I have mixed feelings about this article. I’m pleased that the school district has come to their senses, but also concerned about how long it’s taken for them (and many other districts around the country) to realize that an automatic-expel-them-and-forget-them approach is destructive.
ASD Changes Drug & Alcohol Policy To Keep More Students In School
The Anchorage School District averages more than 60 expulsions and almost 400 suspensions a year for drugs and alcohol. Now it says it’s time to take a different approach, when changing the behavior of its students. […]
The new policy changes the requirement that a student who offends must be expelled right away. The district said the policy is just catching up to something that’s already happening in its schools.
“Those days of expelling,’ –you’re out on the curb and you’re gone from the Anchorage School District, we don’t care about you anymore,’ — long, long gone,” said Graham, “We have these programs and now a policy in place that really allows us to make it easy for us to do this.”
There’s no doubt that there are some students who just don’t belong in school – those who are disruptive and really don’t want to be there. But to kick out students just because they got caught with drugs or alcohol is an abdication of any responsibility for their future.
It’s like saying “Because you have been caught using drugs, we’re going to take away your opportunity for an education, and send you out on the street as a criminal to sell drugs.
“It’s like saying “Because you have been caught using drugs, we’re going to take away your opportunity for an education, and send you out on the street as a criminal to sell drugs.”
And constantly arrest you and fuel our prison economy.
Everyone wins…but YOU.
It is sad that the reefer madness has saturated our society,,maybe this will help:
World leaders to make bold, groundbreaking recommendations for major reform to global drug policy
http://tinyurl.com/nv9sx78
On Tuesday, 9 September, the Global Commission on Drug Policy will release Taking Control: Pathways to Drug Policies that Work, a new, groundbreaking report, at a press conference in New York City.
The event will be live-streamed and speakers will include former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, former Colombian President César Gaviria, former Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss, Richard Branson and others.
The Commissioners will then meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson in the afternoon following the press conference. ‘snip’
If the UN strikes down the STC the DEA loses one of it’s hypocritical anchors holding marijuana prohibition in place,
And then there is this:
FDA Considers Rescheduling Marijuana Off Schedule 1 List
http://tinyurl.com/lcst7kl
According to Douglas Throckmorton, Deputy Director for Regulatory Programs at the FDA, the agency will make a recommendation after conducting an “eight-factor analysis†that examines marijuana’s abuse potential, its pharmacological effect and risk to public health, among other factors. Throckmorton did not give a timeline for the study’s conclusion.
The FDA reviewed marijuana’s status for the DEA in 2001 and 2006 and recommended that it remain a Schedule 1 drug. But public and political sentiment toward the plant has changed greatly since 2006, and the shift could impact the FDA’s assessment. ‘snip’
That was June 23 and it shouldn’t take much longer for RDA researchers to figure out any science from NIDA is bought science,,but will they do anything differently,,the above press conference may kick their research into a more positive finding. Come on Tuesday!!!!!!
I’ve been exiled from Room Eight, but I can still get to stuff:
The Octopus Revealed – Vincent Nunes
Wow.
What an epiphany I had this morning. Here it is…the morning after The Green Bay Packers go on to their 13th Super Bowl victory over the Pittburgh Steelers, and I’m getting ready for work. Then…the thought hits me: Danny Casolaro, an investigative reporter who said that he had pieced together the entire crime network of the world as the Octopus, was found dead in a hotel room bathtub, his wrists slashed, and the dirty towels thrown under a sink.
This was ruled a SUICIDE, by the way.
At any rate…all of the researtch he had gather by that point had disappeared, and the coroner cremated him, not with the consent of his next of kin.
Well…thanks to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I have finally pieced together the missing element in Danny’s research.
