I seriously doubt the girls parent/s knew about it, perhaps it is a single parent who works two jobs to try and feed her daughter, she has a prescription to help her make what little sleep she can as meaningful as possible, but her daughter went and found the bottle and took a few with her to school.

I seriously doubt the parents GAVE the drug to the girl or knew about it. There is something to be said about keeping them put away or with you at all times, though. It just as easily could have been a two parent household with parents working or at home. Let's not single out the single parents. It only takes two seconds to grab pills.
Good learning opportunity for parents here. Hide the pills, and educate your kids about them if you have them in the house. And educate on not taking them from other kids.

Parents of sickened kids expressed outrage and wondered if the school could have done anything to prevent their children from taking medication not prescribed to them.

I am so sick of that word outrage. Everyone is so quick to be outrage without thinking. How is this the school's fault? No wonder why the zero tolerance crap is out of hand. The schools are afraid of parent blaming them from things that are sometimes out of their control. Knee jerk is the way to go, I guess, in order to stem some of the "outrage".

Do you want the school to start searching every child that enter the school? Oh, that would spark another outrage. These are KIDS and kids do stupid things. I am happy that everyone is ok. Punish the little girl and move on.

The real problem is that so many people are taking dangerous drugs on a routine basis for normal problems (in this case stress/insomnia) that should be remedied without the use of prescription medications.

Big pharma to the rescue.

Exactly my point Jamehkan: The parents were outraged and wanting to know what the school could have done? Really? How about what they as parents coud've/would've/ and should've have done?

Where is the accountability for THEIR kids being too retarded to simply say "no"?

Why shouldn't the parents be outraged that their kids are unable to think for themselves and pass on the free medication? Be angry with your own parenting for not instilling in your own kids the ability to make good decisions about pills at school. By that age, you have a pretty good feel for right and wrong and you have a good inkling when your friend is giving you something other than candy! Give me a break!

The first thing that crossed my mind when I read that comment "Parents of sickened kids expressed outrage and wondered if the school could have done anything to prevent their children from taking medication not prescribed to them" was NO, that's YOUR JOB.

When my nephew was in High School, he had to walk through a metal detector and submit to random searches of his book bag and pockets. In other words, his High School experience was not far removed from prison.

There was a time when the school would just expel the stupid kid who brought in the prescription sleeping pills (or maybe just suspend him/her) and drive on. Today something like this makes front page news.

It is hard to imagine that we still have old people alive today who can remember their High Schools having rifle teams with members who brought their guns to and from school on the bus. We have terribly regressed as a society.

The parent(s) of the kid that brought in the pills should be prosecuted. Parents are responsible for making sure that their prescription drugs are secure and kept out of the hands of their kids. To carelessly leave drug around so that your thirteen year old has free access to them is completely irresponsible. The kid should also be expelled from the school and sent to a reform school. It is obvious that it is not safe to have her around the other children since she thinks it is OK to take her parent's prescription medication and hand it out like candy at school. It is a good thing that none of these kids took multiple pills and died from an overdose. I do not see the school as being in any way responsible for what happened. Short of searching every student every time they enter the building, there was little the could have done to prevent this.

How does one secure ANYTHING from a 13 year old. The only possibility is to keep all your prescription medications at work.

The parent(s) of the kid that brought in the pills should be prosecuted.

My kids are grown now but it hasn't been *that* long ago.

Most of these kids are smart enough to not steal their own parents' drugs. Any other home they visit, however, is fair game. It can be other relatives, their friend's grandmother's home, or during a social visit they have accompanied their parents to - a BBQ at dad's boss' home - you name it. This girl may not even be the one who originally stole the medication.

Even I'm not naive enough to think for one second that a single one of those kids thought they were just getting candy. Every one of those kids should be held responsible for their own conduct in accepting a drug. If parents are outraged, they need to be outraged at their own child.

I also don't believe for a second that any of these parents failed to tell their own child that "drugs are bad" "don't take drugs" "drugs can kill you" - it's one of the first things that it occurs to modern parents to tell their children when they get ready to either go to school or hit that first double-digit birthday. These kids had been told that as well. They're 13, not 5. They chose to accept a drug to get a buzz of some kind knowing full well that their parents would sh*t kittens if they found out about it. If there is a big problem in all this it is in looking for an adult, any adult, to blame for these kids' conduct. At what age do we start expecting kids to take responsibility for their own actions when they know already those actions are forbidden by their parents and every other adult who is in a position of authority over them?

