{"id":8844,"date":"2011-12-26T14:08:05","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T20:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=8844"},"modified":"2019-03-28T16:27:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T21:27:21","slug":"they-cant-hurt-you-or-get-you-high-but-smarties-are-latest-drug-craze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=8844","title":{"rendered":"They can\u2019t get anybody high, but Smarties are latest \u2018drug craze\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There’s apparently a new fad in drug addiction sweeping the country. Middle school students are grinding a product into fine powder and then snorting it into their noses — as certain older folks might do with cocaine. It has drug warriors all up in arms.<\/p>\n

The “drug” in question is a candy called Smarties. They can’t get anybody high. They can’t cause problems of any sort other than the respiratory problems that you’d get from inhaling any sugar into your nose. So why is anyone considering this a “drug problem”?<\/p>\n

A story in my local newspaper today<\/a> quoted a “drug educator” as saying it’s a problem because it shows that kids are willing to try new things. No joke. It’s a “problem” that kids want to try things. A project coordinator with the\u00a0Shelby County Drug Free Coalition Project Safe Place Programs of Family Connection — I’m not making that name up — had this to say:<\/p>\n

“It shows that willingness to experiment and try different things. Later it may not be Smarties. It may be alcohol. It may be cigarettes. It may be marijuana.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can’t we just say that some kids are going to act like idiots no matter what we do? Some kids shove Froot Loops up their nose, too, but it’s not considered a drug problem. Can’t we be reasonable instead of turning everything into the modern version of “Reefer Madness<\/a>“?<\/p>\n

Nobody can accuse me of taking recreational drug use lightly. I think it’s a very shortsighted decision to use any recreational drug, whether it’s the illegal ones or the legal one that causes the most real-world problems — alcohol. I don’t use any drugs and plan to keep it that way. But can’t we have a sense of sanity in what we treat as a real threat? There are a lot of problems that face everybody — including kids — but the idiocy of a few kids stuffing sugar up their noses is something for sane parents to deal with, not for drug warriors to wring their hands about.<\/p>\n

How long until some school bans Smarties and Pixy Stix? Or has it already happened and I just don’t know about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s apparently a new fad in drug addiction sweeping the country. Middle school students are grinding a product into fine powder and then snorting it into their noses — as certain older folks might do with cocaine. It has drug warriors all up in arms. The “drug” in question is a candy called Smarties. They Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-2iE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8844"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27966,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8844\/revisions\/27966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}