First, I will present to you the article from Reason:
http://reason.com/blog/2011/02/07/hillary-clinton-we-cant-legali
Reason Magazine
Hillary Clinton: We Can’t Legalize Drugs Because ‘There Is Just Too Much Money in It’
Jacob Sullum | February 7, 2011
Last week, while visiting Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was interviewed by Denise Maerker of Televisa, who asked her opinion of proposals to address black-market violence by repealing drug prohibition. Clinton’s response illustrates not only the intellectual bankruptcy of the prohibitionist position but the economic ignorance of a woman who would be president (emphasis added):
Maerker: In Mexico, there are those who propose not keeping going with this battle and legalize drug trafficking and consumption. What is your opinion?
Clinton: I don’t think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it, and I don’t think that—you can legalize small amounts for possession, but those who are making so much money selling, they have to be stopped.
Clinton evidently does not understand that there is so much money to be made by selling illegal drugs precisely because they are illegal. Prohibition not only enables traffickers to earn a “risk premium” that makes drug prices much higher than they would otherwise be; it delivers this highly lucrative business into the hands of criminals who, having no legal recourse, resolve disputes by spilling blood. The 35,000 or so prohibition-related deaths that Mexico has seen since President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on drugs in 2006 are one consequence of the volatile situation created by the government’s arbitrary dictates regarding psychoactive substances. Pace Clinton, the way to “stop” the violent thugs who profit from prohibition is not to mindlessly maintain the policy that enriches them.
[via the Drug War Chronicle]
So…is it clear now to everyone the circular reasoning used to “justify” putting our sons and daughters in harm’s way by taking away their lives and mixing them in with REAL FELONS who have robbed, raped and murdered their way into jail?
You always hear “You can’t have it both ways”…but if you are a drug kingpin, you do! Buy cheap, sell HIGH.
If you’re a narc, you also get to have it both ways:you get to safeguard the crops…and then, when it makes it to the states, you get to ruin someone’s life, generally speaking…or you get to murder them in a drug sting. Here’s an example at this YouTube link:
Drug Bust Gone BAD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tVE-cAZZOY
Still feel like fighting this “war”?
So…let me tell you what I figured out…Danny’s Octopus needs an ENVIRONMENT to exist within…and that environment is:
DRUG PROHIBITION
and
DRUG PRICES
Please watch that video…can anyone dispute that we have been lied to?
Your Utube vid was taken down Vincent.
I find it suspicious that certain kinds of videos (usually ones with a political bent different from what the duopoly wants people to believe, and ones that show cops acting badly/illegally) disappear from YouTube on a regular basis. Censorship?
Clay, when the “argument” was still about whether or not research showed medicinal benefits of cannabis it made sense to want rescheduling.
However, I can assure you that there is NO shortage of science and studies on cannabis. Many of these studies are in a language other than English, but there is a world-wide network of cannabis-related work that cannot be denied.
While NIDA has attempted to muck it up and pretend we don’t have enough studies, that’s simply AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.
Moving cannabis from Schedule I to another tier in the CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT would be a direct and frontal assault on WHOLE-PLANT CANNABIS and the established dispensary system set up in places like California.
FDA involvement IMPLIES single-molecule synthetics. Herbal synergy is NOT what the FDA is about, nor is Western Medicine under the allopathic model.
LEGALIZATION of whole-plant cannabis with home cultivation is the goal. NOT CORPORATE CANNABIS AND COROPORATE CONTROL.
That’s not true: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofMedicalProductsandTobacco/CDER/ucm090983.htm
.
.
That may be your goal Mr. no-name, but it sure isn’t mine. Why in the heck would I want to let you run my life anymore than I want the prohibitionists to do that? Aside from not having the proverbial snowball’s chance in heck of being anything other than a thought in the fantasy land of your mind it’s very prohibitionist of you to think you should be making my decisions for me. Same old propaganda, just a slightly different point of view.
There’s no effin’ reason why CVS can’t sell aspirin while other people sell white willow bark on Ebay and in hippie dippy “health food” stores. That’s called liberty.
It isn’t an either or choice. I know, I know, I’m “naïve” because I don’t see things in the light of your fantasy land conspiracy theories. Oh well.
The problem isn’t the students. It’s authoritarian intolerance toward students.