All the children that took these pills or tic tac's as one girl stated should be suspended. How many times do you need to tell your kid you don't take pills from other people? The girl that handed them out needs to do some time in JVC and on probation doing community time in a hospital dealing with people messed up on drugs. There is no excuse for taking anything that looks like a pill from anyone at school. If it doesn't taste like a tic tac it probably isn't one, spit it out and give it to your teacher. This could have been much worse.

This whole "prosecute the parents" thing is so overdone! Not necessary, unless there is obvious neglect. What does it teach the kids? If I do something bad, my parent goes to jail. SWEET! haha. Although, I believe some of those parents may have said "don't do drugs" to those kids, I also know for a fact that this discussion does not go on in a lot of households. I have heard about many parents who do the drugs with their kids. Or my parent who famously said "DO drugs, drink and smoke. Just DON'T have sex." Even if you tell your kids "don't do drugs" - you need to specify that even aspirin is a drug. Prescription pills are a drug. Have any of these parents told their kids "don't take another person's pills, no matter what they are"? Probably not. I have. And my son knows not to. It could even be as innocent as another family member giving them their own antibiotic, or pain killer. Especially as kids, what's good for one person, could be horribly wrong for another.

Most schools do have rules about kids having any medicine at school. Kids are not allowed to even take a aspirin that they bring from home with parental permission. Most states have laws that forbid even a school nurse giving out anything without a prescription, even aspirin or Tylenol unless they have a nurse practitioners license. In the school I worked in, a kid had to bring a note from a parent and the prescription only medicine in it's original bottle to the school nurse before school and either the nurse or safety officer would dispense the medicine when needed. Over the counter meds were not allowed without a note from the doctor and it had to be in it's original package.. This applied even to asthma inhalers. The meds were kept in a locked metal cabinet. Schools are just like prisons. The inmates have all day to watch the guards (teachers/staff) and hatch their plots. They watch for habits and schedules of the teachers and staff. They use lookouts, distraction tactics, fake paperwork, cellphones, blackmail, stealth, hidden caches, bribes, lie, pretending to be helpful etc to do what ever they want. The year after I left the school system they tried to make a rule that girls could not carry their purses around from class to class. They had to leave them in their lockers. In effect taking away the best hiding spot the kids had. The size of purses most were carrying was almost the size of a paper grocery bag. You would have thought the rule was they had to walk around buck naked from the response they got from the parents. Mostly mothers and mostly about the (insane) need to have a tampon with them at all times. If I only had a dime for every time I heard "not my kid" or "I raised my kid better than that" before I showed the parent the evidence. I could take a free vacation. It was a 99% white suburban/rural school. They still smuggled in drugs after we started drug dog searches because we could only search the lockers with the kids in the classrooms with the doors closed (parents demanded the dogs be kept away from the kids). The kids figured out real fast, pocket the drugs and don't leave anything in the lockers. Any parent that thinks they "truly" know their kid is "truly" fooling themselves.Believe me even if your kid doesn't get in trouble you don't know half of what they actually do. even the straight A kids. It is just part of being a kid.

The legal system won't solve any problems here. The kids need to be educated on what sleeping pills do and why they shouldn't be taken by anyone but those who actually need to. Correction and prevention can get you a long way here, the legal system would just ruin people's lives and those involved would learn nothing from the experience.

I know right? Teenagers taking funny tasting pills handed to them from others?

I wonder what Darwin would have to say about this.

I agree, I wouldn't put something in my mouth if I didn't know what it is or where it came from. If I was told what it was by a student, I would tell the teacher, because most kids are unaware than an overdose can kill and if they think it's candy, they'd probably be asking for more and overdosing. I also agree that it's not the school's fault and there wasn't anything they could have done to prevent this from happening.

you must forget what it was like to be a 13yr old. we all put things on our mouths we got from other kids- or at least everyone i know did- and telling the teacher just is not going to happenis it the school's fault- no is it the parents fault- no things happen and kids experiment- parents deny it but all kids experiment in one way or another

parents couldnt have done anything, the school for sure could not. obviously this kid had it available to her/him at home or grannys house. him/her and the kids that took the pills need to be dealt with. if your child is handed something they dont recognize why did they put it in their mouth!? are kids that stupid? all should be punished by the school and parents. the kid that brought it in should get some type of punishment like cleaning trash and such. but come on! 7th grade. we are lucky they werent having a sex party!

