Not Much Better than DARE

Public education, while beneficial to society, is a subject which causes me a great deal of consternation. Without a doubt it is an institution which has improved with the passage of time thanks to some hard-working individuals in our community. I am eternally grateful to the public educators that saw bullying as an issue which has the potential to ruin education for every student in the school system. The seven virtues are now taught in elementary schools system-wide in Saskatoon. When I was in kindergarten I remember being face-washed every recess by older kids. Then when I reached the ripe-old age of nine I exacted revenge on an unsuspecting kindergartener, thus perpetrating the cycle of violence in the playground. I remember feeling pangs of guilt about this type of behaviour, but I knew in my little forth grade heart that bullying was no big deal. I am grateful that in comparison to my grade-school experiences my children have been relatively untouched by daily aggression and unrelenting bullying.

However, being an opinionated know-it-all school marm is not easy when there are still so many things wrong with the school system. For example, in the early part of this week I had the misfortune of sitting through an absolutely terrible bit of reefer madness indoctrination presented in a public school classroom and incorrectly labeled as "drug education".

A police officer accompanied by two handsome and charming young men came into the classroom and detailed their experiences talking to the homeless substance abusers they encountered while on the infamous East Hastings Street in Vancouver. They talked about desperate homeless people that will do anything for their next fix. These people were living in unimaginable filth, stealing, and prostituting and living only for their next dose of coke, heroine or morphine. They are homeless and live in back-alleys, full of urine, feces and used needles.

The police officer was not in uniform, although he chose to wear his gun. I should have assured him that the children aren't THAT bad. He talked about how the bad guys always get caught. The handsome young dudes talked about the numbers of dealers on the street and the fact that there is nothing the police can do about it, completely contradicting what the police officer had previously stated.

Now before I go on and tell you about the absolutely horrible hair-raising part of this program I want to make something perfectly clear. I have no problem with telling children about the uglier parts of real life. There is nothing wrong with teaching children about homelessness, drug addiction and poverty in an honest way. What I do have a problem with is the lies and nonsense told to this room full of impressionable school children by supposedly trustworthy authority figures.

The police officer said, "These drug dealers do not care about you or who they destroy. They will get you hooked and all they care about is your money. People start by drinking beer and smoking pot and the next thing you know they are doing needles."

Would any self-respecting teacher teach their students the discounted gateway theory? I certainly hope not. The gateway theory has been roundly debunked and there is no excuse for teaching this trash to children.

I have a different scenario that the police officer and all police officers everywhere should consider. The black market supply of drugs is irregular. It isn't like a liquor board store. Your friendly neighborhood drug dealer may run out of your drug of choice (in this case marijuana) and may offer you a stronger alternative such as cocaine, heroin or the much-feared meth. While I realize that teaching children the futility of the war on drugs may be inappropriate, I do not see how anybody can defend or justify telling kids that pot and beer always leads to harder drugs. This is unscientific garbage that should not be taught to kids!

Here is another thing to consider. I know that the high schools in this city are literally awash with marijuana. If you know where to look I can guarantee that you will find stoned kids in class. I have seen kids smoking pot, I have smelled it in communication books, on the jackets of pre-schoolers and I have smelled the cloud of marijuana around the groups of Goth kids as they walk past me in the hallway. Kids love their dope. While I do not in any way condone or approve of this behaviour, I do realize it exists. I also know that these kids sat through (and ignored) the very same reefer madness indoctrination that I witnessed this week. And I know that the majority of them are not going to become homeless, unwashed, prostituting, thieving, needle-sharing drug addicts.

Why do you think that is? Maybe these kids have an older brother or sister, parent, kokum, mooshum, auntie or uncle that smokes marijuana and they know firsthand that it is a relatively benign substance. I also hate to think what a terrible thing it is to teach inaccuracies to children about marijuana. What if they find out that marijuana has been unfairly demonized and then come to the conclusion that the school system lied about meth too? Horrors!

So yes, I do like public education but the continued reefer madness indoctrination is something that I have a HUGE problem with. I hated sitting through that entire presentation with my thumb up my ass, feeling helpless against the onslaught of bullshit. I wanted to ask a question or make a comment that would let everybody know that I think this presentation is full of evil wrongness but an appropriate comment failed me, until later. Then I realized I should have asked the police officer innocently, "So do all the drug dealers go to jail?" What could he possibly have said in response to that?

Of course, teaching kids the truth about marijuana, that it is about as addictive as caffeine, kills less people than stingrays, and does not cause cancer, may actually make people feel A-OK about using marijuana and pretty pissed about the War on Some Drugs. And we simply can't allow that to happen!