The American government already treats many of its adult citizens like horse manure, something to be shoveled out at the end of the day (or lifetime of labor). Singling out students as a captive audience for persecution of drug frivolities is overt oppression. The country that destroys its students destroys itself. Tolerating administrative intolerance only encourages more intolerance.
Other than technique, little differentiates the rabid prohibitionists who promote zero-tolerance drug policies for school kids and the Saudi Arabian authorities who just decapitated four drug merchants using swords. Meanwhile, the holier-than-thou Saudis feel morally justified in complaining about ISIS and its recent sword executions of journalists.
Prohibitionists and the Saudis are each theocratic groups. They live in very small, make-believe worlds. Each group acts upon their fantasy of an ideal society as if the ideal mirrored reality, much to the detriment of real societies, and real people. The theocratic dogma thereby provides drug enforcement with one of its chief faults: it gives barbarians an opportunity to act like barbarians.
Neocons
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1957
ISIS Was Created By Saudi Money And Runs On Saudi Ideology
http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2014/08/isis-was-created-saudi-money-and-runs-saudi-ideology#sthash.LOVUeS5T.dpuf
D.E.A.th & Oil
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1278
Saudi Arabia: Four Men Beheaded For Smuggling Marijuana
http://hemp.org/news/content/saudi-arabia-four-men-beheaded-smuggling-marijuana
Deep in the Black Heart of Teckus…
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1961
Here’s A Picture Of John McCain Hanging Out With ISIS Freedom Fighters In 2013
http://wonkette.com/552931/heres-a-picture-of-john-mccain-hanging-out-with-isis-freedom-fighters-in-2013
Frankenganja
BreedIT, Monsanto and GW Pharma Underscoring Advancements in Medical Marijuana Industry http://finance.yahoo.com/news/breedit-monsanto-gw-pharma-underscoring-132500760.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory via @YahooFinance
☀ Soros Monsanto Connection
https://www.facebook.com/222DdC/posts/10152545175047326?comment_id=10152545553812326&offset=0&total_comments=1
* Monsanto crap
* Food Insecurity: Monsanto
* Monsanto’s Love Child Cliarance
* Monsanto 200,000 Indian Farmer Suicides
* Roundup Ready religion: The Vatican and GMOs
* Monsanto Sucks.com
* Millions Against Monsanto
The Desperate Lies of Josh Marquis, Oregon’s Lonely Anti-Marijuana District Attorney (Part 1) http://huff.to/1u2a2Qz via @HuffPostPol
The Assassins of Youth: DARE †FRCn PDFA
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/505
I’ve noticed a trend here in California too. Zero-tolerance policies are being thrown out in favor of actual reasoning. Imagine that! Actual reasoning?! Students won’t know how to react if they are treated like individuals with value…
Maybe someday soon we’ll have a reasonable discussion about many things. Then again we raised a whole generation now coming out of college that have been raised with nothing but zero-tolerance throughout their education. That’s going to bite us in the future I fear. Reverberations of “Just say, ‘No’.” I guess.
Schools are becoming obsolete, thanks to technology. And in this new version of the old way of humans learning, expulsion is not possible.
http://www.wired.com/2013/12/rethinking-education-self-directed-learning-fits-the-digital-age/
People either like to learn or they don’t. When I was sent to my room as “punishment” as a child, well hey, I get to read undisturbed for a couple of hours.
Never understood suspension or expulsion. Why is a vacation from school considered a punishment when it’s so bloody boring and regimented, and you can learn things you’re actually interested on your own?
As you can probably tell, I was and am a nerd. 🙂
1994 3 months left until graduation I learned a new term I had not heard before. Zero tolerance. I also learned not to let people search your car because you have nothing to hide. There MIGHT be seeds on your floorboard. Stupid girls that rode with me to school got caught talking about it denied it and told the principal to talk to me. Expelled. The public education system is a destroyer of free thought and individualism anyway. Sudbury or homeschool for life for my dude. If anyone is going fuck up his life it’s going to be me.
I knew anything “zero tolerance” was bad from electronics. If something fries because of a few volts plus or minus, it’s either a bad part or bad manufacturing.