large percentage of American kids (probably in Europe as well). Rather than expelling the students and causing them emotional harm, they should have tried harder to admit to the situation and find more positive ways to convince kids that excessive use of even such soft-core drugs can interfere with other more positive experiences.

While I believe pot is nowhere near as harmful as alcohol or tobacco and it should be legal, I admit that for some kids it can be problematic. Smoking it once or twice, or once or twice a month, or even once or twice a week probably will not cause any problem for most kids. The problem is the kids who smoke it every day. It won’t kill them and it won’t lead to stronger drugs (and I agree with Mod Lang that you definitely should not tell them such BS scare stories), but it can cloud their thinking, temporarily impair their social abilities (causing them to miss out on positive social experiences) and their lungs (decreasing their abilities in sports), and perhaps most importantly if they get caught they may be expelled or face other harsh disciplinary measures.

I think ML gave some good advice. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t lie to them. Don’t try to scare them with false stories. Be honest. Admit that pot and alcohol won’t kill you, but have a candid discussion about the possible harms, particularly caused by excessive use. And more importantly, while it may be ok to try such things, ask why one would feel a need to alter one’s concsiousness with drugs when a kid can pursue so many exciting opportunities in an environment such as that, including sports, music, drama, blah, blah, blah. In a way I wish such an approach had been used with me back then but my parents and the teachers were too ignorant of the realities of teen drug use.

14

I think ML gave some good advice. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t lie to them. Don’t try to scare them with false stories. Be honest. Admit that pot and alcohol won’t kill you, but have a candid discussion about the possible harms, particularly caused by excessive use. [/quote]

I like the advice here. I had not thought about lying to the kids or trying to scare them in anyway. But, this makes it more clear that it would be a good idea to explain to them some of what I experienced growing up. (pretty mild and boring though)

Their mum was a hell raiser in her younger years. Not sure exactly sure how much she should tell them about that. Up to her. I will talk with their mum though.

15

Ironman,

As a parent, I certainly understand your stress about the drug culture of the States. However, I want to point out that your daughter wasn’t brought up there, so she may in fact see what her schoolmates are doing as weird anyway.

But ignoring the reality isn’t a good idea either, and it seems you’re not doing that, so good for you. The advice that most of the others have given about being honest about drug use and its consequences is good, except the guy who says he smoked pot and drank with his son (if that is true and his son does not smoke or drink now, it’s a friggin miracle).

Honest with a white lie or two might even be better. I will tell my son that I smoked pot if he ever wants to know, but that I didn’t do it before class or when I was studying (which for the most part is true). The business before pleasure model, I guess.

Anyway, nothing much new here to add except this: if your 15 year old daughter is 10,000 miles away studying in a “high-end” bording school, the girl seems incredibly talented and possibly quite mature for her age. Remember she told YOU about what was going on.

Maybe you have nothing to worry about.

16

jdsmith - Oh so I guess you should drink in front of your grown kids (early twenties) but not have a drink together. And you should admit that you smoked pot but never smoke in front of him even though you are in an environment where he is smoking occasionaly already and so is everybody else. :loco:

17

The hell it won’t.

usatoday.com/news/health/200 … usat_x.htm

lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_d … blem_.html

Be honest. Tell her how much you love her and that you trust her to make responsible, adult decisions about her body and her health. Tell her how you feel about drugs and your own beliefs on using them and let her make her own choices because she’s going to make them anyway.

My mother was pretty open about her own usage of drugs as a teenager. She never preached or wagged a finger at us, neither condoning nore condemning, but rather letting us know that she had high expectations of us and hoped that we would make the right decisions. I know my limits of the 8 or so years since I first imbibed alcohol, I have only twice gone past that and even then not by a whole lot.

I think as former children, we know that as with most things, the more you try to control them, the less control you’ll really have over them.

18

[quote=“ImaniOU”]My mother was pretty open about her own usage of drugs as a teenager. She never preached or wagged a finger at us, neither condoning nore condemning, but rather letting us know that she had high expectations of us and hoped that we would make the right decisions. I know my limits of the 8 or so years since I first imbibed alcohol, I have only twice gone past that and even then not by a whole lot.
I think as former children, we know that as with most things, the more you try to control them, the less control you’ll really have over them.[/quote]

Thanks, ImaniOU, jdsmith and others.

I guess I am trying to be a long distance Dad version of how ImaniOU’s mother did things.

I would not mind for instance if either of my girls see any of my posts. I talk about sex and other stuff as openly as possible within the confines of the forum and the small glimpe I allow of my private life.

So, thanks guys. I have a love, hate relationship with Forumosa at the moment. This has been a good exercise to date.

19

Bob:

To clarify, you never stated the age of your kid was when you drank/smoked pot with him. The discussion was about Ironman’s 15 yr old daughter.

As for drinking with an early 20s offspring…ok, fine by me. But getting high with your kid. Sorry, that doesn’t sit well with me, but to each his own. What you do in your house is not my beewax.

However, I tend to think parenting is a life long position and to say, “Smoke up Johnny. Yer a man now!” just turns me off. Teaching your son about alcohol’drug management by doing them together …come on. You’re condoning that behavior?

My sister thought it was ok too. And now my nephew is wondering aimlessly high through his 20s. Like I said before, it is a miracle that your son doesnt drink and smoke MORE because of your tacit (or possibly verbal) approval.

But hey, peace brother. I’m not saying you’re a bad dad or anything. can’t agree about all things all the time. Furthermore, I’m American and from upstate New York. We’re Puritans when we aren’t Quakers! lol

20

You call it a miracle. I call it good psychology. My parents made a big psychodrama out of drugs and alcohol and my dad was an alcoholic but we NEVER drank together and certainly never smoked pot together.

I went on to be the biggest stoned fuck up on the block.

My son and I drank together a few times and smoked pot together a few times.

He went on to college and has no problems with either drugs or alcohol.

Go figure.