Pubdate: Wed, 18 Apr 2012
Source: Daily News, The (Newburyport, MA)
Copyright: 2012 Eagle Tribune Publishing Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/k3oQxseR
Website: http://www.newburyportnews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/693
Author: John Burciaga
Note: John Burciaga lives in Newburyport.

HOW DARE THEY!

Local school officials invaded our children's privacy using police 
powers in their zeal to address use of marijuana like local vigilantes.

And what did they find? Zip, zilch, zero, nada. The joke is on them 
and on their silly Keystone Kops operation. As for the rest of us 
citizens, are we all dead from the neck up? Where is the outrage? 
This terrible precedent will come back to haunt us all.

Some young people want what our grandparents fought and broke the law 
for almost a century ago: the right to their own drug of choice, and 
for which we now have a liquor store on every corner.

During a prior meeting for dialogue with youth at City Hall, several 
young people, respectful in tone and abiding by rules of civil 
discourse, pled for less severe punishment for "users."

They bravely made their case before school authorities and other town 
leaders, none of whom was about to defend the students - not for 
their use of marijuana but for the right to be treated unhypocritically.

Later, some school nurses published a letter supporting the call for 
a new marijuana ordinance, with a laundry list of dangers associated 
with its use. Five signed the letter, but are there others with a 
different viewpoint, and would they feel free to say so without fear 
for their jobs and reputations?

Thankfully, a School Committee meeting braved the topic, where even 
the high school principal allowed that he has seen more alcohol than 
marijuana problems, and the Youth Services director wisely reminded 
us that education regarding marijuana use must begin before freshmen 
years, and is not a problem that can be resolved by high school administrators.

But we make marijuana and its users the scapegoats for all that is 
wrong with the rest of us. A policy analyst for Common Sense for Drug 
Policy noted that unfair laws typically leave young users with harsh 
sentences that destroy their lives; that criminalization leaves 
organized crime in control of the problem; and that prohibition has 
miserably failed.

There is gross hypocrisy in local efforts to control a "problem" and 
a self-righteousness to the objections. We divide substance abuse 
into one of "drugs and alcohol," as if alcohol is not a drug. And, as 
with 20th century Prohibition, organized crime runs the show.

Our parents or grandparents, young and full of life, had a grand old 
time in "speakeasies" while flaunting the law in their day. Movies 
and TV programs still romanticize that era, with roles for the 
hottest stars that send a terrible message to youth. It was a time to 
die for, and has been ever since. Alcohol abuse is winked at, while 
causing more cost and damage to society than other "drugs" combined.

We can't win a war against marijuana today because we lost the 
biggest one of all years ago, against booze, along with any high 
moral ground. As long as we continue to be harsh and unforgiving 
toward the young regarding their drug of choice, the worse we look 
and the less we are listened to.

We should apologize to our young people for the moral failure of our 
and previous generations regarding destructive substances like 
alcohol, of which many of us are regular users, thanks to 
law-breaking of an earlier day. We should admit that what we now see 
as a "problem" is one that belongs to everyone, and promise to work 
together toward a civilized and fair resolution. Let's begin with a 
real dialogue that may take many meetings and many hours, but will at 
last leave us all with mutual and self-respect. We are demeaning our 
young people with infamous "lockdowns" and disregarding their 
concerns. We can change that, beginning now, and include all such 
concerns in a spirit of community.

Two members of the School Committee made a good start: Steve Cole 
called for a rewrite of the student policy manual to allow 
"assessments" for first-time violators, and for "restorative 
justice": welcome and compassionate phrases amid all the 
finger-pointing by other city leaders. Bruce Menin added that 
zero-tolerance policies are no help and at their worst "break the 
relationship" between generations.

But are there any other voices of reason?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom