The Purple Coat: The Epidemic of Drugs on School Campuses

Okay, so today I had a student that wanted to explain to me why she was late for first period. She appropriately waited for the end of the class before sharing the news, but I had no idea that I would have to gain entry into a parallel universe in order to understand her plight.

The girl tells me that she and her mother dropped her 5 year old neice off at kindergarten, and the teacher thought she smelled weed on the little girl. After a clothing search the authorities found a small amount of weed in the girl's coat pocket. You know what it look like, squeezed to the point where there is no air or space between the weed and the bag; the weed tightly nestled in one of the bottom corners of the bag.

Needless to say, school administrators quickly called the police to the campus. Can you imagine the fear and confusion of the little girl? Or maybe she was stranger to tightly wound, airless bags of weed. The police completed their investigation at the school, and promptly drove over to the family's home. Social services was called, and there will probably be another intervention.

My student said it was her 25 year old sister's weed that she had hidden in her little girl's jacket pocket. Not only was a careless and reckless decision, but it was immature and irresponsible as well. Oh, and she added that her sister just found out yesterday morning that she was pregnant, right about the time the police were strip searching her toddler.

Well my male student that had his weed stolen from the dirt outside my classroom window is on a short hiatus from his street narcotics endeavors. He said that the guy is going to give him one more chance at the dope game. He's waiting to re-up, and during the down time he will be consuming weed only. Don't think for a moment that he got off unscathed though. Instead of his usual $150 allocation, he will only be recieving a measly $50 supply. He will be slowly paying back the money that he lost in the Purple burglary.

He's given up on burying his stash outside of my classroom, and has resolved to burying it in his own backyard. He's got a Blue Nose Pit Bull, and he said nobody goes back there but him.

When I asked him about the career change that we had previously discussed, he said he was still thinking about it. I told him not to think too long. By the time Christmas and New Year's are over, he should have made a responsible decision about his life and his future. I repeated my offer to retrieve applications for him during the vacation.

My pregnant student didn't come to school the day after I inquired about her sobriety, but when she came today I gave her a print out of what drugs can and will do to babies and we read it together.

Thing that scares me the most about this generation is that they are our future. Once the thirty-somethings are retired, this new crop of human beings will be the teachers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, service workers, social workers, law enforcement, fire personnel, clerks and cashiers.

Many of them do not believe in hard work, delayed gratification, or hope. They are downtrodden at 17! They are depressed; if they could be high 24/7 they would. That's why I say that the shift in the family dynamic is one of the main catalysts for this Purple Nation that we are experiencing. Most of my students are unhappy at home. For one reason or another they are despondent, negative, and abandoned.

This might seem trivial, but most of the students don't even have school spirit anymore. They don't attend rallies, sporting events, or dances. I chaperoned the Homecoming Dance in November, and there were less than 75 students present. Drugs dictate activities.