I first moved to Plano in 1997, smack in the middle of the heroin death "epidemic." Over time, education and different programs slowed down the heroin issue. We had an ER doctor come to our school and describe the really nasty heroin death of choking on your own vomit, while having paralyzed vocal chords, thereby being unable to tell anyone you were dying. It looks like the synthetics are the next big wave of drugs to be a problem in Plano, just at the time that I have a daughter entering 9th grade next year. The 9/10 high schools have usually been the most dangerous for drugs over the years. Plano has 6 or 7 9/10 high schools that feed into 3 11/12 senior high schools. Still, it looks like a horrible problem with the numbers when it's a very minute percentage of kids getting seriously into drugs (55, 000 students are in Plano ISD.) There are plenty of drug dealers here...and plenty of kids who will never take drugs. The media finds the outliers every time. I'm very open in talking about drugs with my kids, so I hope that helps. 7 or 8 7th and 8th graders at my school this year are currently in our special programs center because they were taking someone's grandmother's blood pressure medication at school. Fortunately, none of them died. That being said, the more irresponsible kids at my school don't mix much with the more level-headed kids. I hope it's the same situation with my daughter when she gets into high school next year, and that she keeps caring about dancing more than getting into trouble (with the amount of time she's at the studio and if she makes the drill team, she''ll have precious little free time.) That keeps a number of the kids out of trouble--being busy.
Just don't imagine that the honor roll students, the athletes, and the "level-headed kids" are not exposed to drugs or refuse to take them. They do. And they are smarter about hiding it and not getting caught, too. I tend to agree with LaSalle. Kids are going to smoke weed, so it is important to be honest with them. They will find out just what weed does and how relatively harmless it is. When you conflate it with heroin, pharmaceutical pain killers, LSD, cocaine and the whole panoply of drugs out there, it tends to make them disbelieve what you say about the killer drugs. They will drink liquor, too. And while liquor is legal, it is definitely mind-numbing and addictive and it is THE gateway drug, not weed.
No, it's true that any kid can be susceptible to using drugs. Some of the honor roll students are a target because of all of the pressures that are put on the kids fighting for the top 10% (a big number here in Texas.) Many of the senior high teachers have told me that the worst cheating offenders are those kids, and many of them suffer from depression. So, I know that kids like that may take drugs to escape from their lives. I'm very close to the group of 8th graders I'm teaching this year because I taught many of them in 7th grade, so I know them very well (I also know that they will eventually be classmates of Sloane's when she is at Plano Senior High.) It's been sad how many of them are not excited about high school, but rather are feeling dread towards going forward because they feel so stressed over GPAs and class ranks. I've had to talk more than a few off the ledge, figuratively speaking. I wish our kids could be kids for longer...
I always told myself that if i ever had a child I would do things different than my parents. Don't get me wrong, they were great, I love them very much, I have no daddy or mommy issues. I do however have a different outlook on drugs. I'm against the war on drugs, I believe in treatment not prison, and i believe in being honest about real situations. Honest about sex, honest about drugs. I really like the method Shane is using. That's real. Meth probably won't kill you by itself, but over a period of time it can turn you into a shell of your former self. There are also diseases you can contract. I think showing children the life of people with AIDS would be beneficial. I also will tell my daughter that doing drugs is not like going to Walmart and buying candy you like. You never know what you are going to get, and there is no way to test its purity. You could be getting rat poison. There are so many things we can teach our children instead of NO. You can't do it, it will kill you. We have to be honest and give examples and details. Long term effects, short term effects. I read a study the other day that talked about how everything we know about drug addiction is based on a simple test that was done in the 60's. A rat put in a cage with 2 water bottles, 1 laced with either heroin or cocaine, the other just water. The rat does the drug water until it dies. Decades later, another test was tried. Same scenario except other rats were added, the cage was turned into a giant rat heaven, with tunnels and toys and food. The rats never touched the drugged water. What does that tell us? That addiction could be conducive to your environment. Anyway I thought that was interesting.
I grew up in a small town, but I'm happy my daughters are growing up in a city. When I went to Sloane's four-year plan meeting for high school and 9th grade registration a few weeks ago, the Plano Senior High course catalog was nearly the size of LSU's catalog. At my small high school, I even took shorthand (which was already antiquated then) my senior year because I'd already taken everything at the school except for home ec and ag. There were no honors or AP courses, either, which limited my opportunity. So, we will swim somewhat shark-infested waters in large high schools, but after living here for nearly two decades, we always call Plano the largest small town on earth because we cannot ever go anywhere without running into people we know--which makes the city seem more like a smaller community.
