High School Censors Marijuana Legalization Editorial in School Newspaper
Last month, we saw teachers suspended for teaching students about their rights during police encounters. Now, another school is sending the message that the drug war is more important than education:
The idea that discussing marijuana legalization somehow encourages illegal drug use is impressively stupid and wrong. It's the sort of thing you might believe if you go around destroying legalization editorials instead of reading them and trying to understand the arguments.
It's bad enough that students are denied access to education simply for using marijuana. It's bad enough that we punish drug use so harshly that teens are afraid to talk to us and ask for help if they need it. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that when a young person stands up and bravely challenges adults to think differently about drug policy, their ideas will be treated as a dangerous threat. How dare students speak out about the policies that affect their lives?
Still, it is times like these -- when the drug war's defenders overstep the most basic principles of free speech and civil discourse – that the intellectual bankruptcy of their belief system rings the loudest. Every idea is worthless until it can be proven to withstand reasoned criticism, and the drug warriors have failed that test more times than we could possibly count.
TEXAS -- The newspaper adviser at Big Spring High School resigned May 28 after the principal pulled the last issue of the paper, which included an editorial advocating the legalization of marijuana.
Bill Riggs told Midland, Texas, television station KWES that he resigned as the adviser for The Corral because of a difference of opinion with administrators and that he did not want the journalism program to suffer.
Steven Saldivar, superintendent of the Big Spring Independent School District, said the editorial conflicted with the district's policy of discouraging illegal drug use. [SPLC.org]
The idea that discussing marijuana legalization somehow encourages illegal drug use is impressively stupid and wrong. It's the sort of thing you might believe if you go around destroying legalization editorials instead of reading them and trying to understand the arguments.
It's bad enough that students are denied access to education simply for using marijuana. It's bad enough that we punish drug use so harshly that teens are afraid to talk to us and ask for help if they need it. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that when a young person stands up and bravely challenges adults to think differently about drug policy, their ideas will be treated as a dangerous threat. How dare students speak out about the policies that affect their lives?
Still, it is times like these -- when the drug war's defenders overstep the most basic principles of free speech and civil discourse – that the intellectual bankruptcy of their belief system rings the loudest. Every idea is worthless until it can be proven to withstand reasoned criticism, and the drug warriors have failed that test more times than we could possibly count.
Looking for the easiest way to join the anti-drug war movement? You've found it!
wait a minute?
shouldn't they have a policy against ignorance that overrules that policy? come on, i thought the point of school was to educate the youth. Not corrupt them into being submissive simpletons ready to do what ever tyrannical orders are barked at them by their fascist government, or any evil power hungry corporations. Oh wait, i'm sorry did i just sum up are entire public education system? i think i did.
School's are not designed to
School's are not designed to teach, they're designed to make sure one is helpless without following society's rules.
wait a minute?
~Caleb Duncan
Texas Education
Texas is already revising their text-books to white wash other subjects. There was no slave trade triangle... it was a trade triangle. The 3/5 rule for counting people of color for the purpose of adding members to congress is being phased out as well. SImply put... even if it's true, there is no reason to teach it according to the members of the state board of education... because they feel that the TRUTH has too much of a liberal bias and needs to be curbed.
The truth is the truth and lying to kids only makes them more distrustful of authority as they grow older and discover what is REALLY true. Texas is doing it's citizens a dis-service with how they manage the education system in this state.
sadly the education system
sadly the education system has been corrupted for about 100 years now. its nothing new. and YES liberal view have strongly and negatively influenced this changing of history just as strongly as their conservative counterparts. Nobody teaches states rights anymore! Im not just talking about the war between the state either; in general even in government classes it is rear to hear the TRUE teaching of the states' right CLEARLY spelled out in the constitution. to sum up the USA's education system has been WAY TOO corrupt for WAY TOO long, it has become only another pon in this game of politics that has only been oppressing the people of this great nation. and this is just the latest chapter, sadly. Speak for Freedom - Speak of Freedom!
Best Ways to Corrupt Texas School Children
Censorship has consequences. Underground copies of the prohibited Riggs legalization editorial are probably already circulating. Kids will likely use flashlights to read it under their bedcovers at night. Rebels will post copies of it onto city light poles and billboards. Years from now, underground reprints of the school newspaper containing the original marijuana editorial will continue to be found mixed in the stack among the latest editions of the Corral.
There can be only one kind of Texas response to this First Amendment threat to its precious school children: a total war on all underage freedom lovers; one designed to corrupt any chance they have of realizing their full potential as individuals.
Midland’s young people must never let themselves be corrupted in this way. Everyone keeps hearing that Texans want to secede. Patriotic Midlanders wronged by being denied a voice in the marijuana debate should secede from Texas. Fire Saldivar. Rehire Riggs. Start some shit. It’s not just about marijuana anymore. Make the bastards aware that the consequences are real when they challenge America’s most cherished freedoms.
Giordano
Whitewashing of textbooks on the subject of alcohol vs cannabis
is universal in US schools, as far as I know. Or do any drug education textbooks deal squarely with the relative dangers of violence under the influence of each, and the other issues of toxicity (including fatal OD's, fatal organ damage from chronic overuse, and fetal alcohol syndrome) that apply to alcohol but not weed? If they do deal with these issues in a science based way, then what must the kids think? One substance kills through abusers in a variety of ways, the other one doesn't, the one that doesn't is illegal for everyone, the one that does is a central part of the culture. What are kids supposed to make of this? Do the drug warriors know or care?
Post new comment