File this one under “Things weren’t like this when I was in school”. This has been on the news all day here. From Theresa Gutierrez of Chicago’s ABC affiliate:
March 21, 2005 (Chicago Heights, Ill.) — A south suburban first grader handed out what he thought were bags of candy to his classmates. The bags were actually filled with crack cocaine. Now police are searching for the child’s guardian.
Luckily, none of the children ingested the drugs, but parents are still concerned about this incident. The child is a student at Lincoln South in south suburban Chicago Heights.
The incident happened Friday afternoon on the playground at the Lincoln. However, a number of partners did not learn about it until Monday afternoon and they are outraged.
“He got that from his home and brought it to the schools and put all of our children in danger,” said Chanita Wiley, a concerned parent.
“For the school board to decide not to notify the parents over the weekend, the parents should have been notified. Called in some aspect or informed and empowered to be able to do something about it,” said Kent Evans, concerned parent.
I know that from time immemorial old men have been saying that things weren’t like this when they were boys, but things weren’t like this when I was a boy. Parents today really have to cope with problems that my parents didn’t even dream of.
UPDATE: My wife commented: “You’re right; I never shared my crack cocaine when I was a kid.”
Classic comment from your wife .. hehe
Man, I must have lived under the biggest rock ever, I still haven’t seen hard drugs in the real world, guess I must move in the wrong circles.
I do know though, there certainly wasn’t any drugs at my primary school. And at high school the drug of choice was alcohol, and not really until about year 10.
How things change…
Drugs were an issue at my high school back at least to 1957, but I did not see them myself until my senior year, ten years later.