School pretends boy's leaf is marijuana, suspends him for a year

[anon41977465]

this has been my addition to the common trope of - wow if they had these fershlugginer rules back when I was a kid I would never have graduated! which, come to think of it, I nearly didn’t.

[Eksrae]

The age-old tradition of collecting leaves for school can be spun into “System-wide Pot Harvesting Ring Busted”.

[baronmog]

I was under the impression[1] that the bit you smoke is the bud, not the leaf, and that the leaf contains little, if any, THC. So, even if it were an actual marijuana leaf, it wouldn’t qualify as “real or fake drugs.”

[1] Not having ever smoked pot.

[davide405]

@Medievalist

which includes dealing with modern high-income parents who openly brag about “lawyering up” to bully school administrators - instead of on the kids.

@Medievalist

but because we are not poor or uneducated I was able to spend my way out of his difficulties. The poor, who are mostly people of color, do not have that option.

I wonder what is the ratio of [quote]modern high-income parents who openly brag about “lawyering up” to bully school administrators[/quote] to [quote]modern school administrators who covertly bully students of color by creating and applying zero-tolerance policies, knowing those parents can’t afford to spend their children out of those difficulties[/quote]

[joeair61]

Come on, all these comments and no one mentions that in a school with adult teachers, that not one of them could tell if it was marijuana or not. Did the kid have any other things, like papers or a pipe? If there was even one teacher in their 50s I am sure they could have told if it was real, along with growing region, and THC content. Not that I would know, mind you.

[marilove]

He’s a KID, though. Kids say and do stupid shit all the time. It is literally part of being a kid. They shouldn’t be PUNISHED for it, at least not this severely. Maybe detention, and some counseling by his parents or a school counselor on why he shouldn’t go around saying this kind of stuff.

[Shuck]

Last September, officials at Bedford Middle School learned of a rumor * that a student was bragging about having marijuana. When the vice principal searched the student, he found a lighter and a “leaf” in the boy’s backpack, and in accordance with the school’s “zero tolerance” policy — which applies to both actual and “lookalike” or “imitation” drugs **— suspended the boy for a year.

• emphasis mine
  ** I’m not much of a drug user, and as such, I was totally unaware that smokable cannabis looked like leaves. I thought people smoked the buds. Now I know!

“The field test came back not inconclusive, but negative,” he [attorney, Melvin Williams] continued. “Yet [resource officer Calohan] went to a magistrate and swore he possessed marijuana at school.”

Yep, that’s completely fucked up, that is. On every level.

[nungesser]

Totally agreed. The zero-tolerance rules are cruel and obscene and are hurting good kids’ education. They allow administrators to be lazy about doling out punishment and take the human element out of education.

[jerwin]

@Shuck

“Yet [resource officer Calohan] went to a magistrate and swore he possessed marijuana at school.”

Am I misunderstanding the concept of perjury?

[joeair61]

@jerwin

Am I misunderstanding the concept of perjury?

it is not lying if you REALLY believe it!

[thekaz]

@crashproof

I’m trying to figure out how – if the kid actually had marijuana, instead of a random tree leaf that was scientifically verified three times not to be marijuana – a full year of suspension from school is supposed to turn the kid’s life around and make him a better student/citizen/future corporate wageslave instead of, for instance, someone who has to resort to selling drugs to make a living.

Too late for him to turn his life around. He is now only useful as an example to other kids not to mess with drugs… or, uhm… leaves of any kind. Which I suppose makes their sauces very bland.

[chgoliz]

The boy is 11 years old. Go watch a bunch of 11-year-olds playing for a few minutes and you’ll realize how ridiculous it is to penalize the wacky imagination of a young child.

[nungesser]

You’ll have no argument from me.

[jerwin]

@nungesser

Totally agreed. The zero-tolerance rules are cruel and obscene and are hurting good kids’ education. They allow administrators to be lazy about doling out punishment and take the human element out of education.

Silly admins. That’s what standardized tests are for.

[popobawa4u]

@anon41977465

I feel sort of like I didn’t make enough of an effort that I only brought The Poor Man’s James Bond, The Anarchist Cookbook, and some How to Kill books to my school and said I was going to be an assassin when I grew up, if only I’d thought of bringing a leaf that someone else could say I said was pot. hoo boy!

You knew better, because you learned that you could smoke oven-dried banana peels.

I could just see that in the Faux headlines now. Suburban children turning innocent household bananas into dangerous anarchist drugs!

[chgoliz]

Just look at them!

[popobawa4u]

@chgoliz

Just look at them!

If only we all acted as a society and did the responsible thing after Donovan warned us with that song…

[teapot]

Yes, the bud is the bit you want. Leaf contains next to no THC. The only way to get high from it is by making hash (which is possible) but a garbage bag of leaf will only make you a couple of hits worth of hash. Some cultures use the leaf for cooking. Otherwise it’s purely decorative.

[bolamig]

I remember thinking that people smoked pot leaves at that age. Unlike today when it seems every week I see a picture of bud in the newspaper, I had never seen the bud, just the graphic leaf icon.

In San Francisco they literally give away leaves in dispensaries; they are the waste product of trimming the buds.

[mechtheist]

This is why we should be able to sue on the grounds of moronic asininity. The school admins need be made to stand in the corner for 3 days straight.