Miami,

I bet you had some one else's tounge in your mouth at 13.

Disabled,

i would bet you were this stupid at 13. That is what 13 is ignorant, you don't know anything. In case you all forgot peer pressure is tough stuff.

robiscoole: At 13 I knew not to take pills the doctor didn't give me. If you didn't, that's you.

at the age of 13 i knew what a TIC TAC tasted and looked like! come on "a funny tasting tic tac"? B.S. those kids KNEW what they were taking and WANTED to take it. to blame the school is the parents easy way out "we screwed up and forgot to teach our kids not to do drugs.... QUICK BLAME SOMEONE!!!" if the parents are not smart enough to teach their kids about drugs, that's their problem. they are probably the same parents who thought drug educatioin in schools leads to drug use and are now suprised by the results of their prefered "ignorance is bliss" line of thinking.

And what would that solve? Abso-@!$%#ing-lutely nothing.

Spartan. what is your suggestion then, to solve this issue? Kids at 13 now, are well aware of the drugs they take or have access too. They know that these pills make me sleepy, these pills make me energized. They are smarter than we give them credit for. I know a kid where I live who gave a classmate 8 + mucinex because 1 made him high, so 8 would be stellar, and landed them both in the hospital. There will be no way of fixing this and no one will be happy with anything. Parents blame the school and everyone else blames the parent mean while, the one that should be punished, isn't. What message is this sending other kids?

Well, the reasonable course of action for any school would be to have already had a policy in place of full body cavity searches of all students along with an MRI every morning followed by random cavity searches throughout the day. I mean, what kind of weirdos run a school w/o such a policy?

Or they could all just install those new airport full body scanners. That should do the trick. LOL MRI's don't show everything...I used to work in medical imaging. Airport scanners though - that's the way to go! LOL

Thought better of my comment, sorry.

jggator: Why blame the School? Because THEY have the money...

what schools are in your area? Our schools have NO money, my kids don't even get text books to study at home. I have to pay a fee for just about every class and they are in public school. just a thought, maybe if the students SOLD the pills, then when teachers confiscated their money, it could be used to improve the school and maybe start a drug awareness class.....

Ever wonder why Ron Paul never makes it into the top tier of candidates???

Might be because most Americans have a functional brain and can look up his record ;)

yyaaawwnnn

Ron Paul's more sensible than the other Republicans and arguably even better than Obama. And most Republicans clearly do not have a functional brain, otherwise the teabaggers wouldn't have gained any traction.

Brilliant idea but it would never be used, that would be almost as "bad" as re-introducing G-d in the schools. Oh the horrors!

exactly, monkey see people playing stupid and getting away with things, so it's only natural that monkey do that too. this kid probaly thinks she is in no trouble because it's the school OR the parents...not the 13 year old young lady thats directly responsible. Last I knew distribution of a drug was a crime and I do believe there is Juvenile detention. but then again, that makes too much sense.

The article said they were all 7th graders. My 7th grader just turned 13. It is possible their elementary school goes up to 8th grade.

If they did it to get out of class or a test, let's be grateful the teacher was vigilent enough to notice, and that it was the sleeping pills and not the "fainting game" that has taken the lives of several children.

To what end? They need to be educated and corrected.

My nephew while in high school had to pass through a metal detector to enter the school and his pockets and book bags were searched randomly. His schooling was not unlike prison.

I actually just had this discussion with my son. Your first response to any problem should NOT be a pill. Pills should be the LAST resort, when all else has failed. So simple, yet it seems these days - pills are the way to go. Can't fall asleep? Take a pill. Can't stay awake? Take a pill. Life too real for ya? Take a pill.
Unfortunately...still no pill to cure stupid. That one might actually be worth it. LOL

good post, but they ARE doing illegal drugs, if that medication is not prescribed to them, in their name, it is illegal for them to have possesion of and take. just FYI