Anonymous wrote:How many pill popper kids didn't try weed first. Weed is absolutely part of the problem. It's THE gateway drug.

I understand that we had tons of people unreasonably locked up over weed, but decriminalization of weed and all the marijuana dispensaries was a terrible solution. We could do better.

Many, but how many saw their mom get sloshed off wine nightly? Most.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y’all voted to make pot legal. What did you expect?

It's not legal until July 1, 2023, dude. What you have there is a straw man.

Legal in DC. Much easier to obtain pot now than it was when I was in high school. And it’s made out to be NBD. Makes a difference, IMO.

No it's not easier, but the stuff now is stronger.

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Anonymous wrote:Of course I know there are always drugs. But sounds like rampant pot smoking in high schools plus several overdosing stories occurring at school. What’s going on? Same problem as we have had for decades or is it worse?

You need some more nuance in your question. Is the pot problem as bad as it sounds? No. Kids have been smoking pot in HS for decades. I'm hopeful that the legalization of pot will stop the dealing and relegate pot to just an issue of students being impaired, similar to drinking.

Is the fentanyl/opiod problem as bad as it sounds? Not yet, but that is why they are sounding the alarm bells. If you heard fatalities went up by 120% last year, recognize that actual numbers went from 5 to 11 fatalities. Not good, but percentages make it seem worse. However, the increasing overdoses combined with another death last week have made it urgent to work to educate parents and the community about the problem. Teens are curious. They don't have to be into drugs to make a poor choice one time and try a pill that ends up killing them. And even if you are sure your kid would never do that, they are affected when a classmate does, and then dies. As a community, we need to understand that it is an urgent problem and educate our teens about the problem and also how to support their peers to not get involved with drugs.

This is just wrong. We’re not talking about kids smoking joints like in the 60s and 70s and when we were teens. We’re talking about high-concentration, often adulterated THC carts that are very easy to hide. Vaping is dangerous. Sorry to burst your bubble, PP.

As for fentanyl, ask any parent whose kid has died of an overdose. You probably know one. Everyone does now.

There have always been serious issues with drugs and alcohol and it changes each decade or so. What do you want MCPS to do? They aren't allowed to search the kids stuff upon entry?

And kids have to use the bathroom during the day.

Our high school closed the boys and girls bathrooms on the 3rd floor. So, instead of actually attacking the issue of kids using drugs at school (commonplace), they simply push the drug use elsewhere, I guess?

Anonymous wrote:How many pill popper kids didn't try weed first. Weed is absolutely part of the problem. It's THE gateway drug.

I understand that we had tons of people unreasonably locked up over weed, but decriminalization of weed and all the marijuana dispensaries was a terrible solution. We could do better.

Agree.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, the drug problem is as bad as you heard. The school system is doing nothing about it.

Families are doing nothing about it, wanting their kids to be parented by the school system. Wake up, your kid more than likely is exposed to drugs/drinking at any private social gathering. Don't assume because they are at a friend's house or hanging out in your basement that they are making good choices. All it takes is a one-time experimentation and they can OD. I went to a funeral last summer of a HS kid, it broke the family and they thought 'it can never happen' to their DC. Educate and talk to your kids honestly about drugs.

Yup. My neighbor’s son just overdosed, not sure if he will make it. He was always stoned, his single mom looked the other way. It’s sad but he obviously had a problem for years annd hung out with other kids who had problems (and brought them into our neighborhood) and she did nothing about it.

How do you know she did nothing about it? Has she shared with you her parenting approach on this issue? Or are you just making assumptions?

Anonymous wrote:How many pill popper kids didn't try weed first. Weed is absolutely part of the problem. It's THE gateway drug.

I understand that we had tons of people unreasonably locked up over weed, but decriminalization of weed and all the marijuana dispensaries was a terrible solution. We could do better.

I agree, but the dominoes seem to have fallen and every state is pretty much legalizing since everyone else is doing it. It's sad. I fear for our kids.

How many pill popper kids didn't try weed first. Weed is absolutely part of the problem. It's THE gateway drug.

I understand that we had tons of people unreasonably locked up over weed, but decriminalization of weed and all the marijuana dispensaries was a terrible solution. We could do better.

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Anonymous wrote:Yes, the drug problem is as bad as you heard. The school system is doing nothing about it.

If the kid brought from home. Isn’t it more of a home problem? He parents are clueless and doing nothing.

I think it's harsh to make a self-righteous and judgmental statement like this.

The Kennedy student who died recently came from a rough family background. She lost her father to suicide and her mother is an immigrant to this country. Her mother desperately tried to get her daughter her once she found out she was abusing drugs.

But to Maryland law, she could not involuntarily commit her to rehab. So with her daughter refusing treatment, and the school refusing to punish her for using drugs at school, and the health care system saying they couldn't hold her against her will, and MCPD not apprehending the dealer who was distributing to her daughter, the mother's hands were tied.

Do some research on the situation before casting blame on the parents. I'm not saying some parents aren't neglectful, but the school, legal and health systems are failing even the best parents who tried to intervene and save their children. Educate yourself before you speak out of turn. And pray that your children never falls prey to the influence of substance abuse. It just takes one bad association to end up down the wrong path. And as good of a parent as you might think yourself to be, teenagers can and will do things behind your back and against your wishes.

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Anonymous wrote:Y’all voted to make pot legal. What did you expect?

It's not legal until July 1, 2023, dude. What you have there is a straw man.

