keeping americans living in fear one high school student at a time

Here's another ode to stupidity and conservatism.

Hm, what topic out of the many that come to mind when reading about this event should I discuss? Drug culture and our various reactions to it? Police abusing their privileges? Creating an environment in which teenagers can feel trusted and responsible? The education system as a whole-do we consider schools the places that should police our children? Are schools a place where kids can feel comfortable and open? (consider my own high school and the infamous panty raid) Or- hell, why not violate civil rights? It's fun, yeah?

One of Jerry's favorite things to say about drugs goes along these lines: "I was the star student in my school's DARE program, and two years later I was smoking pot." Pretty telling eh? I'm using Jerry as an example because my own shy, non-rebellious teenagerhood doesn't give me any depth of experience. I'm wondering which is more compelling- that DARE and other drug resistance programs don't really "keep kids off drugs," or that we often use scare tactics to educate rather than helping ALL kids to be self-sufficient and self-confident and make their own decisions (while also giving them a real, honest teaching on drugs and addiction).

Now, before you go jumping on my back and saying, "Of course drugs are bad! Do you want our children to become a nation of addicts?" allow me to defend myself. If you raise a child to be confident, responsible, and free-thinking, all the while trusting them to make their own choices and educating them with honest facts, you will likely get an adult (or teenager) who can take things into perspective. If you have an ad campaign that is based on wrongful facts (take the current ad campaign against marijuana- I heard tell of one commercial that said smoking weed led one kid to shoot his best friend in an argument-any of you feel like a shoot out when you smoke up? To me that seems contrary to the effects of a pot high) and scare tactics combined with a generation of kids whose parents are afraid to let them make their own decisions, I predict you will get a fair amount of kids doing drugs.

And do you think this is fair: It is admitted that alcohol and tobacco are just as addicting as most drugs on the market. Like drugs, they create a dependency on an outside stimulant. Yet every day we are bombarded by ads for beer and cigarettes that are perfectly legal. So what message are we sending to kids? "Well, cocaine'll kill you so don't do it. Look at all these pictures of people that have been made terribly ugly by cocaine. Oh, but once you're 21*, party like a frat boy and get all the hot chicks with your can of Bud Light!!" (*Oh but we don't care if you do it before, as long as we make money)

I don't think the problem is that alcohol and tobacco shouldn't be legal. I think the problem is choice. Do we have the choice to an education about drugs and their real effects that also allows us to make the decision for ourselves? Or are we presented with scare tactics and false facts when we don't have a choice in the first place?

Disclaimer- I have no real experience with illegal drug use. As I said before I led a happy childhood terrified that someone would offer me drugs and would turn me into nasty slut that got bad grades. I am admittedly underresearched on the topic and am mostly just speculating. To my knowledge my DARE program gave me accurate facts about what would happen to me should I become addicted to heroin. However, I remain insulted by the fact that they chose to present me with these facts in a way that intimated that should I become addicted to heroin I would die a painful and lonely death. That drug addicts are terrible people with evil eyes and bloody noses, and get bad grades. Where's the love, people? Can't we all just get along?

special! two rants for the price of one!

that's right me lovelies. I have one more thing to rant about, but I'll keep this one short, I promise.

I DESPISE blanket racist statements such as this one: "Well, it's a nice neighborhood. I suppose you don't get many hispanics? Or are they everywhere these days?"

Makes your blood boil, doesn't it? But, I am ashamed to admit that it came out of the mouth of someone I dearly respect, my uncle Dick.

Makes me want to respond to this later statement- "Well I guess I did see a few Mexicans"- "Oh really? And they weren't stealing or shooting each other? Good lord! What kind of Mexicans are they? Are they dangerous? Should we pass a law about it? Oh dear Lord! I can feel my white privilege slipping as we speak!"

*sigh* Again I say, can't we all just get along?