An Aging Babyboomer Gardener said...
It’s always a surprise what I can learn by reading the Redmond Blog, especially this thread on the drug arrests at Redmond High School on Feb 19. It’s also interesting what I can’t find out. The press release said 11 students were arrested for selling drugs including marijuana, heroin, cocaine, MDMA(Ecstasy) and methamphetamine, although the mother who wrote in said that her son was arrested for selling marijuana only. How many of the other students sold marijuana only and how many sold the much more hard-core drugs? The Redmond Police Department’s grouping of all of the students under a single umbrella of all the drugs creates a guilt-by-association atmosphere. The department should be specific about the various drugs and quantities that each student sold so we can determine the magnitude of the problem.
What surprised me most was how much marijuana costs!!! It appears that 1.5 grams costs about $20 and that works out to almost $3000 per pound. As an avid gardener who grows vegetables and flowers from seed, I would guess that marijuana is no more difficult to grow than hothouse tomatoes or petunias. And yet, the most a pound of tomatoes goes for is $3.00. It is astounding to me the amount of money that is involved in the pot trade, and it’s all because it’s illegal, not because it’s difficult to grow. I can now see why drug cartels have become so powerful and violent considering the amount of money to be made on such an easy-to-grow plant. Governor Gregoire is busy trying to add penny taxes to bottled water and chocolate. The states’ governors should get together and urge the Federal Government to legalize marijuana and then control it and tax it the way alcohol is distributed and taxed. (Remember that Prohibition didn’t work and just made Al Capone a household name.)
With the benefit of hindsight, I can tell you that there were pot-heads in my junior and senior high schools in the 1970s – most were experimenting but there was a small group that would find a way to get their drugs no matter what. Alcohol and tobacco replaced marijuana and I know the dedicated marijuana users became alcoholics and heavy smokers (many are now AA members.) As for the cocaine-heroin-LSD user that I knew of in my high school, he had serious behavior issues in elementary school and was psycho-violent as an adult and is now halfway through a 65-year sentence for slashing one of his rivals into pieces during a drug-robbery. In my view, all drugs are not equally dangerous.
As for the 11 students who were charged with selling drugs, it was also surprising that so many people automatically assumed they were guilty. And yet the Feb. 24 edition of the Seattle Times had an article about how crime labs make errors and do shoddy work. Did the crime lab actually analyze the drugs from the busts or did they falsify the data as sometimes happen to expedite the results? Maybe the kids just put some oregano in a bag and sold it to make some quick money? What about this Monika, the informer? How do we know that she didn’t taint the evidence to make it appear that she was more effective?
Some writers commented that this was a wake-up call for parents, and implied that the kids would be off the hook and back in school. If anyone has read the Becca Bill, the often-cited bill that’s supposed to keep kids in school, they’ll discover that students 16 and older are treated differently than students 15 and younger. So these drug busts are most likely one-way tickets to the dropout line for most of these kids. In 10 years, how many of these students will be alcoholics? Do we even care?
Submitted by "an Aging Baby Boomer Gardener" under the February 24 drug bust story.
This comment was posted under the February 24th drug bust story. This reader took a lot of effort and time to put her thoughts down so I moved it up to a Feature page. Please do her the honor of a comment?
Do you agree with all she has to say? Is she right on? Or way off base? Is her arguement missing a key piece of information? Do you think her article is good, but too long? Does any one want to kick off with an opinion or thought? Thank you for your consideration and interest.
A couple of things. I think the gardener is living in the wrong state. She's thinking like a busines person adding up all those tax dollars. California beckens.
ReplyDeleteTo say the undercover cop can't be trusted just because there's an article in the Seattle Times about doctoring results is a stretch. I have a little more faith in our police and a little less than the media in this case.
I do have questions with the gardener about lumping the MJ dealers in with the hard core drug sellers. The hard core sellers probably also sell MJ and vv. The distinction between MJ and hard core use is better made at the USER level, not the SELLER. I think it's unfair penalize a MJ user as severely as a hard core user.
The arrest of these kids is being handled appropriately, from what I have heard. The bigger issue that is not being discussed is that these arrests should have also provided leads to bigger dangers...the criminal element that is supplying these kids with drugs to sell to other teens. I am more concerned about the preditors that are using our teens to make a fast buck.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. I totally agree.
ReplyDeleteAnd, what about the rest of the kids pushing drugs at school? Just because they caught 11 doesn't mean the school is safe and secure. How many other kids are selling? And, where are the preditors, as you say? I hope the City Police will arrest and report.
I don't think that a personal handful of drug experiences make for a valid sweeping statement on the use of drugs.
ReplyDeleteI too have a lot of knowledge of drugs and of drug takers and I can tell you that I know a frighteningly large number of people who experimented with *all* kinds of hard drugs as a teenager or in their early twenties. Hardcore "experiments" which went on for several years. These people are now perfectly normal boring people approaching middle age with kids of their own and successful careeers, with no drugs in sight.
Conversely I also know more than one person who only ever tried smoking pot in their youth and became obsessed with escapism and the bubble of the slightly unreal world that a marijuana smoker enjoys, and went into alcoholism in their later years and are total wasters now.
Based on my experiences I say that drugs may or may not lead to problems in later life, that depends on the individual and their strength of character. KIDS are impressionable and succumb easily to peer pressure, and ANY drugs which are in schools are dangerous because they are tempting our CHILDREN, who won't have the experience and knowledge and character of an older person to make a good judgement call. And even if they do have it, using it might make them a social outcast or pariah.
Just say no to drugs in schools. All drugs. Arrest and scare the crap out of anyone attempting to sell or buy drugs in school and make it clear that there is ZERO tolerance.