Legal in DC. Much easier to obtain pot now than it was when I was in high school. And it’s made out to be NBD. Makes a difference, IMO.

Makes a huge difference.

I think the optimists thought legalization would make the black market supply chain for weed less appealing, but that hasn't been the case. It just makes it easier for weed to change hands and end up with teenagers more easily.

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Anonymous wrote:Y’all voted to make pot legal. What did you expect?

Nobody voted for it to be legal for teens

You all just made it easier for them to buy it all the while expecting the already overwhelmed and understaffed schools to monitor and regulate it.

Teens always were able to get drugs. It’s not easier. We just now have drugs tgat kill white kids so we all of a sudden care.

It is much easier. Don’t make it about something it’s not. It is not about race.

It is actually about race and SES. Kids have been dying from drugs for a multitude of decades, but they were either poor in Hagerstown or black, so nobody really cared.

Now W kids are dying by the dozen every year. They buy pills of the net and die in their basements.

MCPS is just informing your because they are not buying the drugs at school and they are not dying at school (in general).

Sure there are still some kids getting pot, but that is not what people are freaking out about.

This is nto the long slow heroine death where it takes years of rehab to finally overdose. This is 1 stupid kid trying 1 pill and dying.

The girl who just died, which prompted the MCPS press conference went to Kennedy, which is not a W school, and her mother is a Hispanic immigrant who doesn't even speak English.

Get your head out of your ass and stop pretending this is an issue that only affects white kids.

So. Low SES and POC have been dying due to drugs, guns and gangs for 60 years. But now it’s a big deal because W kids are dying. It’s not just heroine in Cumberland anymore. I guess we should have cared when “their kids were dying” and perhaps it would nit have hit your neighborhood.

Are you braindead? I pointed out that the most recent OD was a Hispanic girl who went a Silver Spring high school, not W kid.

The literal thing you're complaining about, that POC kids have been negatively impacted by drugs, is why this is high profile right now.

Furthermore, while substance abuse has been an issue, the rates of death with the substance abuse we're seeing with fentanyl is unprecedented. You have no education or awareness of the issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course I know there are always drugs. But sounds like rampant pot smoking in high schools plus several overdosing stories occurring at school. What’s going on? Same problem as we have had for decades or is it worse?

You need some more nuance in your question. Is the pot problem as bad as it sounds? No. Kids have been smoking pot in HS for decades. I'm hopeful that the legalization of pot will stop the dealing and relegate pot to just an issue of students being impaired, similar to drinking.

Is the fentanyl/opiod problem as bad as it sounds? Not yet, but that is why they are sounding the alarm bells. If you heard fatalities went up by 120% last year, recognize that actual numbers went from 5 to 11 fatalities. Not good, but percentages make it seem worse. However, the increasing overdoses combined with another death last week have made it urgent to work to educate parents and the community about the problem. Teens are curious. They don't have to be into drugs to make a poor choice one time and try a pill that ends up killing them. And even if you are sure your kid would never do that, they are affected when a classmate does, and then dies. As a community, we need to understand that it is an urgent problem and educate our teens about the problem and also how to support their peers to not get involved with drugs.

This is just wrong. We’re not talking about kids smoking joints like in the 60s and 70s and when we were teens. We’re talking about high-concentration, often adulterated THC carts that are very easy to hide. Vaping is dangerous. Sorry to burst your bubble, PP.

As for fentanyl, ask any parent whose kid has died of an overdose. You probably know one. Everyone does now.

There have always been serious issues with drugs and alcohol and it changes each decade or so. What do you want MCPS to do? They aren't allowed to search the kids stuff upon entry?

And kids have to use the bathroom during the day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y’all voted to make pot legal. What did you expect?

It's not legal until July 1, 2023, dude. What you have there is a straw man.

Legal in DC. Much easier to obtain pot now than it was when I was in high school. And it’s made out to be NBD. Makes a difference, IMO.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the drug problem is as bad as you heard. The school system is doing nothing about it.

If the kid brought from home. Isn’t it more of a home problem? He parents are clueless and doing nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y’all voted to make pot legal. What did you expect?

Nobody voted for it to be legal for teens

You all just made it easier for them to buy it all the while expecting the already overwhelmed and understaffed schools to monitor and regulate it.

Teens always were able to get drugs. It’s not easier. We just now have drugs tgat kill white kids so we all of a sudden care.

It is much easier. Don’t make it about something it’s not. It is not about race.

It is actually about race and SES. Kids have been dying from drugs for a multitude of decades, but they were either poor in Hagerstown or black, so nobody really cared.

Now W kids are dying by the dozen every year. They buy pills of the net and die in their basements.

MCPS is just informing your because they are not buying the drugs at school and they are not dying at school (in general).

Sure there are still some kids getting pot, but that is not what people are freaking out about.

This is nto the long slow heroine death where it takes years of rehab to finally overdose. This is 1 stupid kid trying 1 pill and dying.

The girl who just died, which prompted the MCPS press conference went to Kennedy, which is not a W school, and her mother is a Hispanic immigrant who doesn't even speak English.

Get your head out of your ass and stop pretending this is an issue that only affects white kids.

So. Low SES and POC have been dying due to drugs, guns and gangs for 60 years. But now it’s a big deal because W kids are dying. It’s not just heroine in Cumberland anymore. I guess we should have cared when “their kids were dying” and perhaps it would nit have hit your neighborhood.

Seems like alcohol is still an issue

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2023/01/23/b-cc-silence-criticized-after-two-students-found-unconscious-in-school-bathroom/